"Girls, leave the room!"
"What a pity, my dear," the incorrigible Mr. Cockayne continued, in spite of the unappeasable anger of Mrs. Cockayne—"what a pity the Magasins de Louvre were not established at the time of the celebrated emigration of the ten thousand virgins; you see there would have been just one apiece."
CHAPTER VI.
A "GRANDE OCCASION."
"Well, these Paris tradespeople are the most extraordinary persons in the world," cried Sophonisba's mamma, and the absolute ruler of Mr. Cockayne. "I confess I can't make them out. They beat me. My dear, they are the most independent set I ever came across. They don't seem to care whether you buy or you don't; and they ask double what they intend to take."
"What is the matter now, my dear?" Mr. Cockayne ventured, in an unguarded moment, to ask, putting aside for a moment Mr. Bayle St. John's scholarly book on the Louvre.
"At any rate, Mr. Cockayne, we do humbly venture to hope that you will be able to spare us an hour this morning to accompany us to the Magasins du Louvre. We would not ask you, but we have been told the crowd is so great that ladies alone would be torn to pieces."
"I forget how many thousands a day, papa dear," Sophonisba mercifully interposed, "but a good many, visit these wonderful shops. I confess I never saw anything like even the outside of them. The inside must be lovely."
"I have no doubt they are, my dear," Mr. Cockayne observed. "They were built about ten years ago. The foundations were——"