, leading again to one of the
great staircases. Something in the vestibule attracted grandmother's
attention, and she stopped for a moment. Sylvia, not interested in what
the others were looking at, turned round and retraced her steps a few
paces by the way they had entered the hall. A thought had struck her.

"I'd like just to run back for a moment to Henry the Fourth's Room," she
said to herself. "I want to notice the shape of it exactly, and how many
windows there are, and then I think I can fancy to myself how it looked
_then_, with the tapestry and all the old-fashioned furniture."

No sooner thought than done. In a moment she was back in the room which
had so curiously fascinated her, taking accurate note of its features.

"I shall remember it now," she said to herself, after gazing round her
for a minute or two. "Now I must run after grandmother and the others, or
they'll be thinking I am lost."

She turned with a little laugh at the idea, and hastened out of the room,
through the few groups of people standing or moving about, looking at the
pictures--hastened out, expecting in another moment to see the familiar
figures. The room into which she made her way was also filled with
pictures, as had been the one through which she had entered the "Salle
Henri II." She crossed it without misgiving: she had no idea that she had
left the Salle Henri II. by the opposite door from that by which she had
entered it!

Poor little Sylvia, she did not know that grandmother's warning was
actually to be fulfilled. She was "lost in the Louvre!"

CHAPTER III.

"_WHERE_ IS SYLVIA?"

"What called me back?
A voice of happy childhood,

"Yet might I not bewail the vision gone,
My heart so leapt to that dear loving tone."

Mrs. HEMANS, "An Hour of Romance."

She did not find out her mistake. She passed through the room and entered
the vestibule into which it led, quite confident that she would meet the
others in an instant. There were several groups standing about this
vestibule as there had been in the other, but none composed of the
figures she was looking for.

"They must have passed on," said Sylvia to herself; "I wish they hadn't;
perhaps they never noticed I wasn't beside them."

Then for the first time a slight feeling of anxiety seized her. She
hurried quickly across the ante-room where she was standing, to find
herself in another "salle," which was quite unlike any of the others