ravings 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.