fantastic form, the quaint and daring designs for shop fronts, the infinite arts employed to “set off” goods, and the surprising, never-ceasing varieties of art-manufacture—­whether in chocolate or the popular Algerian onyx—­bewilder strangers.  Does successful Mr. Brown, who, having doffed the apron of trade, considers it due to himself to become—­so far as money can operate the strange transformation—­a fine fleur; does he desire also to make of plain, homely Mrs. Brown a leader of fashion and a model of expensive elegance?—­here are all the appliances and means in abundance.  Within these enchanted lines Madame B. may be made “beautiful for ever!” Every appetite, every variety of whim, the cravings of the gourmet and the dreams of the sybarite, may be gratified to the utmost.  A spendthrift might spend a handsome patrimony within these limits, nor, at the end of his time, would he call to mind a taste he had not been able to gratify.

Sophonisba enters this charmed region of perfect shopping from the west.  Tahan’s bronze shop, at the corner of the Rue de la Paix, marks (or did mark) its western boundary.  There are costly trifles in that window—­as, book cutters worth a library of books, and cigar-stands, ash-trays, pen-trays, toothpick-holders (our neighbours are great in these), and match, and glove, and lace, and jewel-boxes—­of wicked price.  Ladies are not, however, very fond of bronze, as a rule.  The great Maison de Blanc—­or White House—­opposite, is more attractive, with its gigantic architectural front, and its acres of the most expensive linens, cambrics, &c.  Ay, but close by Tahan is Boissier.  Not to know Boissier is to argue yourself unknown in Paris.  He is the shining light of the confectioner’s art.  Siraudin, of the Rue de la Paix, has set up a dangerous opposition to him, under the patronage of a great duke, whose duchess was one day treated like an ordinary mortal in Boissier’s establishment, but Boissier’s clients (nobody has customers in Paris) are, in the main, true to him; and his sweets pass the lips still of nearly all the elegantes of the “centre of civilization.”  Peep into his shop.  Miss Sophonisba is within—­la belle insulaire!—­buying a bag of marrons glaces, for which Boissier is renowned throughout civilization.  The shop is a miracle of taste.  The white and gold are worthy of Marie Antoinette’s bedroom at St. Cloud—­occupied, by the way, by our English queen, when she was the guest of the French Emperor in 1855.  The front of the shop is ornamented with rich and rare caskets.  A white kitten lies upon a rosy satin cushion; lift the kitten, and you shall find that her bed is a bon-bon box!

“How very absurd!” exclaims Sophonisba’s mamma, bon-bon boxes not being the particular direction which the extravagance of English ladies takes.

Close by the succulent establishment of M. Boissier, to whom every dentist should lift his hat, is the doorway of Madame Laure.  Sophonisba sees a man in livery opening the door of what appears to be the entrance to some quiet learned institution.  She touches her mamma upon the arm, and bids her pause.  They had reached the threshold of a temple.  Madame Laure makes for the Empress.