for breakfast when they are having
grape-fruit at home? And then their vile aspic jellies and potted
meats for luncheon, which look like sausage congealed in cold gravy,
and which taste like gum arabic."

"Let's move," said my sister. "Not into another hotel--that wouldn't
be much better. But lot's take lodgings. I've heard that they were
lovely. Then we can order what we like. Besides, it will be very much
cheaper."

"I didn't come over here to economize," I said.

"Well, I wouldn't say a word if we were getting anything for our
money, but we are not. Besides, when you get to Paris you will wish
you hadn't been so extravagant here."

"Are the Paris shops more fascinating than those in Regent Street?" I
asked.

"Much more."

"More alluring, than Bond Street?"

"More so than any in the world," she affirmed, with the religious
fervor which always characterizes her tone when she speaks of Paris.
The very leather of her purse fairly squeaks with ecstasy when she
thinks of Paris.

"Heavens!" I murmured, with awe, for whenever she won't go to Du
Maurier's grave with me, and when I won't do the crown jewels in the
Tower with her, we always compromise amiably on Bond Street, and come
home beaming with joy.

"We might go now just to look," I said. "I have the addresses of some
very good lodgings."

"We'll take a cab by the hour," said she, putting her hat on before
the mirror, and turning her head on one side to view her completed
handiwork.

"Now take off that watch and that belt and that chatelaine if you
don't want these harpies to think we are 'rich Americans' (how I have
come to hate that phrase over here!), because they will charge
accordingly."

She looked at me with genuine admiration.

"Do you know, dear, you are really clever at times?"

I colored with pleasure. It is so seldom that she finds anything
practical in me to praise.

"Now mind, we are just going to look," she cautioned, as we rang a
bell. "We must not do anything in a hurry."

We came out half an hour afterwards and got into the cab without
looking at each other.

"It was very unbusinesslike," said she, severely. "You never do
anything right."

"But it was so gloriously impudent of us," I urged. "First, we wanted
lodgings. This was a boarding-house. Second, we wanted two bed-rooms
and a drawing-room. They had only one drawing-room in the house; could
we have that? Yes, we could. So we took their whole first floor, and
made them p