She had charming toilettes prepared for me, which I was enchanted to wear.

Thus I was early introduced to the gay world of Paris, and learned its lessons of folly and vanity by heart.

I can remember myself dressed like a fantastic doll, flitting from one room to another, listening to the conversation of the ladies and admiring their costumes.

Every summer I came home for a time, but I found home dull after Paris, and I was rather in awe of my mother's grave face and quiet ways.

She always parted with me against her will--I knew that--but it was my father's wish that I should have a Parisian education.
I was just seventeen, on the point of leaving school, bewitched by vanity and arrogance and the delights of the world, when the dreadful news came--you know--about my father, his ruin and disgrace.