“I didn’t quite catch, mamma; these people talk so fast.”

“They seem to me,” Mrs. Cockayne continued, “to jumble all their words one into another.”

“That is because——­” Mr. Cockayne was about to explain.

“Now, pray, Mr. Cockayne, do leave your Mutual Improvement Society behind, and give us a little relief while we are away.  I say the people jumble one word into another in the most ridiculous manner, and I suppose I have ears, and Sophy has ears, and we are not quite lunatics because we have not been staring our eyes out all the morning at things we don’t understand.”

Here Carrie, lifting her eyes from her book, said to her father—­

“Papa dear, you remember that first Sculpture Hall, where the colossal figures were; that was the Salle des Caryatides, and those gigantic figures you admired so much were by Jean Goujon.  Just think!  It was in this hall that Henry IV. celebrated his wedding with Marguerite de Valois.  Yes, and in this very room Moliere used to act before the Court.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Cockayne interjected, pointing to Carrie’s hands, “and in that very room, I suppose, Miss Caroline Cockayne appeared with her fingers out of her glove.”

“And where have you been all day, my dear?” Mr. Cockayne said, in his blandest manner, to his wife.

“We poor benighted creatures,” responded Mrs. Cockayne, “have been—­pray don’t laugh.  Mr. Cockayne—­looking at the shops, and very much amused we have been, I can assure you, and we are going to look at them to-morrow, and the day after, and the day after that.”

“With all my heart, my dear,” said Mr. Cockayne, who was determined to remain in the very best of tempers.  “I hope you have been amused, that is all.”

[Illustration:  PALAIS DU LOUVRE.]

[Illustration:  THE ROAD TO THE BOIS]

“We have had a delightful day,” said Sophonisba.

“I am sure we have been into twenty shops,” said Theodosia.

“And I am sure,” Mrs. Cockayne continued, “it is quite refreshing, after the boorish manners of your London shopkeepers, to be waited upon by these polite Frenchmen.  They behave like noblemen.”

“Mamma has had fifty compliments paid to her in the course of the day, I am certain,” said Sophonisba.

“I am very glad to hear it,” said Sophonisba’s papa.

“Glad to hear it, and surprised also, I suppose, Mr. Cockayne!  In London twenty compliments have to last a lady her lifetime.”

“I don’t know how it is,” Theodosia observed, “but the tradespeople here have a way of doing things that is enchanting.  We went into an imition jeweller’s in the Rue Vivienne—­and such imitations!  I’ll defy Mrs. Sandhurst—­and you know how ill-natured she is—­to tell some earrings and brooches we saw from real gold and jewels.  Well, what do you think was the sign of the shop, which was arranged more like a drawing-room than a tradesman’s place of business; why, it was called L’Ombre du Vrai (the Shadow of Truth).  Isn’t it quite poetical?”