Happily Sophia had made elaborate preparations for the Gothic texts, and was not inclined to waste so much trouble.
"I have got my colours all ready," she said, "and have put everything out, you see. No, I don't think I'll go to-day. But another time, if you'll be so kind as to let me know beforehand, I shall be pleased to go with my brother. I suppose you know there's an east wind to-day, by-the-bye."
The quarter whence the wind came, was a subject about which Clarissa had never concerned herself. The sun was shining, and the sky was blue.
"We have plenty of wraps," she said, "and we can have the carriage closed if we are cold."
"It is not a day upon which I should take an infant out," Miss Granger murmured, dipping her brush in some Prussian-blue; "but of course you know best."
"O, we shall take care of baby, depend upon it. Good-bye, Sophy."
And Clarissa departed, anxious to avoid farther remonstrance on the part of her step-daughter. She told the coachman to drive to the Luxembourg Gardens, intending to leave the nurse and baby to promenade that favourite resort, while she made her way on foot to the Rue du Chevalier Bayard. She remembered that George Fairfax had described her brother's lodging as near the Luxembourg.
They drove through the gay Parisian streets, past the pillar in the Place Vendôme, and along the Rue de la Paix, all shining with jewellers' ware, and the Rue de Rivoli, where the chestnut-trees in the gardens of the Tuileries were shedding their last leaves upon the pavement, past the airy tower of St. Jacques, and across the bridge into that unknown world on the other side of the Seine. The nurse, who had seen very little of that quarter of the town, wondered what obscure region she was traversing, and wondered still more when they alighted at the somewhat shabby-looking gardens.
"These are the Luxembourg Gardens," said Clarissa. "As you have been to the
Tuileries every day, I thought it would be a change for you to come here."
"Thank you, ma'am," replied Mrs. Brobson, the chief nurse; "but I don't think as these gardings is anyways equal to the Tooleries—nor to Regent's Park even. When I were in Paris with Lady Fitz-Lubin we took the children to the Tooleries or the Bore de Boulong every day—but, law me! the Bore de Boulong were a poor place in those days to what it is now."