Never did the moment give more in return: October - December 1876

Monday, October 2, 1876. School begins but not the classes, as not all the girls have come. Introduced to Soffie Maud Fythnan—very nice.
 
Tuesday, October 3, 1876. Shall not write any more regularly as school life is too stupid.
 
Friday, December 22, 1876. Mamie and I have left school to spend the holidays of two weeks with Mama. Heigh ho!   
 
Monday, December 25, 1876. CHRISTMAS!!! Mama gave me my watch which I will never willingly part with!!! What a jolly time of it! First Mama, Uncle Nat, Nattie Harris & I went to American chapel as was very right and proper. Then a little shopping. Then home where Alice Kinney was waiting to see us and spent day and night. We breakfasted very pleasantly at 12 with Aunt Lou, Charlie, Mama, Genl. Harris, Nat, Alice, Mamie, Henry, Edgar & I, & Monte. At night we dined at table d’hôtel and oh! such fun, such fun! We were all “tight,” by the way, though we swore never to tell and poor Alice, in one of her “boozy” fits threw herself on the sofa & sobbed, declaring she wanted to go home that very minute (she lives in Cincinnati, America) &c &c. Then, when we had all somewhat recovered, we had acting in Genl. Harris’s parlor. Alice slept that night with Nat & me and we kicked up every sort of roar (to be expressive). Next morning Alice left us, much to our chagrin. 

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I shall try to gather up in a few words one of the happiest times in my life. It is long afterwards now but those delicious days lie still, bright spots in my memory, so bright… It was the Christmas and New Year’s holiday for us and we spent it at the Splendide Hotel in Paris (dear Paris) with Aunt Lou, Charlie, Mary Behring, Genl. Harris, Nathalie Harris, Monte and ourselves five—I must not forget either Dr. Andrei who at that time and long since has been a true & devoted friend to us all. 

How shall I say we spent our days, which seemed to fly on wings of joy? Was it not one continual buying of presents, going to operas, walking the boulevards at night, sending Uncle Nat for “bonbons” &c &c? We triedto banish from our minds that all this was to end up with our mother’s going to Italy. We gave ourselves up to the moment and never did the moment give more in return. 

The Scanlans of St. Louis were in Paris—their 4 boys (very nice, innocent sort of fellows) whose names were Church (but the younger of which we called Chapel for distinction)—their boys came to see us, Nat & me—in their honor, we sang for them and accompanied ourselves on the piano—a few lines still run in my memory, something like “Young Snapps, he broke his straps, and flew right up to Heaven” &c. The boys were highly edified and were somewhat precipitate in their praises thereof—but we enjoyed it at all events. The boys were to start for school in Germany the next morning and after tender but decidedly lengthened adieux (they kept us standing a half hour on the stairs to say goodbye) they left us—to laugh very probably at their eccentric entertainment and to sigh at being obliged to put a long distance between themselves and two such charming young damsels. Dear Nattie Harris—she is (as she herself does not deny) as full of effervescence as a champagne bottle and equally difficult to be contained. I like to see fun going on around me, though often my propriety forbids participation, and I did feel compelled once or twice to reprove Nattie & my younger sister for sundry performances such as throwing chestnuts at the “cabbys” from the hotel windows, a divertissement [diversion] which seemed very much to delight their overflowing spirits.  

There was in the same hotel a young American masculine who sometimes condescended to honor us with his presence at the opera & on the boulevards after dark. He was a dear, dark, sentimental, soft, handsome, dreamy riché alors [rich then] boy who was not fond of hearing himself talk and whom I have known to sit a whole evening without opening his “blessed mouth,” with his great eyes staring into vacancy. However we made the most of him, Nat & I; he was all we had and I am even inclined to think there were a few tender passages between this romantic personage and my friend Nat. But “no tales out of school.” 

Why were we so happy, so unreservedly happy? Did we forget we were on foreign shores amongst strangers and that across the Atlantic lay our home, in every sense of that sweet word—our home where so many joyful Christmases had been spent before? Yes. I am afraid, for the short space of that winter holiday, we did forget—much—and Paris wore a bright, familiar aspect for us. And its people, its throngs of pleasure seekers, touched a chord of sympathy in our hearts and their interests were our interests—and thoughts of our country entered only in our prayers. 

Only for the moment however—such things do not last and we were waked up rudely from our brief December dream. Some dear one’s departure for Italy numbed all pleasures for a while and left us alone and lonely. [In an entry dated 9 February 1877, Mamie’s diary, of which you will hear more in the next chapter, suggests that Genl. Harris is a love interest of their mother. “I am so lonely, “ Mamie tell us. “Mama is in Italy, and I just feel like crying, and that gentleman who is in the party likes Mama pretty much I think. My goodness, I hope she won’t marry him. I don’t want a new Papa, we get on very well just the way we are.”] At the Opera to hear William Tell—Genl. Harris, Natalie, Frank Sunderland, Alice Kinney & I. “Bonbons!” [Stitched to the page, a bonbon fork engraved “Café Glacier Napolitain.”]