She argued with her mother upon the
relative merits of the Louvre and the Bon Marché, but her mother's part of
the discussion was mostly confined to the observation, "Why, Susie!" The snuffy old gentlemen had left the room in a body, outwardly polite and
inwardly raging. They could not endure the Americans, who filled the room
with their chatter. The big-headed young man looked after them with a knowing cough,
murmuring, "Gay old birds!" "They look like bad old men, Mr. Bladen," said the girl. To this Mr. Bladen smiled and said, "They've had their day," in a tone
which implied that he was now having his. "And that's why they all have baggy eyes," cried the girl. "I think it's a
shame for young gentlemen--"

"Why, Susie!" said the mother, and the conversation lagged. After a while Mr. Bladen threw down the _Petit Journal_, which he daily
studied at the expense of the house, and turning to Hastings, started to
make himself agreeable. He began by saying, "I see you are American." To this brilliant and original opening, Hastings, deadly homesick, replied
gratefully, and the conversation was judiciously nourished by observations
from Miss Susie Byng distinctly addressed to Mr. Bladen. In the course of
events Miss Susie, forgetting to address herself exclusively to Mr.
Bladen, and Hastings replying to her general question, the _entente
cordiale_ was established, and Susie and her mother extended a
protectorate over what was clearly neutral territory. "Mr. Hastings, you must not desert the pension every evening as Mr. Bladen
does. Paris is an awful place for young gentlemen, and Mr. Bladen is a
horrid cynic." Mr. Bladen looked gratified. Hastings answered, "I shall be at the studio all day, and I imagine I
shall be glad enough to come back at night." Mr. Bladen, who, at a salary of fifteen dollars a week, acted as agent for
the Pewly Manufacturing Company of Troy, N.Y., smiled a sceptical smile
and withdrew to keep an appointment with a customer on the Boulevard
Magenta. Hastings walked into the garden with Mrs. Byng and Susie, and, at their
invitation, sat down in the shade before the iron gate. The chestnut trees still bore their fragrant spikes of pink and white, and
the bees hummed among the roses, trellised on the white-walled house. A faint freshness was in the air. The watering carts moved up and down the
street, and a clear stream bubbled over the spotless gutters of the rue de
la Grande Chaumière. The sparrows were merry along the curb-stones, taking
bath after bath in the water and ruffling their feathers with delight. In
a walled garden across the street a pair of blackbirds whistled among the
almond trees. Hastings swallowed the lump in his throat, for the song of the birds and
the ripple of water in a Paris gutter brought back to him the sunny
meadows of Millbrook. "That's a blackbird," observed Miss Byng; "see him there on the bush with
pink blossoms. He's all black except his bill, and that looks as if it had
been dipped in an omelet, as some Frenchman says--"

"Why, Susie!" said Mrs. Byng. "That garden belongs to a studio inhabited by two Americans," continued
the girl serenely, "and I often see them pass. They seem to need a great
many models, mostly young and feminine--"

"Why, Susie!" "Perhaps they prefer painting that kind, but I don't see why they should
invite five, with three more young gentlemen, and all get into two cabs
and drive away singing. This street," she continued, "is dull. There is
nothing to see except the garden and a glimpse of the Boulevard
Montparnasse through the rue de la Grande Chaumière. No one ever passes
except a policeman. There is a convent on the corner." "I thought it was a Jesuit College," began Hastings, but was at once
overwhelmed with a Baedecker description of the place, ending with, "On
one side stand the palatial hotels of Jean Paul Laurens and Guillaume
Bouguereau, and opposite, in the little Passage Stanislas, Carolus Duran
paints the masterpieces which charm the world." The blackbird burst into a ripple of golden throaty notes, and from some
distant green spot in the city an unknown wild-bird answered with a frenzy
of liquid trills until the sparrows paused in their ablutions to look up
with restless chirps. Then a butterfly came and sat on a cluster of heliotrope and waved his
crimson-banded wings in the hot sunshine. Hastings knew him for a friend,
and before his eyes there came a vision of tall mulleins and scented
milkweed alive with painted wings, a vision of a white house and
woodbine-covered piazza,--a glimpse of a man reading and a woman leaning
over the pansy bed,--and his heart was full. He was startled a moment
later by Miss Byng. "I believe you are homesick!" Hastings blushed. Miss Byng looked at him
with a sympathetic sigh and continued: "Whenever I felt homesick at first
I used to go with mamma and walk in the Luxembourg Gardens. I don't know
why it is, but those old-fashioned gardens seemed to bring me nearer home
than anything in this artificial city." "But they are full of marble statues," said Mrs. Byng mildly; "I don't see
the resemblance myself." "Where is the Luxembourg?" inquired Hastings after a silence. "Come with me to the gate," said Miss Byng. He rose and followed her, and
she pointed out the rue Vavin at the foot of the street. "You pass by the convent to the right," she smiled; and Hastings went. III

The Luxembourg was a blaze of flowers. He walked slowly through the long
avenues of trees, past mossy marbles and old-time columns, and threading
the grove by the bronze lion, came upon the tree-crowned terrace above the
fountain. Below lay the basin shining in the sunlight. Flowering almonds
encircled the terrace, and, in a greater spiral, groves of chestnuts wound
in and out and down among the moist thickets by the western palace wing. At one end of the avenue of trees the Observatory rose, its white domes
piled up like an eastern mosque; at the other end stood the heavy palace,
with every window-pane ablaze in the fierce sun of June. Around the fountain, children and white-capped nurses armed with bamboo
poles were pushing toy boats, whose sails hung limp in the sunshine. A
dark policeman, wearing red epaulettes and a dress sword, watched them for
a while and then went away to remonstrate with a young man who had
unchained his dog. The dog was pleasantly occupied in rubbing grass and
dirt into his back while his legs waved into the air. The policeman pointed at the dog. He was speechless with indignation. "Well, Captain," smiled the young fellow. "Well, Monsieur Student," growled the policeman. "What do you come and complain to me for?" "If you don't chain him I'll take him," shouted the policeman. "What's that to me, mon capitaine?" "Wha--t! Isn't that bull-dog yours?" "If it was, don't you suppose I'd chain him?" The officer glared for a moment in silence, then deciding that as he was a
student he was wicked, grabbed at the dog, who promptly dodged.