ock of the hotel."

"I am ready," said Cockayne, grimly, between his teeth.

"I am obliged, you see, children, to speak," icily responded the lady he
had sworn to love and cherish. "Hints are thrown away. I must suffer the
indignity for your sakes, of saying to your father, I shall want some
money for the purchases your mother wants to make for you. It is not the
least use going to this Grande Occasion, or whatever they call it,
empty-handed."

"Will you allow me time to get change?" And Mr. Cockayne headed the
procession through the hotel court-yard to the Boulevards.

"Walk with your father," the outraged lady said to Sophonisba. "It's
positively disgraceful, straggling out in this way. But I might have
known what it was likely to be before I left home."

Mr. Cockayne, as was his wont, speedily re-assumed his equanimity, and
chatted pleasantly with Sophonisba as they walked along the Rue de la
Paix, across the Place Vendome, into the Rue Castiglione. Mrs. Cockayne
followed with Theodosia; Carrie had begged to be left behind, to write a
long letter to her intellectual friend, Miss Sharp.

Mr. Cockayne stopped before the door of Mr. John Arthur.

"What on earth can your father want here?" said Mrs. Cockayne, pausing
at the door, while her husband had an interview with Mr. John Arthur
within.

Theodosia, peering through the window, answered, "He is getting change,
mamma dear."

"At last!"

Mr. Cockayne issued radiant from Mr. John Arthur's establishment.

"There," said he to his wife, in his heartiest voice; "there, my dear,
buy what you and the girls want."

"I will do the best I can with it. Perhaps we can manage our shopping
without troubling you."

"It's not the least trouble in the world," gaily said Cockayne, putting
that bright face of his on matters.

"I thought you had some idea of going to the Museum of Artillery this
afternoon, to see whether or not you approved of the French guns."

Mr. Cockayne laughed at the sarcasm, and again gave Sophonisba his arm,
and went under the colonnades of the Rue de Rivoli, wondering, by the
way, why people stared at him in his plaid suit, and at his daughter in
her brown hat and blue veil. Mrs. Cockayne wondered likewise. The French
were the rudest people on the face of the earth, and not the politest,
as they had the impudence to assert.

When the party reached the colonnades of the Grand Hotel du Louvre, they
found themselves in the midst of a busy scene.