France,_ an
evening paper, "you know that splendid shop we passed to-day, under the
colonnades by the Louvre Hotel, where there was that deep blue _moire_
you said you should so much like if you could afford it. Well, look
here, there is a '_Grande Occasion_' there!" and the enraptured girl
pointed to letters at least two inches high, printed across the sheet of
the newspaper. "Look! a 'Grande Occasion!'"

"And pray what's that, Sophy?" Mrs. Cockayne asked. "What grand
occasion, I should like to know."

"Dear me, mamma," Theodosia murmured, "it means an excellent
opportunity."

"My dear," Mrs. Cockayne retorted severely to her child, "I didn't have
the advantage of lessons in French, at I don't know how many guineas a
quarter; nor, I believe, did your father; nor did we have occasion to
teach ourselves, like Miss Sharp."

"Well, look here, mamma," Miss Sophonisba said, her eyes sparkling and
her fingers trembling as they ran down line after line of the
advertisement that covered the whole back sheet of the newspaper. "You
never saw such bargains. The prices are positively ridiculous. There are
silks, and laces, and muslins, and grenadines, and alpacas, and shawls,
and cloaks, and plain _sultanes_, and I don't know what, all at such
absurdly low prices that I think there must be some mistake about it."

"Tut," Mr. Cockayne said; "one of those 'awful sacrifices' and bankrupt
stock sales, like those we see in London, and the bills of which are
thrown into the letter-box day after day."

"You are quite mistaken, papa dear, indeed you are," Theodosia said; "we
have asked the person in the _Bureau_ down stairs, and she has told us
that these '_Grandes Occasions_' take place twice regularly every year,
and that people wait for them to make good bargains for their summer
things and for their winter things."

The lady in the _Bureau_ was right. The prudent housewives of Paris take
advantage of these "_Grandes Occasions_" to make their summer and winter
purchases for the family. In the spring-time, when the great violet
trade of Paris brightens the corners of the streets, immense
advertisements appear in all the daily and weekly papers of Paris,
headed by gigantic letters that the fleetest runner may read, announcing
extraordinary exhibitions, great exhibitions, and unprecedented spring
shows. "Poor Jacques" offers 3000 cashmere shawls at twenty-seven francs
each, 2000 silk dresses at twenty-nine francs, and 1000 at thir