"You all live here this way, but what
does it lead to?" she was pleased to ask. "It doesn't seem to lead
to anything, and I should think you'd get very tired of it."
Mrs. Touchett thought the question worthy of Henrietta Stackpole.
The two ladies had found Henrietta in Paris, and Isabel constantly saw
her; so that Mrs. Touchett had some reason for saying to herself
that if her niece were not clever enough to originate almost anything,
she might be suspected of having borrowed that style of remark from
her journalistic friend. The first occasion on which Isabel had spoken
was that of a visit paid by the two ladies to Mrs. Luce, an old friend
of Mrs. Touchett's and the only person in Paris she now went to see.
Mrs. Luce had been living in Paris since the days of Louis Philippe;
she used to say jocosely that she was one of the generation of 1830- a
joke of which the point was not always taken. When it failed Mrs. Luce
used to explain- "Oh yes, I'm one of the romantics"; her French had
never become quite perfect. She was always at home on Sunday
afternoons and surrounded by sympathetic compatriots, usually the
same. In fact she was at home at all times, and reproduced with
wondrous truth in her well-cushioned little corner of the brilliant
city, the domestic tone of her native Baltimore.
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