“I know it,” said Patty, rather apologetically; “but I can’t help it, Elise.  I seem to be made that way.  When I like anything, you know, I enjoy it just as much as I possibly can, and that’s all I can do, anyway.”

The room which the two girls were to share was a large double-bedded apartment, with dressing rooms and bath adjoining.  It was perfect in every detail of comfort and luxury as well as beauty, but when Lisette came in to assist the girls in dressing for dinner she found them both hanging out of the front windows gazing at the Vendome Column.

However, they expressed themselves as quite ready to prepare for dinner, and after doning pretty light costumes, they joined Mr. and Mrs. Farrington, and went down to the dining-room.

The dining-room proper of the hotel was an indoor apartment, but all through the summer the guests were accustomed to dine under the open sky, at small tables in the garden.

Owing to an unusually late season, it was still warm enough to dine outside, and when Patty saw the scene in the garden she thought Paris was fairyland indeed.  Though called a garden, it was really a stone-paved court, but all round its edge on two sides were large old trees with gnarled and twisted trunks and thick foliage of glossy green.  Under the trees were flower-beds full of blossoming plants, and in the branches of the trees themselves were hung vari-coloured globes of electric lights about the size of an orange.  The effect of these brilliant spheres in the dark trees was as beautiful as it was unusual, and the scene was further made bright by arches and festoons of brilliant coloured lights, which crossed and twined above their heads in every direction.  At the end of the garden was an immense fountain surrounded by statues, and playing many jets of water, which flashed and sparkled in the light.

Around two sides of the garden ran the verandas of the hotel, and the diners could sit on these verandas or out in the open, as they preferred.

The gay scene was completed by the throngs of people; the French women in their dainty costumes, the French men with their correct garb and demeanour, as well as a good sprinkling of strangers from other countries.

So interested was Patty in looking at it all that she declared she didn’t want a thing to eat.  But when the choice selections of French cookery were placed before her, she changed her mind and did full justice to the repast.

After dinner they sat for a short time in the drawing-room, and then Mr. Farrington declared they must all go to rest, as he had planned a busy day for them on the morrow.

CHAPTER X

SIGHTSEEING

They rose next morning to find a perfect autumn day awaiting them.  To Patty’s surprise, dainty breakfast trays were brought to their bedsides.

“It is the custom of the country,” Elise explained; “nobody ever goes downstairs to breakfast in Paris.”