Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/25

Rh the passengers were either burnt or disfigured for life. This determined me never again to deplore any disappointment too bitterly.

I saw more in France than Americans of the highest position see generally. I had made up my mind to confront every difficulty in sight-seeing, and I shall never regret having done so, for it has given me many a pleasant hour and thought since.

At the Countess M.'s I was very pleasantly situated, but found it necessary, in the service of a fashionable lady and her daughters, to understand hair-dressing; so I improved the hours occupied by M'lle M.'s music lessons by taking lessons in this art of one of the beet hair-dressers in Paris.

Lady M. and her family had determined to go to England, and I was to have gone with them, but their time of leaving was so indefinite, and I became so weary of my monotonous duties, that I concluded to quit my place and learn the art of flower-making. In this I succeeded pretty well, though I soon grew tired of it, and thought I should like dress-making; but, after a short trial, finding that did not suit me, I took a notion to learn cooking, but soon gave that also up. Nothing but hair-dressing pleased my fancy for any length of time. With amusements, alms-giving, and learning the fine arts I have mentioned, my money was at length exhausted; and learning that M'lle M. was ready to start for England, I made arrangements to go with her, and, bidding farewell to La Belle France, started across the channel.