ire_ seized upon
a blue-bloused porter, and gave me to him with the check, the _carte_,
and a few sharply-spoken directions. Clinging to that blue sleeve, I was
borne through the swaying, surging mass of humanity, into the
baggage-room--how, I never knew. Our trunks were identified, lifted, not
thrown, by my porter upon a hand-truck, which dragged for itself and us
an opening in the crowd. Once out upon the platform, the porter pushed
doggedly on into the darkness, though I had left Mrs. K. and the
carriage in the square at one side. I expostulated. He held persistently
to his course. I gave one thought to poor Mrs. K., resigned to what fate
I knew not, and then, woman-like, followed my trunks.

It was all explained, when, dimly outlined in the darkness before the
station, we espied a sea of shiny hats and shadowy cabs; and when, after
long shouting of the number of our own, by the porter and everybody
else, it finally crawled up to the steps where we were standing, Mrs.
K.'s anxious face looking out of the window.

"I began to think you were lost," she said. "You can fancy my feelings
when the driver gathered up the reins and drove out of that square."

We made a thank-offering upon the palm of every grimy hand, suddenly
outstretched; then the driver paused, whip in the air, for the address
of our destination.

"_Magasin au Printemps_, Boulevard Haussman." He stared, as everybody
had, and did, along the way. If they only wouldn't! We repeated it. He
conferred, in a low tone, with the man on the next box, who got down
from his place, and came around to our window to look at us. One or two
lounging porters joined him. The _Magasin au Printemps_ is a large dry
and fancy goods establishment, which had been closed, of course, for
hours, since it was now nearly midnight. It was as though we had reached
New York late at night, and insisted upon being driven to _Stewart's_.
The little crowd stared at us solemnly, in a kind of pitiful curiosity,
I fancied. I think, by this time, our countenances may have expressed
incipient idiocy. We attempted to explain that Miss H.'s apartments were
over the _Magasin_, and the driver mounted to his seat, though, I am
obliged to confess, with an ominous shake of his head.

As we rolled out into the wide boulevards our spirits rose. The
sidewalks were crowded with promenaders, the streets with carriages. The
light of a glorious day seemed to have burst upon our dazzled eyes.
Paris, gay, b