“Buy the shop,” Mr. Cockayne angrily observed.

Perhaps Mr. Cockayne would be pleased to inform his lawful wife and the unfortunate children who were subjected by fate to his cruel tyranny—­perhaps he would inform them when it would be convenient for him to take them home.  His insults were more than his wife could bear.

“What’s the matter now?” asked the despairing Cockayne, rubbing his hat with his coat-sleeve.

“Mamma dear, papa is coming with us,” Sophonisba expostulated.

“Well, I suppose he is.  It has not quite come to that yet, my dear.  I am prepared for anything, I believe; but your father will, I trust, not make us the laughing-stock of the hotel.”

“I am ready,” said Cockayne, grimly, between his teeth.

“I am obliged, you see, children, to speak,” icily responded the lady he had sworn to love and cherish.  “Hints are thrown away.  I must suffer the indignity for your sakes, of saying to your father, I shall want some money for the purchases your mother wants to make for you.  It is not the least use going to this Grande Occasion, or whatever they call it, empty-handed.”

“Will you allow me time to get change?” And Mr. Cockayne headed the procession through the hotel court-yard to the Boulevards.

“Walk with your father,” the outraged lady said to Sophonisba.  “It’s positively disgraceful, straggling out in this way.  But I might have known what it was likely to be before I left home.”

Mr. Cockayne, as was his wont, speedily re-assumed his equanimity, and chatted pleasantly with Sophonisba as they walked along the Rue de la Paix, across the Place Vendome, into the Rue Castiglione.  Mrs. Cockayne followed with Theodosia; Carrie had begged to be left behind, to write a long letter to her intellectual friend, Miss Sharp.

Mr. Cockayne stopped before the door of Mr. John Arthur.

“What on earth can your father want here?” said Mrs. Cockayne, pausing at the door, while her husband had an interview with Mr. John Arthur within.

Theodosia, peering through the window, answered, “He is getting change, mamma dear.”

“At last!”

Mr. Cockayne issued radiant from Mr. John Arthur’s establishment.

“There,” said he to his wife, in his heartiest voice; “there, my dear, buy what you and the girls want.”

“I will do the best I can with it.  Perhaps we can manage our shopping without troubling you.”

“It’s not the least trouble in the world,” gaily said Cockayne, putting that bright face of his on matters.

“I thought you had some idea of going to the Museum of Artillery this afternoon, to see whether or not you approved of the French guns.”

Mr. Cockayne laughed at the sarcasm, and again gave Sophonisba his arm, and went under the colonnades of the Rue de Rivoli, wondering, by the way, why people stared at him in his plaid suit, and at his daughter in her brown hat and blue veil.  Mrs. Cockayne wondered likewise.  The French were the rudest people on the face of the earth, and not the politest, as they had the impudence to assert.