"Yes; and there was another, my dear," said Mrs. Cockayne, "'To the fine Englishwoman,' or something of that sort."
"Oh, those two or three shops, mamma," said Sophonisba, "dedicated A la belle Anglaise! Just think what people would say, walking along Oxford Street, if they were to see over a hosier's shop, written in big, flaring letters, 'To the beautiful Frenchwoman!"
Mr. Cockayne laughed. Mrs. Cockayne saw nothing to laugh at. She maintained that it was a fair way of putting the case.
Mr. Cockayne said that he was not laughing at his wife, but at some much more ridiculous signs which had come under his notice.
"What do you say," he asked, "to a linen-draper's called the 'Siege of Corinth?' or the 'Great Condé?' or the 'Good Devil'?"
"What on earth has La Belle Jardinière got to do with cheap trowsers, Mr. Cockayne?" his wife interrupted. "You forget your daughters are in the room."
"Well, my dear, the Moses of Paris call their establishment the Belle Jardinière."
"That's not half so absurd, papa dear," Sophonisba observed, "as another cheap tailor's I have seen under the sign of the 'Docks de la Violette.'"
"I don't know, my dear; I thought when my friend Rhodes came back from Paris, and told me he had worn a pair of the Belle Jardinières——"
"Mr. Cockayne!" screamed his wife.