LETTER XLIX
LONDON.
MY DEAR:--
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
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 "folks at home."
You ought to have seen our rooms at night, the last evening we spent
in Paris. When the whole gleanings of a continental tour were brought
forth for packing, and compared with the dimensions of original
trunks--ah, what an hour was that! Who should reconcile these
incongruous elements--bronzes, bonnets, ribbons and flowers, plaster
casts, books, muslins and laces--elements as irreconcilable as fate
and freedom; who should harmonize them? And I so tired!
"Ah," said Jladame B., "it is all quite easy; you must have a packer."
"A packer?"
"Yes. He will come, look at your things, provide whatever may be
necessary, and pack them all.
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