Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/23

Rh promenades, with my little responsibility by my side. She was very beautiful, and attracted the attention of every one, as her little lips first began to lisp the foreign tongue; and her mother, whom she greatly resembled, was the most admired American lady in Paris at that time.

I acquired the French language with a good deal of facility, and was not long learning to understand remarks made of myself and the child, as we passed along. I can not forbear mentioning a pleasant compliment paid to me, on my birth-day, by some very kind ladies. By a little stratagem, I was sent away by my lady, in the morning, upon an errand to General Cass' residence, quite a distance from home; so that I had necessarily to be gone an hour or two. On my return, I found my bedroom, which was always shared by my little charge, literally decorated, from floor to ceiling, with flowers. The bed and window curtains were looped up, and festooned with roses, carnations, peonies, jessamines, and every flower that adorned the gardens at that lovely season: white lilies hung in garlands over the bed curtains of my little charge; and in the center of the room stood a table, covered with cakes, wines, ices, and fruits. Not dreaming of the pleasant intentions of my friends in sending me away, I thought, on returning, that I must have mistaken my apartment, and so wandered in and out, puzzled as to the meaning of the transmogrification, until informed that it had been done in honor of my birth-day—a time-long and beautiful custom of France. It will be readily imagined that I was made happy and grateful by these kind attentions. The ladies wished a happy birth-day to Iangy; and many