e
matter. "How could we _possibly_ get lost here?"

"Very easily," replied aunty calmly. "There is nothing, to people
unaccustomed to it, so utterly bewildering as a crowd."

"Not to me," persisted Ralph. "I could thread my way in and out of the
people till I found you. The _girls_ might get lost, perhaps."

"Thank you," said Molly; "as it happens, Master Ralph, I think it would
be much harder to lose us than you. For one thing we can speak French
ever such a great deal better than you."

"And then there are two of us. If one of us was lost, grandmother and
aunty could hold out the other one as a pattern, and say, 'I want a match
for this,'" said Sylvia laughing, and a little eager to prevent the
impending skirmish between Ralph and Molly.

"Hush, children, you really mustn't chatter so," said aunty. "Use your
eyes, and let your tongues, poor things, rest for a little."

They got on very happily. Aunty managed to show the children the special
picture or pictures each had most wanted to see--including the "beautiful
blue and orange" one of Molly's recollection. She nearly screamed with
delight when she saw "how like it was to the one in papa's study," but
took in good part Ralph's cynical observation that a thing that was
copied from another was generally supposed to be "like" the original.

Only Sylvia was a little disappointed when, after looking at the pictures
in one of the smaller rooms--a room in no way peculiar or remarkable as
differing from the others--they suddenly discovered that they were in the
famous "Salle Henri II.," where Henry the Fourth was killed!

"I didn't think it would be like this," said Sylvia lugubriously. "Why do
they call it 'Salle Henri II.?' It should be called after Henry the
Fourth; and I don't think it should have pictures in, and be just like a
common room."

"What would you have it? Hung round with black and tapers burning?" said
her aunt.

"I don't know--any way I thought it would have had old tapestry," said
Sylvia. "I should like it to have been kept just the way it was then."

"Poor Sylvia!" said grandmother. "But we must hurry on, children. We have
not seen the 'Petite Galerie' yet--dear me, how many years it is since I
was in it!--and some of the most beautiful pictures are there."

They passed on--grandmother leaning on aunty's arm--the three children
close behind, through a room called the "Salle des Sept Cheminees," along
a vestibule filled with cases of jewellery