“Well, I’ll tell you what I will do, Elise.  The first time we go shopping we’ll get a big album exactly like this, and then we’ll always get duplicate post-cards,—­we have so far, anyway,—­and I’ll fix both the books.”

“Oh, Patty, that will be lovely! you do it so neatly and daintily; and I always tear the corners and smudge the cards and every old thing.  I wish we could go and buy the book this very afternoon.”

“We can’t; your mother won’t go; she’s too tired, and she’d never let us bob about Paris alone.  And your father hates to shop, so he wouldn’t take us.”

“I know it, Patty, but perhaps mother would let us go with Lisette.  Anyhow, I’m going to ask her.”

“Why, yes,” said Mrs. Farrington, when the project was laid before her; “I see no reason why you shouldn’t go out and do a little shopping in charge of Lisette.  She is a native French girl herself, she knows Paris thoroughly, and she’s most reliable and trustworthy.  But you must promise to do only what she allows you to do, and go only where she advises.  In this expedition she must direct, not you.”

The girls willingly promised, saying that they only wanted to buy the album and a few little things.

“Very well, then,” said Mrs. Farrington; “you may go out for the afternoon.  I’m glad to have you out in the sunshine, and you’ll also enjoy looking at the pretty things in the shops.”

So the girls arrayed themselves in their quiet pretty street costumes, and with Lisette in her tidy black gown, they started out.

They walked at first along the Rue de Rivoli, fascinated with the lovely trinkets in the shop windows.  Unlike Mr. Farrington, Lisette did not care how long her young charges tarried, nor was she averse to looking at the pretty things herself.

“It’s a funny thing,” said Elise, as they came out of a shop, “that the things in a window are always so much prettier than the things inside the shop.”

“That’s Paris all over,” said Patty; “I think the French not only put the best foot forward, but the foot they hold back is usually not very presentable.”

“Yes, I believe that’s true; and they always seem to make the best of everything, and that’s why they’re so happy and light-hearted.  But here we are at a stationer’s.  Let’s buy the album here.”

The stationer’s proved to be a most distracting place.  They bought the album, and then they discovered a counter piled with post-cards, in which they were soon deeply absorbed.

“But you mustn’t get so many, Elise,” cried Patty, as she looked at the great pile Elise had laid aside to buy.  “It’s no fun at all to get them all at once and fill the book.  Then it’s all over.  The fun is in collecting them slowly, a few at a time.”

“But I want all these, Patty, so why not take them now?”

“No, you don’t, either.  Now look here, Elise, I’m making your book for you, so you take my advice in this matter, and you’ll afterward admit that I’m right.”