[CHAPTER X.]
"AVENUE GÉRARD, No. 9."
"One foot up and the other foot down,
For that is the way to London town.
And just the same, over dale and hill,
'Tis also the way to wherever you will."
Old Rhyme.
It was a very cold day, colder than is usual in Paris in November, where the winter, though intense while it lasts, seldom sets in before the New Year. But though cold, there had been sufficient brightness and sunshine, though of a pale and feeble kind, to encourage the Mammas of Paris either to take out their darlings themselves or to entrust them to the nurses and maids, and nursery governesses of all nations who, on every fairly fine day, may be seen with their little charges walking up and down what Roger called "the pretty wide street," which had so taken his fancy the day of the expedition with Monsieur Adolphe.
Among all the little groups walking up and down pretty steadily, for it was too cold for loitering, or whipping tops, or skipping-ropes, as in finer weather, two small figures hurrying along hand-in-hand, caught the attention of several people. Had they been distinctly of the humbler classes nobody would have noticed them much, for even in this aristocratic part of the town one sometimes sees quite poor children threading their way among or standing to admire the little richly-dressed pets who, after all, are but children like themselves. And sometimes a burst of innocent laughter, or bright smiles of pleasure, will spread from the rich to the poor, at the sight of Henri's top having triumphed over Xavier's, or at the solemn dignity of the walking doll of five-year-old Yvonne.
But these two little people were evidently not of the lower classes. Not only were they warmly and neatly dressed—though that, indeed, would hardly have settled the question, as it is but very seldom in Paris that one sees the children of even quite humble parents ill or insufficiently clad—but even though their coats and hats were plain and unfashionable, there was about them a decided look of refinement and good-breeding. And yet they were alone!
"Who can they be?" said one lady to another. "Just see how half-frightened and yet determined the little girl looks."
"And how the boy clings to her. They are English, I suppose—English people are so eccentric, and let their children do all sorts of things we would never dream of."
"Not the English of the upper classes," replied the first lady, with a slight shade of annoyance. "You forget I am half English myself by my mother's side, so I should know. You take your ideas of the English from anything but the upper classes. I am always impressing that on my friends. How would you like if the English judged us by the French they see in Leicester Square, or by the dressmakers and ladies' maids who go over and call themselves governesses?"
"I wouldn't like it, but I daresay it is often done, nevertheless," said the other lady good-naturedly. "But very likely those children do not belong to the upper classes."