sses of English
travellers, who make their appearance in Paris during the excursion
season, persist in regarding the capital of France, or, as the Parisian
has it, "the centre of civilization," as a Margate without the sea. I
wonder what was floating in the head of Mr. Cockayne, when he bought a
flat cloth grey cap, and ordered a plaid sporting-suit from his
tailor's, and in this disguise proceeded to "do" Paris. In London Mr.
Cockayne was in the habit of dressing like any other respectable elderly
gentleman. He was going to the capital of a great nation, where people's
thoughts are not unfrequently given to the cares of the _toilette;_
where, in short, gentlemen are every bit as severe in their dress as
they are in Pall Mall, or in a banking-house in Lombard Street. Now Mr.
Cockayne would as soon have thought of wearing that plaid
shooting-suit and that grey flat cap down Cheapside or Cornhill, as he
would have attempted to play at leap-frog in the underwriters' room at
Lloyd's. He had a notion, however, that he had done the "correct thing"
for foreign parts, and that he had made himself look as much a traveller
as Livingstone or Burton. Some strange dreams in the matter of dress had
possessed the mind of Mrs. Cockayne, and her daughters also. They were
in varieties of drab coloured dresses and cloaks; and the mother and the
three daughters, deeming bonnets, we suppose, to be eccentric head-gears
in Paris, wore dark brown hats all of one pattern, all ornamented with
voluminous blue veils, and all ready to Dantan's hand. The young ladies
had, moreover, velvet strings, that hung down from under their hats
behind, almost to their heels. It was thus arrayed that the party took
up their quarters at the Grand Hotel, and opened their Continental
experiences. I have already accompanied Mrs. Cockayne, Sophonisba, and
Theodosia, on their first stroll along the Boulevards, and peeped into
a few shops with them. Mr. Cockayne was in the noble courtyard of the
Hotel, waiting to receive them on their return, with Carrie sitting
close by him, intently reading a voluminous catalogue of the Louvre, on
which, according to Mrs. Cockayne, her liege lord had "wasted five
francs." Mr. Cockayne was all smiles. Mrs. Cockayne and her two elder
daughters were exhausted, and threw themselves into seats, and vowed
that Paris was the most tiring place on the face of the earth.

[Illustration: BEAUTY & THE B----. _Normally a severe Excursionist_.]