Madame
Laure makes for the Empress.

"Ah! to be sure, my child, so she does," Sophonisba's mamma replies. "I
remember. Very quiet-looking kind of place, isn't it?" It is impossible
to say what description of "loud" place had dwelt in the mind of
Sophonisba's mamma as the locale where the Empress Eugenie's milliner
"_made_" for her Majesty. Perhaps she hoped to see two _cent gardes_
doing duty at the door of an or-molu paradise.

At every step the ladies find new excitement. By the quiet door of
Madame Laure is the renowned Neapolitan Ice Establishment, well known to
most ladies who have been in Paris. Why should there not be a Neapolitan
ice _cafe_ like this in London? Ices we have, and we have Granger's; but
here is ice in every variety, from the solid "bombe"--which we strongly
recommend ladies to bear in mind next time--to the appetizing _Ponch a
la Romaine_! Again, sitting here on summer evenings, the lounger will
perceive dapper _bonnes_, or men-servants, going in and out with little
shapely white paper parcels which they hold daintily by the end. Madame
has rung for an ice, and this little parcel, which you might blow away,
contains it. Now, why should not a lady be able to ring for an ice--and
an exquisitely-flavoured Neapolitan ice--on the shores of "perfidious
Albion?"

"I wish Papa were here," cries Sophonisba; "we should have ices."

Sophonisba's mamma merely remarks that they are very unwholesome things.

Hard by is Christofle's dazzling window, Christofle being the Elkington
of France.

"Tut! it quite blinds one!" says the mamma of Sophonisba. Christofle's
window is startling. It is heaped to the top with a mound of plated
spoons and forks. They glitter in the light so fiercely that the eye
cannot bear to rest upon them. Impossible to pass M. Christofle without
paying a moment's attention to him. And now we pass the asphaltum of the
boulevard of boulevards--that known as "the Italiens." This is the apple
of the eye of Paris.

"Now, my dears," says Sophonisba's mamma, "now we can really say that we
are in Paris." The shops claimed the ladies' attention one by one. They
passed with disdain the _cafes_ radiant with mirror and gold, where the
selfish men were drinking absinthe and playing at dominoes. It had
always been the creed of Sophonisba's mamma that men were selfish
creatures, and she had come to Paris only to see that she was right.
They passed on to Potel's.

Potel's window is a sight that i