Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/200

202 many things, not only to the hair-dressers, but to others, which would be a great deal better unsaid. When these things come to be talked about they forget saying them to any one but the hair-dresser. Even at parties, ladies will be envious of one another, and will talk about each other, and pick one another to pieces; then they pack all they can on the hair-dresser's shoulders. Truly, the hair-dresser has a good deal to contend with.

I will now tell you how parties are conducted in France and England. Though I was not an invited guest, I had innumerable opportunities of observing how they were conducted. The whole eighteen months I spent in Paris I never heard of a young gentleman taking a young lady to a ball or party, they are chaperoned by mothers, aunts, governesses or some other female relative.

On entering the house there is a little side room where the ladies hand their wrappings to a servant, who takes them in charge; there are not two or three rooms thrown open as is the case here. The English and Parisienne ladies are expected to dress at home. On entering the room, after finding their way to the hostess and passing the compliments of the evening, they endeavor to make themselves agreeable to the company in general. They well know that a lady would ask none but ladies and gentlemen to her house, and consequently the company, feeling perfectly at ease with each other, dance, laugh, talk and make themselves generally agreeable, and when supper is announced, they go in small parties at a time, and not as our ladies and gentlemen generally do, rush en masse. European ladies go to parties more for the