The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-08-15

prices, which every American woman knows are lower because of the ex-
 change than New York though she
 testities earnestly to the contrary in
 public).
 .Well!" And my little friend tossed
 her sleek high-nrcd head like d restive
 mare. Anyhow, we don't trail widows weeds about with our lips painted and
 our eyelids dropping. And, say what
 you will about the way Europe has
 suffered From the war. women here in
 Paris certainly don't look as if they
 were suffering now and I guess every
 body admits that this is the gayest,
 happiest place in the world this very
 minute. I've only seen two wounded
 so d.ers since we landed in France, and they bullied us at the customs"
 The child paused for breath. Pres
 cntly we left the tearoom, paying 20
 francs for our refreshment and leav-
 ing francs in stamps ithe common small change of the country) on -the
 table for the inscrutable waitress. Nobody asked us in Paris to sub scribe to hospital funds, nobody begged for war charities as they do in England and there wasn't flag day all the time we were there, but everything we did was costly and it so turned out that the things American want to do most of all, and can't live without, the costliest ever. A bath costs l the equivalent of s1 and little pot of cold cream as big a S your thumb costs 1 s4; tea in the Bois leaves nothing but a car fare or so from a hundred franc note, itself a mere whiff of gauge paper, colored like a rainbow.
 Swept and garnished, g1ittering under her radiant blue skies. Paris shows to ! tho igt ipc httt a1o gance and wealth. There no ugly beg gars offend the careless rich. no wom
 en with grief-seamed cheeks are seen abroad. It is only in the condescending attitude of their equals and the openly
 hostile greed of the shopkeepers that
 Americans catch the spirit my little
 friend was so quick to resent. Why is it?'-I in my turn asked an | old French woman whose three father 1 less grandchildren have been perma- . nently adopted by three American schoolgirls in a western town. | Tt is because we learned, during the
 war, to idealize American women; they
 grew to be the very personification of | charity and gentleness to us When ! they came way across the sea to nurse ! cr~ soldiers and care for our suffering | children we believed they were diff ferent from other women. better and notler. Now, since peace, we here in Fats have had to hide all our ugliness l and sorrows in order to attract rich Americans to spend their money here, and when the rich Americans came we | found they were mostly women, wom | ell who love luxury and their own com fort and will pay exorbitant prices for | 1t, women who want to be amused and will not tolerate the sight of poverty ! or the sound of grief.
 | And later, here in London, began to realize that the old French apple woman was right One day I met my little | friend at the American Club in London. She was as lovely as ever and exquisitely dressed.
 q suppose you are going out with the party to our hospital this afternoonT' I asked.
 "No, indeed, I'm not certainly didn' t come to London to run around hospitals. I had plenty of that at home. Why, I spent two days a week working for the Red Cross all the time we were in the