I am seated in a snug little room at M. Belloc's. The weather is overpoweringly hot, but these Parisian houses seem to have seized and imprisoned coolness.
French household ways are delightful.
I like their seclusion from the street by these deep-paned quadrangles.
Madame Belloc was the translator of Maria Edgeworth, by that lady's desire; corresponded with her for years, and still has many of her letters.
Her translation of β Uncle Tomβ has to me all the merit and all the interest of an original composition.
In perusing it, I enjoy the pleasure of reading the story with scarce any consciousness of its ever having been mine.
The next letter is from London en route for America, to which passage had been engaged on the Collins steamer Arctic. In it Mrs. Stowe writes:--
London, August 28.
Our last letters from home changed all our plans.
We concluded to hurry away by the next steamer, if at that late hour we could get a passage.
We were all in a bustle.
The last shoppings for aunts, cousins, and little folks were to be done by us all. The Palais Royal was to be rummaged; bronzes, vases, statuettes, bonbons, playthings,--all that the endless fertility of France could show,--was to be looked over for the β folks at home.β
How we sped across the Channel C. relates.
We are spending a few very pleasant days with our kind friends the L.'s, in London.
