would
suit my complexion."

"I confess to a more modern taste, Sophonisba. That is just the sort of
thing your father would like. Now, do look at those--sphinxes, don't
you call them--for a brooch. I think they're hideous. Did you ever see
such ears? I own, that diamond dew-drop lying in an enamel rose leaf,
which I saw, I think, in the Rue de la Paix, is more to my taste."

And so the ladies stroll westward to the famous Giroux (where you can
buy, an it please you, toys at forty guineas each--babies that cry, and
call "mamma," and automata to whom the advancement of science and art
has given all the obnoxious faculties of an unruly child), or east to
the boulevards, which are known the wide world over, at least by name,
the Boulevards de la Madeleine, des Capucines, des Italiens, Montmartre.
These make up the heart and soul of Paris. Within the limits of these
gorgeous lines of shops and _cafes_ luxury has concentrated all her
blandishments and wiles. This is the earthly heaven of the Parisians.
Here all the celebrities air themselves. Here are the Opera stars, the
lights of literature, the chiefs of art, the dandies of the Jockey Club,
the prominent spendthrifts and eccentrics of the day. About four
o'clock in the afternoon all the known Paris figures are lounging upon
the asphaltum within this charmed space. Within this limit--where the
Frenchman deploys all his seductive, and vain, and frivolous airs; where
he wears his best clothes and his best manners; where he loves to be
seen, and observed, and saluted--the tradesmen of the capital have
installed establishments the costliness and elaborateness of which it is
hardly possible to exaggerate. The gilding and the mirrors, the marbles
and the bronze, the myriad lamps of every fantastic form, the quaint and
daring designs for shop fronts, the infinite arts employed to
"set off" goods, and the surprising, never-ceasing varieties of
art-manufacture--whether in chocolate or the popular Algerian
onyx--bewilder strangers. Does successful Mr. Brown, who, having doffed
the apron of trade, considers it due to himself to become--so far as
money can operate the strange transformation--a _fine fleur_; does he
desire also to make of plain, homely Mrs. Brown a leader of fashion and
a model of expensive elegance?--here are all the appliances and means in
abundance. Within these enchanted lines Madame B. may be made "beautiful
for ever!" Every appetite, every variety of whim, the c