en back again to the
quays on the Rive Gauche by the Pont Neuf, to wend their way westward;
now on one side to look at the print and picture shops and the
magasins of bric-a-brac, and haply sometimes buy thereof, now on the
other to finger and cheapen the second-hand books for sale on the
parapet, and even pick one or two utterly unwanted bargains, never to
be read or opened again.

When they reached the Pont des Arts they would cross it, stopping in
the middle to look up the river towards the old Cite and Notre Dame,
eastward, and dream unutterable things and try to utter them. Then
turning westward, they would gaze at the glowing sky and all it glowed
upon--the corner of the Tuileries and the Louvre, the many bridges,
the Chamber of Deputies, the golden river narrowing its perspective
and broadening its bed, as it went flowing and winding on its way
between Passy and Grenelle to St. Cloud, to Rouen, to the Havre, to
England perhaps--where _they_ didn't want to be just then; and they
would try and express themselves to the effect that life was
uncommonly well worth living in that particular city at that
particular time of the day and year and century, at that particular
epoch of their own mortal and uncertain lives.

Then, still arm-in-arm and chatting gayly, across the court-yard of
the Louvre, through gilded gates well guarded by reckless imperial
Zouaves, up the arcaded Rue de Rivoli as far as the Rue Castiglione,
where they would stare with greedy eyes at the window of the great
corner pastry-cook, and marvel at the beautiful assortment of bonbons,
pralines, dragees, marrons glaces--saccharine, crystalline substances
of all kinds and colors, as charming to look at as an illumination;
precious stones, delicately frosted sweets, pearls and diamonds so
arranged as to melt in the mouth; especially, at this particular time
of the year, the monstrous Easter eggs of enchanting hue, enshrined
like costly jewels in caskets of satin and gold; and the Laird, who
was well read in his English classics and liked to show it, would
opine that "they managed these things better in France."

Then across the street by a great gate into the Allee des Feuillants,
and up to the Place de la Concorde--to gaze, but quite without base
envy, at the smart people coming back from the Bois de Boulogne. For
even in Paris "carriage people" have a way of looking bored, of taking
their pleasure sadly, of having nothing to say to each other, as
t