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She found one that was just to her liking.
(Mary Jane in France)        (Frontispiece)

CONTENTS

Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.

MARY JANE

IN FRANCE

Mary Jane’s last evening in London was a whirl of fun and preparations. The Merrills had taken the tea train down from Oxford and the excellent English tea that they enjoyed while speeding southward refreshed them so that when they arrived at the Euston Station in London they were not at all tired. That was lucky, for there was still much to enjoy on this busy day.

The readers who have followed Mary Jane’s journey with her sister Alice and her father and mother, will remember that the Merrill family had been traveling in Scotland and that after a fine time in that beautiful country, they came to London by way of the lake region. There they stopped several times visiting sights and enjoying the charming country. Their last stop was at Bowness on Lake Windermere where they stayed at the interesting Riggs Crown Hotel and had such good times with their new friends, the Wilson family.

The morning of this very day when our book begins, the Merrills had said good-by to Margery, Joan and Dick Wilson and set out for Chester, Oxford and London. If you think that it isn’t possible to visit two places in one day and arrive at the third in time for dinner, you simply don’t know the Merrills and England. They did all of that and enjoyed every minute. They saw the famous “Rows” at Chester, walked on the old wall, explored the Cathedral and then took the train for Oxford. There they drove in and out and round about the old university town; they walked thru gardens and cloisters, and had an excellent luncheon at a small inn near the university. Then they took the tea train for London much wiser than when they set out in the morning and eager to discuss plans for going to France the next day.

“What’s your favorite thing to do in London?” asked Alice, as they drove from the station to the Victoria Hotel.

Mary Jane thought carefully. There were so many favorite things that a person couldn’t say just off hand, which was the real favorite. Riding on the buses, walking along the Mall, watching the sights at Trafalgar Square, strolling along the busy Strand, doing the shops—oh, dear, so many good times in London went racing thru her mind that she couldn’t decide for thinking about them. “What’s yours?” she asked her sister.

“I think I like best to walk down Whitehall and see the Parliament Buildings and the river and bridges,” said Alice. “I like to shop, but it’s closing time now and anyway, Westminster Abbey and the Parliament Buildings seem to me the most London-ish of anything we can do.”

“Then I choose to walk along the Mall and see Buckingham Palace,” decided Mary Jane, “and if you’ll walk with me, I’ll walk with you and between us we’ll see it all.”

“If anyone asks me,” remarked Mr. Merrill——

“I was just going to,” interrupted Alice, eagerly.

“I know what I’ll choose,” laughed Mr. Merrill, teasingly. “I shall choose to stop at the travel bureau office and get our mail.”

“How shall we ever do all that!” exclaimed Mary Jane, for it didn’t seem possible to do that, too.

“And if anyone asks me,” said her mother, adding to the list, “I shall go straight to the hotel and wash stockings and gloves, for I don’t intend to arrive in France with any left-over chores, so there!”

The girls stared at each other in a second’s dismay. Then Alice suddenly remarked, “None of that takes long and if we plan, we can do it all. I’ll help wash the stockings while Daddah gets the mail and then we can all go for a walk together.”

“And what shall I do?” asked Mary Jane.

“You unpack our night things, because you unpack so well,” suggested Mrs. Merrill; “only don’t unpack a single thing we don’t really have to have, because we don’t want to be packing them up again in the morning.”

At that minute their taxi turned into Northumberland Avenue and in a jiffy they found themselves being handed out by the very lordly doorman at the Victoria Hotel. A few minutes later they were in their rooms, feeling very much at home to be back and very experienced as compared to when they first arrived, a few weeks before. It was fortunate that they planned just what to do, for, without plans, Mary Jane might have been tempted to stay at the windows. She loved leaning out on the broad sill, so big and broad that a person didn’t have to even think about falling out but could look and look at the interesting sights one could glimpse on the square. As it was, she took one quick look and then set to her unpacking, while Alice slipped off her traveling dress and drew the warm water and Mrs. Merrill rang for a bath and ordered their trunk sent up. It had been kept there in storage while they were traveling in Scotland.

In half an hour, the gloves and stockings were hanging, clean as could be, on the tiny line Alice carried in her luggage. The workers had had quick and refreshing tubs and the trunk was set up in the larger room, opened and its contents found to be in perfect condition.

“Well, that’s what I call quick work,” approved Mr. Merrill as he entered with a handful of mail. “And it looks to me as tho we were going to have time to do whatever you like the rest of the evening. Are you hungry yet?”

“Well, not quite,” said Mary Jane, hesitatingly.

“Could you walk first?” he asked.

“Oh, of course we can,” said Alice. “Why, Mary Jane, you had tea enough to last till eight o’clock!”

Mary Jane grinned. That tea on the train had been good and it’s true there wasn’t much of it left over when she finished.

“Then let’s go now and walk,” suggested Mr. Merrill. “We can walk down Whitehall to Westminster; back and through Downing Street and to Buckingham Palace and then, if it’s getting late, we can pick up a cab on the Mall and ride to Simpson’s and take our time for dinner. While if we eat first, we must hurry in order to do our walking by daylight.”

It was agreed that the walking first was a fine plan, so there was a scramble into street frocks while Mr. Merrill made himself tidy and off they started. The walk was one long time of “Do you remember this?” and “Didn’t we have fun there?” and the girls felt as tho they were seeing very familiar scenes. That’s the fun of seeing again some place where you have already been. Compared with the new scenes, anything one has seen before seems like an old friend, almost like home. The evening was perfect for walking, not too hot nor too cold and the July sunshine lingered till they were well along on the Mall, leaving Buckingham Palace behind them.

Suddenly Mr. Merrill noticed that Mary Jane was falling behind and that she looked more tired than he liked to see, so he quickly hailed a passing taxi and a few minutes later they were at Simpson’s ordering their dinner.

But really, a little girl who has seen two towns in one day and has taken her favorite walk in London on top of all that, is too tired to remember much about the evening. So, altho of course she knew her father put her into a cab to go to the hotel; and tho she knew she must have undressed to get into bed, she really didn’t remember anything about it and she slept so soundly that she didn’t even dream about going to France as she had fully intended to do.

Next morning Mrs. Merrill was up bright and early as there was much to be done. The heavy clothing used in Scotland was packed in the trunk and light summer things, such as they would need for France, were put in the hand bags. Letters were sent off to home folk and everything was put in ship-shape order for the journey. So that when the girls were called at eight there was just enough left to do to be exciting and comfortable.

At ten, the man from the travel bureau arrived to escort them to Victoria Station. The boat train didn’t leave till eleven, but luggage must be registered thru to Paris, and various governmental regulations attended to, so it was best to have plenty of time.

While the grownups looked after baggage and tickets, Alice and Mary Jane kept the smaller pieces of hand luggage and amused themselves by watching the busy whirl about them. Among the many people coming and going, they saw several whom they had seen on shipboard or during their travels in England and Scotland, and it almost seemed that they were old friends (even tho a person didn’t even know their names) so pleasant was the sight of a familiar face in the confusion of hundreds of strangers. But there wasn’t anyone the girls really knew, so they guarded the bags (a rather unnecessary job, in a way, for thieving didn’t appear to be popular in England) and watched the crowds.

Baggage was carried about on curious trucks and important looking men went here and there, directing passengers, stamping luggage and settling questions that seemed to arise all the time. Just as the girls were beginning to get tired watching, Mr. Merrill came for them and took them onto the boat train where Mrs. Merrill was already seated, and very soon the train pulled out for Dover.

“Will we go on a big boat?” asked Mary Jane, when the sights of London were long passed and she had a chance to think about where they were going.

“Oh, no,” her father assured her. “The channel boats are very small, I understand, but we won’t be on one long—only about an hour and a half, I think, so it will seem more like taking a little trip on Lake Michigan than going on an ocean.”

“Where is Dover, Daddah?” asked Alice. “We haven’t looked at a map for a whole day!”

As the time was short, Mr. Merrill got out his little pocket map and showed the girls just where they were at that minute—speeding southeast from London—and just where the port of Dover is located. Hardly had they finished looking at the map before the train pulled into Dover and there they were! They had expected rush and confusion, but instead everyone went about his or her business in a quiet and orderly fashion and very quickly they were up on deck, their luggage safe beside them. And in a very few minutes they were off.

But the crowds on board kept coming up and coming up from the lower deck, even tho the boat had started, till there were so many that there weren’t chairs enough to go around, and one didn’t dare leave to explore the boat lest one’s chair be taken. Mary Jane and Alice were disappointed at that for they loved to explore, but they needn’t have worried. People walked up and down and around the decks and more sights went right by the two girls than they could have seen walking around. For the most interesting part of a channel trip is not the boat, which is quite small and ordinary, but the people aboard. There were people from many countries, Italy, Spain, Germany, Norway, Africa and far-away India, mixed in with plenty of English and Americans, and as several of the Africans, a small group of Indians and two Japanese wore their native costume, the boat deck seemed like a stage with people in dressup clothes walking about.

Mr. Merrill bade the girls look back at England they were leaving and see the great white cliffs of chalk and both Mary Jane and Alice looked obediently, but they weren’t really much interested, for people, such a motley array of people, were much more fun to see than chalk cliffs.

“I wonder what it will be like in France compared with this boat,” said Alice after she had watched with interest the two dignified Japanese who were walking up and down the deck. “Pretty tame, I imagine, after all this,” she added for she had not the faintest idea what arriving in France would be like.

“I don’t wonder about France just now,” whispered Mary Jane with a sigh. “What I want to know is how we can see everything and not stare—and you know, Alice, staring really isn’t nice. They’re such story-booky looking people. Why, Alice, this is lots more fun—on account of the people—than the big ocean boat.”

“I’m going to put down in my notebook all the people I’ve seen,” said Alice, “because I might forget some.” She opened the small hand bag at her feet and took out her notebook and pen. But before she got a word down, her mother’s voice close by said, very softly, “better wait to write, dear. Look at the stairway, but don’t stare.”

Alice looked quickly and there, coming up the stairs, was a very regal looking lady, dressed in the clothes of a wealthy woman of India. Her robe was made of soft tones of tan and hung in long folds, wrapped around her very picturesquely. With her was a tall gentleman in similar long loose robes and two servants attended them. So much the girls saw at a glance. When they looked again they saw the most startling thing they had yet seen—in the side of the lady’s nose was a beautiful diamond that sparkled in the sunshine. Just as they were thinking how very queer the world is and what strange people are in it, the lady turned and spoke in beautiful English, as perfect as one could hope to hear and took the seat that her servant placed for her near by. In manner, she was natural and agreeable as she chatted and she seemed not at all as strange as her clothing and jewels.

For a few minutes the two girls said nothing, then Mary Jane remarked, “People wear funny things in funny places but I guess they’re nice after all.”

“Right you are,” agreed her father, much pleased to have her think so wisely about odd looking people, “and don’t think that just because dress or customs are different that people are so different at heart, for they are not.”

Mary Jane thought of that sentence many times in the next few weeks, for a strange language and different ways of living often made people appear queer at first sight. Yet, by looking closely, one could always discover that they were not so different after all.

She sat there on the channel boat for several minutes, looking hard and thinking; when suddenly Alice remarked, “Why, Mary Jane! England’s gone!”

Mary Jane looked and, true enough, the chalk cliffs of Dover had faded into the horizon and as far as she could see there was only water—clear, smooth water that sparkled in the hot, still sunshine.

“Are we way out in the ocean?” she asked, eagerly.

“Hardly,” replied her father. “Run over there and see,” he added pointing to the front end of the boat.

“But our chairs?” asked Alice.

“Chairs don’t matter now,” he told them and sure enough they didn’t for off to the south, as the girls saw when they ran to the front of the boat, was a long, low stretch of golden sand.

“Is it France?” asked Mary Jane.

“That’s France,” said her father, “and if you’ll look again, you’ll see that we are turning toward the landing this very minute.”

Mary Jane looked hard and as she looked, the boat swung around and she saw the wharf so near that she knew they would be landing in a few minutes. Then, quickly running back to her father, she picked up her little bag as she saw others doing and edged over to a place near the railing to watch the sights as the boat steamed up to the dock.

Slowly the boat swung around till the town of Calais lay on the right. It passed the lighthouses, the breakwater and the boats in the harbor and headed toward a dock where a long, low shed covered part of the boat train—only part of the engine stuck out from the shelter but it was smoking busily, eager to be gone.

On the wharf, as they drew nearer, was great confusion and much shouting. At first, the girls couldn’t make out what all the excitement was about, but before the boat was made fast they could understand the shouts from the dozens of blue coated men struggling for a place near the landing point.

“Por-teur!” they were saying. “Port-teur! Por-teur! Por-teur!”

“What does that mean, Daddah?” asked Mary Jane as she repeated it over to herself.

“It means they want to carry our bags,” said Mr. Merrill. “I think they are trying to engage the job before they come on board.”

“Yes, they are,” said Alice, pleased to be understanding. “See that man there? He is holding up the number on his coat for you to see. There, the Englishman has engaged him and see how pleased he is.”

“Let’s get one right away,” cried Mary Jane, eagerly, “before the best ones are taken.”

“It looks to me as though there were plenty to go around,” laughed Mr. Merrill, “but if you want it settled, we’ll do it. Which man shall we get?”

The girls leaned over the railing to look. The boat was now only a few feet from the dock and the gangplank was suspended ready to drop in a few seconds. They looked at the shouting mob of blue coated men and wondered if all those men could ever get aboard and do anything as useful as carrying baggage.

“Let’s get that one there,” suggested Alice pointing to an eager face some feet back from the front line. The man spied her and held up his number which by now they were close enough to see plainly.

“He’s forty-one,” said Mary Jane; “see Daddah, he’s pointing to you so you will surely see that he is engaged by us.” The man caught at the metal tag on his blue shirt—a tag about as big as a policeman’s star and as shiny, only round in shape, and held it till Mr. Merrill, noticing how other travelers did, held up his fingers—four and then one and nodded. This seemed to satisfy the porter for he stopped shouting. There was such a crowd on the boat that all porters, even though there were so many, seemed to be engaged and the minute the gangplank was down they swarmed aboard and hunted up their employers.

When number forty-one presented himself before the Merrills with a low bow, the girls thought he couldn’t possibly carry all their bags as he was small and slight. But they were not yet acquainted with the continental porters who are amazingly strong tho they look small and slender. With a grin of friendliness, he tucked one big bag under his arm, took two in one hand and the biggest one in the other and motioned them to follow him down the stairs. By this time the deck was swarming with porters, all jabbering away in lively French, and in the midst of this amazing confusion the Merrills were only too glad to follow a pair of shoulders that pushed and shoved and got them ashore in safety.

As they walked away from the boat, the porter turned to Mr. Merrill and asked a question which wasn’t understood. He tried again with another word but still Mr. Merrill didn’t understand, so he set down one bag, pointed with his free hand to an imaginary coat pocket and said, “tick—ette?”

“He wants to see your ticket, Daddah,” said Alice, delighted with the pantomime.

“He’s just like a red cap at home, I think,” said Mary Jane; “he wants to know where we are going to sit.”

Off they went toward the waiting train.

Mr. Merrill pulled out his tickets, and with one glance the porter motioned them to follow him again and off they went toward the waiting train.

It was rather different from the English boat train—longer cars and bigger looking, but it had the same general arrangement of a corridor on one side and compartments opening off. They found a nice compartment, as yet unoccupied and the porter settled their bags under the seat and in the rack overhead. Then Mr. Merrill paid him in French coins which he had been careful to get on the boat dock in Dover and he went off smiling and saying something that sounded like good wishes.

“He’s a good humored one,” laughed Mr. Merrill, much pleased to find himself settled so nicely while so many people were still racing hither and yon along the train shed. “I guess he likes carrying bags for girls.”

“Or maybe he likes your pocketbook,” added Alice, with the wisdom of an experienced traveler. “I think I’d care about money if I had to earn my living carrying bags—some are even heavier than ours.”

Just then two Englishmen were shown into the Merrills’ compartment and the six people with many, many bags so filled the room that the girls stood in the corridor till the grownups had stowed away luggage more comfortably. They were glad of the excuse to stand outside the compartment tho, for the corridor was on the boat side of the train and it was fun to see bewildered travelers dashing up and down the cars, hunting first class or second class cars. People looked so comical, running around, hurrying here and there and the girls felt very lofty and superior to be aboard and so at home before most of the passengers were settled.

Soon the hurry and bustle increased; officials walked up and down, passengers hurried still more and in an amazingly short time the train was off—pulling slowly away from the village and then getting up a speed that made the trains at home seem slow by comparison.

“We’re really in France! Can you believe it, Mary Jane?” asked Alice. “This is France we are riding thru!”

“And I’m just as hungry as tho we were at home,” said Mary Jane, suddenly feeling that breakfast at the Victoria had been hours and hours and hours ago and that she had nothing but a very empty feeling below her pretty traveling frock.

“I never thought to ask what we do about eating,” said Alice. “Maybe Daddah knows. Let’s ask.”

They turned back into the compartment, but Mr. Merrill, when questioned, confessed that he didn’t know. “But I’m not worrying,” he added. “I’m not the first hungry traveler that has landed in France and I have an idea that if I wait, something will be done about it.”

“Luncheon will be served in the restaurant car in the few minutes,” said one of the Englishmen, kindly. “And if the little ladies are hungry, perhaps you can get a first sitting.” The gentleman spoke in the casual way that shows much traveling, so Mary Jane was much comforted and encouraged, tho she couldn’t help hoping that they would hear about the restaurant car soon.

It was not long before a trainman came thru with tickets for luncheon and Mr. Merrill was able to get four sittings at the first serving which was then ready. The girls made haste to wash their hands and to follow him into the dining car.

“Now what shall we order?” wondered Mary Jane, as she sat down at the little table and looked about for a menu card. But it soon appeared that one didn’t order and that it did no good for her to make up her mind. The luncheon was served in full, all five courses, and one ate what there was or went hungry. There was soup, served from great bowls that were passed from table to table; then fish; and meat and potatoes; later a salad and then fruit, coffee and cheeses. All delicious and served in such a different fashion that Mary Jane was delighted with the novelty.

Between courses they looked out on the landscape they were dashing by, and glimpsed small farms, tree-lined roads and newly built villages but the speed of the train was so great that plates, if not watched, were apt to dance around too much for comfort. So in the main the girls tended to their eating and let the looking out the window go till later. The whole carful of diners, having been served at once, left all at once and before they were quite away the busy waiters were whisking on clean table linen and making ready for the second serving that was to follow immediately.

“I think that’s a very nice way to do,” said Mary Jane, thoughtfully, as they went back to their compartment, two cars away. “We had a taste of everything and we didn’t have to look across the isle and see that somebody had ordered something we didn’t think of getting and that looks so good we wish we had it.”

Mr. Merrill laughed. “And you liked the cheese,” he added, amused at her satisfaction and pleasure.

“Oh, wasn’t it good, Daddah!” exclaimed Mary Jane. “And now what do we do next?”

“We sit right here by the window and watch the country,” replied Alice, who, now that she was no longer hungry, was greatly interested in the scenes they were passing.

The two nice Englishmen left just as the Merrills returned to the compartment, as they had chosen to have their luncheon at the second sitting, so the girls sat by the windows, facing each other and Mr. Merrill pulled out his map and sat by Mary Jane.

“We’ve passed Boulogne,” he showed them, “and soon we’ll be coming to Amiens, so watch carefully.”

“Boulogne!” said Alice, “that’s the word that was on the station at the town we passed while we were in the diner. I couldn’t quite remember. But what I don’t see, Daddah, is why there are so many little tiny houses with tin roofs. Regular shacks, they are, not painted or fixed nicely at all.”

“There are some now!” cried Mary Jane, pointing out the window at the rows and rows of shacks coming into view even as Alice spoke. “I thought French houses were going to be so pretty.”

“As they are, my dear,” replied her father. “But in this part of the country the war did much damage. Look at the map and see how near Belgium we are even now. Whole cities and villages were ruined right along here. Those dismal rows of shacks are the temporary houses that were built at the end of the war to make a shelter for the people when they returned to find their homes destroyed. I hope before long all these can be taken down and that there will be comfortable, new houses replacing the beautiful, old ones that were destroyed.”

The train slowed up to pass thru the city of Amiens and the girls silently watched so as to see as much as possible of the city. At a distance they could see some towers and large buildings—some looking quite new, some old—but along near by were dozens and dozens of shacks—reminders of the destruction of the war.

“Why do they have war?” asked Mary Jane, much puzzled to make any sense of it.

“Because people haven’t yet learned to live together fairly,” said Mr. Merrill. “But they are learning. And some day, I hope by the time you are grown up, war will be known as the wicked thing it really is, not as brave and heroic as it has been thought to be. So look hard, girls, and see what it leaves behind. And when you are grown up, don’t forget what you see to-day.”

Alice and Mary Jane looked thoughtfully at the strange scenes from their windows but they were glad when the war country was finally passed and when the villages and farms no longer showed wreckage and temporary rebuilding; but was peaceful and beautiful as it naturally should be.

“And that wasn’t anything at all to what you’d have seen a few years ago,” said Mrs. Merrill as the war country was left behind. “After we get well acquainted with Paris, perhaps we can drive out through the war country east of here so you can see more of what it is like. But now we must look the other way. We’ll be coming to Paris soon.”

But the arrival wasn’t as soon as she had expected. The girls had time to stand in the corridors and watch the sights on one side of the train and to come back into the compartments and look out of those windows—changing several times before the train actually came to the environs of the great city.

“Is this really Paris?” Mary Jane asked, as the train slowed and they passed blocks of buildings.

“Look from the corridor windows,” suggested one of the Englishmen. “If you see the shining white dome of the Sacré-Cœur it is Paris.”

Mary Jane whispered the strange words over to herself as she hurried to the window. How ever would she know the “shining dome of the Sacré-Cœur,” when she saw it? She didn’t know. But the Englishman, tho kind, was so quiet and dignified that she thought she had better look first, and then ask if she couldn’t find it.

She held to the rail at the corridor window and looked across the roofs. High on a hill was a great white building topped with a dome that caught the afternoon sunlight and spread it into golden gleams. No use to ask whether she would know the shining dome when she saw it! There it was.

“I see it!” she cried, turning toward the doorway of her compartment. “I see it right over there! Look, Alice!”

Alice ran to look but barely had one glimpse, before the train turned and lost itself in the dark approach to the Nord Station. Porters ran along by their car, shouting for luggage; people ran hurrying thru the corridors—all was confusion, hurry and noise. Mary Jane shut her eyes a minute to remember the beautiful dome. But she opened them quickly again because she didn’t want to miss anything.

And as the Merrills gathered up their bags and maps, Mary Jane fairly danced in her eagerness to be out and see more. “There’s the travel man!” she called as she saw a familiar name on a cap. “He’s smiling at us. Let’s get off and find him.” So in the excitement of arrival, the familiar name gave a comfortable feeling—this was Paris and they were going to have a beautiful time.

Mary Jane had thought that by now she was a very experienced traveler. She had crossed the ocean and she had been in two countries, England and Scotland. No, three countries, for a person must not forget the short drive the Merrills had had thru Wales when they were doing the sights of Chester. But the station in Paris made her realize how little experience she had had after all, for she felt bewildered by the confusion and noise. At first she thought something dreadful must be happening. Then, as they followed the travel man and stood where he told them to stand while Mr. Merrill got their luggage thru the customs, she saw that nothing was happening except the arrival of travelers. The noise was partly from the excitable French people and partly due to the strangeness of hearing a new language. Words didn’t sound like words; they sounded like noise and it was some minutes before Mary Jane happened to think that other people understand what all that jabber was about.

“When I go back to school,” remarked she, after she had watched two little French girls talking together happily in what seemed to her a ridiculous noise, “I’m going to learn to speak French—and German, too, and lots more,” she added, recklessly.

“I thought I could understand a few words,” confessed Alice, who had privately been studying a phrase book in the hope of surprising her family. “But so far, I haven’t heard a word that sounds a bit like anything in the book.”

“I think you’ll do better with signs than with any French you could teach yourself, dear,” said Mrs. Merrill. “But it’s well to try. If you pay attention, maybe you can pick up a few words while we are here. That would be a start in studying it after you get home.”

Alice listened determinedly as various groups of French speaking people passed by, but there wasn’t much time for learning. In a few minutes Mr. Merrill returned and reported that their luggage was free and the taxi ordered.

“Come this way, ladies,” said the guide, in excellent English and Mary Jane and Alice followed thru the station to the carriage entrance. There they were tucked into a small, rather dingy taxicab that shot away at a breath taking speed the minute the door was shut.

The girls had planned to observe a lot on their way to the hotel. But they had not counted on the Paris taxicabs. Their driver dashed ahead, honking loudly thru heavy traffic, darting here and there when he could possibly get thru and stopping so suddenly when he couldn’t that the drive from the station was only a blur of buildings, cabs, streets, cars, noise and the most obvious thing Mary Jane got on the way was a very stiff neck from the sudden jerks.

With a grand flourish, the taxi stopped in front of the Louvre Hotel and people and bags were set out and the driver paid and off before Mary Jane quite knew what had happened to her. Mr. Merrill seated the girls by a great window that looked out on the street, while he made arrangements for rooms and Mrs. Merrill inquired for mail.

“Well, if that’s what is called a ride in a taxi,” said Alice as she settled herself in the great chair, “I, for one, am going to walk. It’s the only way to be sure of my neck.”

“But look! They all do that way!” exclaimed Mary Jane, pointing to the cabs darting by the hotel. “It wasn’t just our driver. They all do it.”

“The more reason for walking,” laughed Alice. “But maybe it isn’t as dangerous as it seems at first. Maybe we could get used to it.” (And, indeed, they did, surprisingly soon, and were as eager for taxi rides as in England.)

There wasn’t time for more than a glimpse down a long street, so absorbing were the taxicabs near by, before Mr. Merrill came for them and they went upstairs to their rooms. The elevators were called lifts, as in England, the girls discovered, and it was no surprise that the first floor was really the second on account of the word “ground floor” being used for our first as in England. So they got off at the “first floor” and followed the boy down a long, long corridor to the very end, then to the right where he showed them into a comfortable looking room, smaller than some they had had, but nicely furnished. Mary Jane looked around quickly and decided at once that she liked it. There were two beds, a great mantel with a mirror as high as the ceiling. There was a desk and dresser, some chairs, and two great windows heavily curtained with thick, rose colored drapes. While she was still looking around, the boy went to the windows and opened them like doors, showing a small, narrow balcony and then, stepping back near the door to the hall, he showed them the bathroom—a real luxury that they had hardly expected.

“But where do we sleep?” asked Mary Jane, looking at the beds that, while large for one, would be far too small for two.

“Right here, Miss,” said the boy, in excellent English, as he pushed aside some heavy rose curtains near the desk and unlocked a large door into an adjoining room that was a smaller edition of the main room only without the bathroom attached.

“Now did you ever see anything better?” cried Mary Jane, gleefully, as she peeped into the larger room to make sure the boy had gone. “Such grand windows! Curtains like in Windsor Castle! Mirrors like a picture book! Oh, but I’m glad I came to France.” And as she danced in and out of the two rooms, peeping out of the windows, poking into the great closets and primping before the mirror, so quickly that she seemed to be every place at once.

“So am I,” agreed Alice. “But I’ll be gladder when I’ve had a bath.”

“That’s an idea worth thinking of,” laughed Mrs. Merrill, as she quickly unpacked her smallest traveling bag and made herself at home. “I’m in favor of tubs and changes and then getting out for a walk. It’s after seven now and if we don’t look carefully to our ways, we’ll have a certain person not far from me saying that they are starving—long before we are ready to eat. And I for one would like to walk around the block before dinner.”

“The same to all of that for me,” said Mr. Merrill. “Moreover, the first person tubbed and dressed may sit in this big chair pulled up to the window. And believe me, there’s a lot going on to watch, but it’s no fair to look till you’re ready for dinner.”

Without even tempting themselves by a glance out of the window, the two girls went into their room, laid out clothes and brushes; then took quick tubs and in just twenty-two minutes were ready for dinner. The chair that Mr. Merrill had pulled to the big French windows for them was so big that Alice sat way back in it and Mary Jane middling back and both were very comfortable, and could see out nicely.

In front of them was a tiny balcony with an iron railing, prettily scrolled. Peering thru this they could see an open square below. It seemed almost a block wide and there was a great building on the opposite side. In the center of the square was a taxicab stand and it was very thrilling to watch the cabs come and go. One would come dashing along the street and then, with a quick turn that sent pedestrians scurrying right and left, it would dart into the part reserved for the waiting cabs. Then, after that rush and hurry, the driver would calmly slouch down in his seat and doze off in the laziest fashion as tho there was all the time in the world. The first few cabs they saw startled the girls and they thought surely there would be an accident. But they quickly got used to it and could laugh heartily, as did the bystanders around, at the scurrying pedestrians.

“I think they just drive that way for fun to amuse themselves,” said Mary Jane. “They’re not really in a hurry. Look at that man going to sleep already—and he was the rushingest one of all we have seen yet!”

“I wonder if they always make so much noise,” said Mrs. Merrill, as she came to look out over the girls’ heads. “Seems to me I never heard so much confusion in my life as right here on this square.”

“Maybe it’s because it is evening and they are finishing up for the day,” suggested Mr. Merrill. “Let’s go out and see if the noise seems as great when we are outside.”

They locked their doors and strolled downstairs and soon were around the corner walking on the street below their own windows. The cabs seemed just as dashing and hurried and the noise just as great—but there was so much to see that after the first minute of listening the girls paid no attention to anything but sights.

“That’s the Palais Royal over there,” Mr. Merrill explained, nodding backward over his left shoulder, “and this street we are coming to is the famous Rue de Rivoli. That is where there are shops, so likely we shall see more of it before we are thru. But let’s go on around our hotel now and see the Avenue de l’Opéra, that begins right at our front door.”

“How ever did you learn so much?” exclaimed Alice, admiringly.

“I looked at a map while you were exploring the rooms,” laughed her father, “but don’t ask me questions because I only know right around our hotel—so far.”

“Well, I want to know which is the Avenue de l’Opéra,” said Mary Jane, saying the words very carefully so as to be sure to get them right. “Is this it around the fountains?”

“Dear me, no!” laughed Mrs. Merrill, “they are just the beginning. The Avenue is the street right in front of you, child. See how wide and handsome it is? And not very long, either, only as long as from here to that great building down there—see? A few blocks away.”

With reckless disregard of passing cars and buses and the opinion of anyone who might look, the girls stood at the edge of the sidewalk and looked down the street past fountains and traffic and buildings to the great opera house some blocks away.

“Is that all the street is?” exclaimed Mary Jane.

“Only that,” said Mr. Merrill, “but it’s one of the famous streets of the world, so we’ll walk up and down, to say nothing of riding many times, till we know what it looks like with our eyes shut.”

“Well, I’ll like that,” Alice agreed. “But I’ll like, too, to sit on the sidewalk and eat like those people are over there,” she added, nodding her head across the street where rows of chairs were occupied by people eating at small round tables.

“Why, Alice Merrill! They are!” cried Mary Jane, excitedly, “Oh, Daddah, let’s!”

“Sometime, but not to-night,” her father promised. “Now we have seen quite enough for the minute, and I suggest we go into a quiet dining room and have the best French dinner some experienced waiter can order for us.”

That sounded even better than a jolly experiment like eating at a sidewalk table so, without regret, the girls followed their father indoors, thru the lobby and into a small dining room with great windows overlooking the Rue de Rivoli. Their waiter spoke excellent English and on his advice dishes for which that particular hotel was famous were selected. And by the time she had eaten delicious French fried potatoes and grilled chicken and salad with the dressing tossed over it at the table right before their eyes, Mary Jane began to feel more at home and quite satisfied with France.

But the most fun of the meal was a great, white, luscious Baked Alaska that was the best, oh, by far, of any the girls had ever eaten. They ate it up—to the last spoonful and when it was gone Mary Jane remarked, “If all our days in France are as nice as our first evening, I think I’m going to like it here pretty well.”

Before Mary Jane opened her eyes the next morning she knew she was in some strange place. Not that she saw or heard anything or that anything really happened. It was just that she felt strange. She snuggled down for a second nap, thinking sleepily that she wouldn’t be bothered with new places. But the strange feeling was so plainly felt that a second nap wouldn’t come and she stretched out comfortably and wondered—and then she suddenly knew what had wakened her. Funny little shrieking noises—some near, some far, but all loud and shrill. No wonder she was awakened! The wonder was that Alice could sleep or that Mary Jane had not wakened till now.

She raised herself on her elbow and looked around. Well! Of all rooms she had ever seen this was the least like home. Great windows that opened like doors; heavy damask hangings that were so long they lay on the floor in soft, heavy piles; mirrors, lots of them; and noise, lots of noise coming in at the windows. Where was she?

Then she remembered. She was in Paris. This was her room at the Louvre Hotel and her father and mother were in the next room, no doubt sound asleep like Alice who was in the bed close by her own. Mary Jane slipped into her dark kimono and ran to look out of the window. Yes, there was the square—only it looked even busier than it had last evening. And there were the taxis—dozens of them, each responsible for part of the din that had awakened Mary Jane. But she didn’t mind. She took a pillow from the divan and sat on it, close by the window, and watched the sights.

“I’ll not wake anybody,” she decided. “I’ll be still as a mouse and then when they do awake, I’ll tell them all that happened.”

But before anything had a chance to happen, except that more taxis arrived, each honking and dashing madly to its place in the square, Mr. Merrill opened the door to Mary Jane’s room and surprised her by being dressed and ready for breakfast.

“Well, Pussy!” he cried, “waked up, did you?”

“Yes, and why didn’t you call me, Daddah?” replied Mary Jane, jumping to greet him. “I might have missed something.”

“There’ll be plenty you won’t miss,” he replied, laughingly, “and it seemed to me that a little girl who did so much yesterday ought to sleep as long as she possibly could to-day.”

“But aren’t we going to have breakfast?” asked Mary Jane, anxiously. “And won’t Alice want to be called?”

“Yes to both questions,” replied Mr. Merrill. “We’ll have breakfast as soon as you are dressed. Alice may not really like to be called, but she wouldn’t like to miss anything more than you would, so I think we’ll call her. Can you be ready in fifteen minutes?”

Mary Jane said she could and she began by tossing a pillow onto Alice and then giving her a friendly shake.

“Breakfast in fifteen minutes and I choose to tub first,” she announced.

“Oh, dear,” grumbled Alice, sleepily, as she turned to shove away the pillow, “who cares about—but we’re in Paris!” she added as she waked up enough to know. “Paris! Let’s hustle so we can look at it!”

Between running to look out of the windows and chattering about the strange bathroom and the many mirrors, it’s a wonder the girls were ready on time. But their fingers worked fast as their tongues and they just made it to the last button when Mr. Merrill came back for them.

“Now where do we have breakfast?” asked Mary Jane, as they went toward the lift. “At the same place we had dinner last night?”

“No, I find that room isn’t open in the morning,” said Mr. Merrill, “but we eat in another room about as big only inside. Right this way, let’s take the stairs instead of the lift; it’s quicker.”

They hurried down the broad stairs, across part of the lobby and into a medium sized room filled with talkative travelers all trying, apparently, to be served at once. After waiting patiently to have someone seat them, Mr. Merrill followed the example of several others and found a table for his family and then motioned to a waiter. After some delay and much less formality than at dinner, they finally got their chocolate, rolls and jam—what they learned to call a “continental breakfast.” Mr. Merrill tried the chocolate but didn’t like it, so had tea and found that very nice. The rolls were hard and crisp and by asking for it, they got some very good butter.

“I don’t believe people here like breakfast as much as I do,” said Mary Jane, as she finally started on her roll. “And I do wish I had another kind of jam than plum—it’s sour,” she added, after an experimental taste.

A kindly looking lady at a table close by remarked, “Better try the strawberry—it’s fine,” and motioned the waiter to pass Mary Jane the great silver dish of strawberry jam that she was fortunate enough to have on her table. That jam was delicious and it made three rolls go down very easily and after that Mary Jane felt that the world was an awfully nice place and that she was glad she was in Paris.

“What do we do next?” she asked, as, breakfast over they wandered out into the lobby for mail.

“We’re going to sight-see all day,” said Mr. Merrill. “Mother and I thought of dividing it up, doing half to-day and half to-morrow. Then we thought better of that plan. It’s just as well to get over the whole city all at once and see where the sights are and what is most likely to interest us. Then we will know our way about and can revisit places we most enjoy. The bus will be here in half an hour.”

“Could we take a walk now?” asked Alice.

“I have letters that ought to go,” said Mrs. Merrill, “and Daddah has, too,” she added, to her husband.

“Suppose you walk just around the hotel,” said Mr. Merrill, “without crossing a street. That ought to be all right for you to do alone, even tho you are strange. And there is a lot you can see even tho you have walked around once. Notice the building I pointed out to you last evening and see if you can say the name to each other.”

“And we’ll be back in twenty minutes,” said Alice, comparing her watch with the clock over the porter’s desk. “That will give us ten minutes before the bus goes—that’s plenty of time.”

The girls stood on the threshold a minute, enjoying the air that was so fresh and clean. The streets were spotless—it didn’t seem as tho streets could be so clean, ever, but the girls were to learn that Paris streets are washed clean every night so that they can be spotless in the morning. They looked down the Avenue de l’Opéra and could easily see the great building at the far end, for there wasn’t the rush of traffic that had cut off the view last evening. Compared with its great width, the Rue St. Honoré, which began just at their right, seemed quite narrow and small, tho the girls had heard their neighbors at breakfast speak of it as famous for its shops.

“Let’s go around this way, just as we went last evening,” suggested Mary Jane, restless to be off. “I can say the name of that first big building, it’s the Palais Royal and it isn’t a palace any more but a government office. It doesn’t really look like either a palace or an office, but it’s easier to imagine it a palace than anything else.”

“I think that’s because it’s a rather fancier design than we are used to,” said Alice looking at it, thoughtfully. “But all the buildings look trimmed up compared with the English ones,” she added as they wandered on down the block, and turned the corner.

“And here are the taxis!” cried Mary Jane, “and there is our window that you can just see over the railing if you stand out here by the curb.”

“Where do all the taxis come from!” exclaimed Alice wondering, as two or three came dashing up with a flourish to take the place of some just starting out.

“But what is the name of that building over there?” asked Mary Jane, nodding across the square to a five story building with porch-like colonnades over the sidewalks.

“That’s the one that is a store—we don’t know it’s name,” replied Alice, “but we’re to go over and see it the first chance we have. But we’ve been five minutes already so we mustn’t stop too long, Mary Jane. Let’s go on to the Rue de Rivoli and the Louvre—it’s that great long, long building over there.”

“My, but you do say those words well!” exclaimed Mary Jane, admiringly. “Now you listen to me while I say them—the Louvre—that’s the building; the Rue de Rivoli—that’s the street.”

“Fine!” approved Alice. “We can’t learn French in a few days, but we can learn to say streets and buildings correctly. And a person ought to know the word Louvre, because it is one of the most famous art galleries in the world, and Daddah says the Rue de Rivoli is a famous street, too, tho it seems to me every street we have seen so far is a famous one. Maybe that’s because Paris is so old and much has happened here. Why Mother says that every building we can see from the hotel is older than the whole city of Chicago. Anything of Chicago, she means. Not the new skyscrapers, but old Fort Dearborn or anything. So places that old naturally get famous, I suppose, and we want to say them rightly.”

Mary Jane looked hard at the Louvre. It seemed so gray and long and cold—not a bit like a lovely palace her father said it once had been. Not till later in their visit when they saw on the other side of the building, the part away from the streets and next to the gardens, did she begin to like it at all. She wasn’t used to buildings that kept their loviest walls for the private, instead of the street, side. The girls walked along, very slowly, not noticing that they were come to the corner of the street they were looking so hard at the building.

Suddenly there was a bang and a little girl about Mary Jane’s size bumped head-on into them as they reached the corner of the Rue de Rivoli.

“Why! Excuse me!” cried Mary Jane, breathlessly. Then she stopped and stared. “Why—it looks like—it couldn’t be——”

“Mary Jane Merrill!” shouted the little girl they had bumped. “It is Mary Jane!” and so threw her arms around her and hugged her tightly.

“Doris Dana!” exclaimed Alice, for Mary Jane was quite breathless from surprise and the great embrace. “Whoever would have supposed you would meet us here!”

“It’s wonderful!” cried Mrs. Dana, who came around the corner just in time to see the little girls collide. “We didn’t even know you were coming abroad this summer. Where are you stopping and when did you come and how long shall you be here?”

“We’re at the Louvre Hotel, right here,” replied Alice, eagerly, as she kissed her old friend. “Mother will be so thrilled to see you; let’s go find her right away. We came last night and we’re stopping for two weeks,” she added, laughingly, as she saw the questions were going to be asked again.

“We’re here, too,” said Mrs. Dana, “and isn’t that just like Paris to meet your best friend when you least expect it! I can hardly wait to see your mother, but we’re going on the sight-seeing bus this morning—awfully commonplace in a way, but there’s no better scheme for seeing all around quickly. We got here yesterday morning from Germany and are just settled.”

“We’re going on the sight-seeing bus, too,” said Mary Jane. “The one that comes at ten, so maybe we can go together. Hurry up; let’s find Daddah and tell him you’re here.”

The two little girls walked ahead around the corner of the Rue de Rivoli to the front entrance of the hotel. They didn’t know quite where to begin talking, there was so much that might be said, but they did know they were glad to see each other. Alice and Mrs. Dana began by telling of their trips which were alike in spots, yet quite different in the main.

Readers who have followed Mary Jane and Alice all the way thru the books will remember that the Danas were neighbors of the Merrills before they lived in Chicago, and will recall how sorry Alice and Mary Jane were to leave her when the house and yard where all three girls had had so much fun had to be sold and the move made to the big city. Mary Jane had made many good friends since then, dearest of all being Betty Holden, of course, but no one ever quite took Doris’s place and it was a real thrill to see her again.

As the girls turned the corner, they saw the great sight-seeing bus standing at the entrance and Mr. Merrill waiting by it, looking for them.

“Five minutes till starting,” he said with a glance at his watch, “so hurry for your hats while I get Mother. She’s waiting at the other door lest you might come in that way and miss us.”

“So sorry to be late,” cried Alice, “but you’re not looking to see who we’ve found,” she added, for her father had been so busy watching his watch that he hadn’t given them more than a glance. “This is why we’re late—we had to talk a minute!”

Mr. Merrill was as surprised as the girls to see his old neighbors and as Mrs. Merrill, restless at waiting, came out, too, there was a real reunion then and there on the sidewalk. But passengers for the bus were arriving rapidly, so Mr. Merrill hurried the two girls upstairs for hats while he secured their seats and got the two ladies and Doris comfortably settled. Fortunately others were late, too, so there was plenty of time for Mary Jane and Doris to get their choice seats in the very front while Alice sat with her father just behind them and the two ladies across the aisle.

Ten minutes later they were off to see the sights of Paris.

The first few minutes of their drive was a blur to Mary Jane, for she finally got over her strangeness and could talk to Doris. She told her they had been to England and Doris told her they had been to Germany and Belgium, but what they really liked best to talk about was Mary Jane’s old friends, particularly Susan Louise who was still living just back of the Merrills’ old home, Doris said. They would have been happy to talk the whole morning, for Mary Jane had piles to tell and so had Doris. But just as they were getting nicely re-acquainted so that talking came easily, the great bus whirled around a corner, across a wide open space with a monument in the center and turned up the loveliest street Mary Jane had ever seen. So beautiful that it almost took a person’s breath away and so wide and stately that they could believe what the guide said when he called out, “This is the most beautiful street in the world! The Champs Élysées!”

Two great stone horses, rearing up from stone pedestals, guarded the entrance to the street and lovely trees, leafy and green, lined each side. In the distance, right in the middle of the street, was a stately arch, high and beautiful, making the street seem like an approach to a royal palace instead of just a street to drive on.

“Better look hard, now, girls,” suggested Mr. Merrill, “and listen to the guide for a few minutes. We can have luncheon together and then you may talk all you like.”

Mary Jane and Doris were old enough to know that that was good advice, so they listened and heard the history of the famous avenue and of the building of the arch by Napoleon so long ago.

The bus went slowly along the wide avenue, passed parks and stately houses now used, many of them, by famous designers of women’s clothes, and then entirely around the great arch and off into the park called the Bois de Boulogne. The girls admired the high houses set back from the street in a dignified fashion, but they thought it was the most fun to see the horseback riders and the quaintly dressed nursemaids pushing their little charges as they visited with each other. In some ways, Mary Jane was reminded of the Mall in London, but as she began to tell Doris about that, she realized that the two places were, after all, more different than alike, so she gave it up and just looked. Paris was different from London, how very different she was just beginning to guess.

Turning left from the park, they drove to a strange looking building called the Trocadéro. They got out to see it and the girls had the first good view of the Eiffel Tower—that great, tall, spidery tower of steel that was built for the Paris Exposition in 1889. While the others explored the Trocadéro, the girls looked at the Eiffel Tower and the park around it beyond the River Seine which they thought was much more interesting than any building. Alice was hoping they were going to the top—and surely it would be a wonderful view. But Mary Jane and Doris were delighted to have the guide tell them that the trip to the Tower was too long to be considered now, and to hurry back to the bus.

A very short drive brought them to the war buildings, called “Les Invalides,” and there again the passengers got out, for the big bus was not allowed inside the gates. Mary Jane didn’t think this would be much fun, but here she was mistaken, for in the courtyard they saw one of the most interesting curios (if one could call it that) of the whole day. Run into the yard on a small track was the very car in which the Armistice was signed on the eleventh of November, 1918. Mary Jane knew about that. She had seen the celebration of Armistice Day in Chicago and she knew how important that paper was. The girls walked all around the car, and looked it over carefully. It was smaller than a regular American Pullman but much larger than the English railway cars and beautifully clean and polished and entirely surrounded by cannon.

“Did they sign the paper right here in this yard?” asked Doris, looking around at the gray buildings enclosing the court.

“Indeed, no,” Mr. Merrill told them. “The Armistice was signed in the woods, near the fighting and some miles from Paris. Maybe, if we can arrange a trip to the battlefields, we can see the exact spot. But everyone likes to see the car, so it was run in here. Maybe, too, it was thought to be more suitable to have it here with other war relics. Anyway, here it is, so look at it carefully, girls, for we may not come here again as there is so much to see.”

An old French soldier hobbled by as the girls were looking and offered to explain it to them but tho he tried to talk English, they couldn’t understand a word, so they could only smile and nod and say “thank you” when he finished.

From then on, the morning grew to be one series of looking and getting in and out of the bus. Mary Jane really lost track of all the places; and she wished more than once that she had brought a book, as Alice had, to mark down the names of everything they saw. There was Napoleon’s tomb, a person couldn’t forget that, for it was so dark and solemn; and the Ste. Chapelle, also dark but not solemn because visitors talked and chatted more than they usually did in churches and because the stained glass windows were so bright and beautiful. There was the Panthéon, a building with lots of white stone columns and great steps from which Mary Jane enjoyed the view and she liked the lovely pictures on the walls inside; and the city buildings on the small island in the Seine almost under the towers of Notre Dame.

“Is there anything in Paris besides buildings and bridges?” asked Doris, tiredly, as they turned from the tour of the city buildings and climbed back into their places in the bus.

“Lots,” replied Mr. Merrill, “but we haven’t seen it this morning.”

“I’m sure we’ve seen all of the buildings, tho,” said Mary Jane.

“But not all the bridges,” said Alice. “I read in the list the guide has that there are nine that can be seen from Notre Dame and I know we haven’t seen that many.”

“Maybe not,” agreed Mary Jane, “but I’ve seen all I can look at now, so don’t tell me there are any more.”

Everyone on the bus was in about the same state of tiredness, and they were pleased to have the driver turn into the Rue de Rivoli and speed the short way back to the hotel.

“The afternoon trip starts at two o’clock!” the driver shouted as the passengers got out. “Two o’clock! The afternoon trip starts at two o’clock. A trip of the boulevards and Montmartre. Leaving promptly at two!”

“Something tells me that man means to let us know when the trip starts this afternoon,” laughed Alice, as they went in the hotel door with the man still shouting, “Two o’clock! Afternoon trip starts at two o’clock.”

“Be glad he shouts it in English, my dear,” said her mother. “For tho you are tired of sight-seeing right now, it will be fun to go again this afternoon and I think the trip will be easier, for we won’t have quite so much going in and out, I understand.”

“I’m not even thinking about the afternoon,” began Mary Jane.

“Of course not,” teased her father, “we know what you have on your mind. Where do we eat lunch? That’s what you want to know.”

“Well, where do we?” she asked.

“Doris and I have an engagement with a friend at Rumpelmayer’s on the Rue de Rivoli,” said Mrs. Dana, “so we mustn’t lose any time as it is ten minutes’ walk from here. But we’ll see you again very soon. Maybe we could have dinner together this evening. I know a place the girls would love. My friends told me about it yesterday but we had something else planned. Let’s meet here at seven and then see,” she added, as she and Doris hurried away.

“Wasn’t it lovely to see them, Mother?” exclaimed Alice, as they strolled to the lift. “Who’d ever have thought we would? And if we had planned it, we couldn’t have done better.”

“It certainly is nice and I fancy you girls will enjoy each other a lot, especially Mary Jane and Doris,” agreed her mother. “Come, Mary Jane, let’s go up.”

But Mary Jane had seen the picture postals at the desk and she was busy turning them over and deciding which ones to buy.

“There are a lot here of places we saw this morning,” she announced. “I can tell the buildings. And it does give you a funny feeling, Mother, to see a picture of something you’ve just been riding by. It seems more real than when you haven’t seen it with your own eyes.”

“That’s the fun of traveling,” said Mr. Merrill, stopping to see the cards with her. “You and Alice run along, Mother, and primp. Mary Jane and I are buying some cards.”

Mary Jane finally selected two packages just alike—one to send away and one to keep and she decided to send one of the Arc de Triomphe to Grandmother Hodges and of the Eiffel Tower to Grandfather Hodges and one of the Champs Élysées with the prancing horses, the trees and the great arch in the distance, to Betty. Other cards could wait till she had more time to figure out just which to send to whom, but these must go to-day while she could truthfully write on them, “We saw this to-day, and I stood right here.”

About twenty minutes later the cards were sent and the Merrills four were ready for luncheon. It had been decided that, as a usual thing, they would eat only their breakfasts at their hotel because they wanted to explore around, as they had in London, and eat at different kinds of restaurants. This noon, following the directions of some of their companions on the sight-seeing bus, they went down the Rue St. Honoré a couple of short blocks, then turned toward the Rue de Rivoli.

“This is going to be little and funny like the ‘Cheshire Cheese,’” cried Mary Jane, as she skipped ahead to find the right number.

“It looks more like a bakery shop,” said Alice, as they hesitated in front of a tiny shop. “Do you suppose this is a restaurant, Daddah?”

“I suppose it’s the place we’ve been told was so good,” answered her father, “so let’s go and see for ourselves.”

Inside they found a very clean, small room and a half dozen little tables. A pretty, black eyed girl seated them and then, before they had hardly had time to look around, passed them a tray of food that looked so good Mary Jane could hardly wait for her return to have some. The tray was arranged in sections and on it was salad, several sorts, fruit, fish and cheeses. When it came her turn, she took two kinds of salad, some sardines, an egg, two apricots and some cheese which quite filled her plate. As a fresh, crisp roll was on her butter plate, she began at once to eat and, oh, dear, but the food was good.

But what do you suppose? All that good food wasn’t luncheon. No. It was just the appetizer and soon they were served soup and meat with delicious beans. You’d have thought that was too much for Mary Jane. But it wasn’t, tho to tell the truth, meat and vegetables didn’t interest her as much as the appetizers had at the beginning.

For dessert, the little maid passed a tray of French pastry that looked so good Mary Jane was almost bewildered.

“These aren’t all for us?” she exclaimed.

“Take as many as you want, Miss,” said the maid.

“I’d like all of them but I could only eat one,” Mary Jane admitted reluctantly, as she thoughtfully chose a strawberry tart that looked especially juicy and good.

“Paris is the nicest place to eat we’ve ever visited,” remarked Alice as they wandered back to their hotel. “Imagine! A little bit of a restaurant and such food! I hope we can stay here a long, long time.”

The afternoon trip on the bus was more fun for the girls than the morning route. There was more driving and less visiting buildings and they loved the trip along the beautiful boulevards. The trees were lovely; there were many beautiful parks with flowers and fountains, and the houses, built mostly of plaster or stone, were quite different from English or American dwellings. By the time the girls had seen the view of the city from Montmartre near the end of their drive, they had begun to feel very well acquainted and the tall Eiffel Tower, the streaks of green that were boulevards, the winding river with so many bridges, all seemed much more real than it had in the morning.

“I think it was a fine plan to drive around this way to-day,” said Alice as they left the bus at their hotel. “I feel much more as tho I belonged. But I know I never shall get used to the way the taxis dash along. They scare me every time! I think they can’t possibly stop as suddenly as they do.”

“But we haven’t seen an accident,” Mary Jane reminded her. “And they always do stop in time—so why bother? What I’d like to do, Mother, is to take a walk. Everyone seems so gay and hurrying along. I think we’re missing something.”

“A walk would be a good idea,” agreed Mrs. Merrill. “Shall we go down toward the Opéra? Or the Rue de Rivoli?”

“I choose the Rue de Rivoli,” said Mary Jane, quickly.

“I do, too,” said Alice. “I want to walk under the porches and see the windows.” So that was the way they went. For blocks along this famous street, arched roofs are built out over the sidewalks so that sun or rain, window shoppers can enjoy the sights in comfort.

And window shopping in Paris, as the girls soon found, was not a thing to be done hurriedly. In the United States, windows are trimmed, in the main, with the idea of making an artistic picture. In Paris, they are to show goods. The windows are full, crowded, with goods; every inch of space has something on it and a person has to stand and look and look if they are to see even half of what is there. At first, it seemed as tho the articles displayed were not very good—just geegaws. But close inspection showed that this effect was because of the crowding. The articles displayed were mostly very lovely and if a person stood still and looked long, they saw many beautiful things. There were windows full of pictures, leather goods, jewelry, beaded bags, gloves, more jewelry, glass flowers, hats and dresses, more jewelry and all sorts of dress accessories.

The girls took an hour to look at the windows in two blocks of stores and then they declared they hadn’t seen half.

“But if you look any more you won’t have any noses left,” teased Mr. Merrill.

“Noses?” asked Mary Jane. “You mean eyes.”

“I mean noses,” replied her father. “If you could see you and Alice—you get your noses so close to the window glass that if it wasn’t very slick I am sure you would already have the tips rubbed off.”

“And what have you been doing all this while?” asked Alice.

“Keeping track of where we are and watching the traffic,” replied her father. “I see that a lot of people and vehicles turn at the next street down there,” he nodded in the direction they were going. “So I think that must be the Rue de Castiglione and I suggest we turn there, walk around the Place Vendôme, then to the Rue St. Honoré and back to the hotel. And if you girls can spare a window or two till another day, maybe we can make that trip by bedtime.”

Mary Jane giggled. They had been pretty slow—two blocks in an hour. And there were many days yet for window shopping. So she left the windows and took her father’s hand as they walked on.

“I guess I’ve seen enough for one time,” she confided in him. “But I’ve decided on one thing I’m going to buy. I’m going to get a pair of gloves for my doll and a pair for Betty’s doll, too,” she added. “Both the same kind so we can play with them together. You should see how cute they are.”

“There’s a park, Mary Jane,” interrupted Alice, who had suddenly thought to look around a bit. “Shall we go over there, Daddah?”

“Um-m, let’s wait till we can stay over there long enough to make it worth while crossing this street,” suggested Mr. Merrill, and the girls, watching the rush of traffic for a minute, were quite content to let it go at that.

“They seem to like it, tho,” said Alice after a minute’s watching. “They’re all smiling—except those Americans,” she added, nodding toward the group of tired, fretted looking countrymen who were getting out of a cab right beside the Merrills.

“They’re probably doing too much sight-seeing,” said Mrs. Merrill, “so let’s take warning and stop right here. I think I’d like to walk briskly for two blocks.”

“But we were going to turn at the next street,” said Alice, regretfully.

“We can walk two blocks here and then back to the Rue de Castiglione,” suggested Mr. Merrill. “Maybe we will find something more interesting and it will give us a chance to see the park better.”

Keeping close together so that they wouldn’t get lost in the crowds of busy shoppers, the Merrills set out briskly, bravely walking right by shop after shop with the most fascinating windows. They managed to cross one busy street without damage tho it seemed a game of dodging and one taxi stopped within about six inches of Alice right in the middle of the street.

“If we lived in Paris, what would we be doing now?” asked Mary Jane, as they walked on down the block.

“That’s hard to tell,” said her mother, “because it’s plain to see that the people along this street are mostly visitors in the city—tourists like ourselves. This must be the place for travelers. Don’t you know at home, as you walk along Michigan Boulevard, you can tell from their interest in the sights that many, many of the people there are visitors in the city, for we dash along without a thought of the Art Institute or the fountain or the view up toward the river. Probably most of the French people are getting home for dinner now.”

“There’s a French lady and she has a little girl with her,” said Alice in a low voice, as ahead of them she spied a lady, modishly dressed in black, chatting with a little girl of an age about halfway between Alice and Mary Jane. “Would it be rude to watch them?”

“Not if we are tactful and don’t make our watching noticeable,” decided Mrs. Merrill. “But they are turning in behind the hedge.”

“Behind the hedge” proved to be one of the sidewalk restaurants the girls had so admired and when Mr. Merrill suggested that they stop for tea at a table near the French lady, the girls were delighted to agree. But instead of tea, they ordered a raspberry ice, recommended by their interested waiter. It was delicious and they ate it slowly, along with some tiny cakes, and watched the people strolling and riding by.

To their great joy, the little French girl sat near enough for them to hear her chattering to her mother. There wasn’t a chance of even a word being understood, as she spoke so rapidly that Alice could not hope to get even one of the few words she knew, so their listening wasn’t really eavesdropping, and they could enjoy it fully. People came and went at the other tables—mostly they took ices or iced drinks, but always they lingered as tho there was plenty of time—quite different from the way people did at home.

“But then,” said Alice speaking out her thoughts, “there’s nothing like a sidewalk tea place at home, anyway.”

“No, and I wish there were,” laughed Mary Jane. “Think what fun it would be to sit out on Michigan Boulevard and eat ice and cakes. Or along the Midway or on Lake Shore Drive.”

“Or State Street,” added Alice. “Imagine sitting out in front of the stores! Wouldn’t it be fun?”

“But if we did it at home, it wouldn’t seem so much fun here,” remarked Mary Jane, as she reached for another cake.

“That’s the last for now,” suggested Mrs. Merrill, as she noticed what Mary Jane was doing. “I think that if we are to walk farther, we’d better be moving.”

Reluctantly the girls agreed, so Mr. Merrill called the waiter and paid for what they had eaten and they wandered on.

“When I get back to our room,” said Mary Jane, taking her father’s hand, “will you please explain the money to me, Daddah? You’ve lots of it now, and I haven’t anything but English money.”

“Good idea, Pussy,” he answered. “I’ll give you several coins in return for some of your English money and you can get used to the feel and the counting of the French money. Then to-morrow we shall go to the bank and get some for you if you are ready for it.”

The shops along the Rue de Castiglione proved to be every bit as interesting as those on the Rue de Rivoli, and the walks were covered with arched roofs very much like the others, so the girls could hardly have noticed the difference if they had not been told. On the way, they passed a travel bureau and Mr. Merrill made arrangements for a car and guide to take them to see some of the famous battlefield country two days later.

“We can get cars there for Versailles and Fontainebleau, too,” he told them when he had completed his arrangements. “But it seems to me that we should see the battlefields first, because that is something our country had a part in. Then later, we can see the other places.”

Leaving the travel bureau, they went around the Place Vendôme. There they saw beautiful jewelry in many windows—and hats and bags—and a great memorial column in the center.

“I never saw so much statuary and so many monuments in all my life put together,” said Alice, as she looked with admiration at the great bronze column with the statue of Napoleon on the top. “I’ll have to mark this down in my book when we get back to the hotel because it’s one of the loveliest we’ve seen.”

While they were standing looking, someone grabbed Mary Jane’s hand, and she turned to see Doris who, with her mother, had come out of the very store in front of which the Merrills had paused.

“Now we can walk back with you and have dinner,” cried Doris, gleefully. “We were wondering what you were doing right now and if we were late for you. And we’re not!”

“Not a minute,” said Mary Jane, happily, “only do come here and see these doll gloves. And there are lots more of them back on the other street,” she added, “lots more, and I’m going to buy some.”

“But not now, I hope,” laughed Mrs. Dana,“ because the shops will be closing. Can’t we walk on now?”

After one peep at the gloves, the girls were satisfied to walk back to the hotel. That was a good thing, for by the time they dressed for dinner, it was quite late enough. Mrs. Dana guided them to the restaurant on Rue St. Roche which she had told them about and there they ate and visited and enjoyed themselves till long past the two little girls’ usual bedtime.

Finally Mr. Merrill, with a surprised look at his watch, remarked, “If any little people of my acquaintance are going to do what I intend to do to-morrow, they’d better be sleeping in twenty minutes.”

“Tell us what it is,” coaxed Mary Jane.

“Not till after breakfast in the morning,” said Mr. Merrill, firmly. “Not a hint. So no use asking.”

He called a taxi and got them home at once, which was a good thing, as they suddenly found themselves very sleepy. It had been a big day, no doubt of that, and a very tired Mary Jane dropped to sleep the minute she touched the pillow—much too quickly to wonder what her father meant to do to-morrow.

Mary Jane was wakened the next morning by a gentle touch.

“Want to wake up, Mary Jane?” whispered her mother.

Mary Jane shook her head, sleepily.

“Want to have breakfast in two minutes?”

That seemed more interesting and she opened her eyes just one little crack to see what might be happening. The desk table of her room was pulled up to the great French windows. Desk things were cleared away and in their place was a tray covered with a white cloth. Tho a person couldn’t see under the cloth, still, it had interesting hills and valleys that suggested a pot and cups and such. Alice, in her kimono and looking very pleased with herself, was pulled up to one side of the table and on the opposite side was a vacant chair.

“Breakfast in our room!” exclaimed Mary Jane, gleefully. “How did you ever get them to do it?”

“Easy as anything,” said Mr. Merrill, grandly. “I just took down the phone here and told them what I wanted before they had time to talk to me in French. That’s the way to do it—just tell what you want and ask no questions.”

“Where’s yours?” asked Mary Jane, eying the tray carefully to judge of its supplies.

“Eaten up an hour ago,” replied her father, promptly. “Can you imagine me eating breakfast off a tray when I might go down to the dining room! I’ve had a walk and done a lot of other things and now——”

“What I can’t imagine,” interrupted Alice, gayly, “is Mary Jane’s sitting there in bed when she might be in that chair starting to eat as I am.”

“Watch me!” cried Mary Jane, tossing off the coverlet, jumping to the floor and dashing to the bathroom for a quick tub before a person could even say “Jack Robinson.” “I’ll be there in two minutes!” she called, over the noise of running water. “I’ll be there in forty seconds! I’ll be there in—in—no time!” And there she was. A little dampish in places perhaps, but rosy and clean and smiling broadly at their surprise.

The breakfast of crisp rolls, and jam with tea instead of French coffee, was good even tho it wasn’t just what a little French girl would have had. She would have eaten rolls and chocolate, but the girls had had the chocolate in the dining room the day before and it was much too thick and sweet to please them. So Mrs. Merrill had decided to let them have English tea which they liked a lot and could have as weak as they wished to make it.

While the girls ate, Mr. Merrill told them the plans for the day.

“First, breakfast,” he said. “Then take your time for dressing or, make it snappy and write some postal cards as you like. At ten we’ll go to the Louvre for an hour. Then a walk, with maybe something you’ll think fun thrown in. Lunch anywhere we happen to be and a walk down the Avenue de l’Opéra. I can’t wait any longer to stroll about in that neighborhood. Tea maybe——”

“But you’ve already fed them twice,” said Mrs. Merrill, from the doorway, “why not wait till you see if they are hungry before offering tea.”

“We are,” replied Mary Jane, hastily swallowing a big mouthful of roll and jam so she could speak. “We’re awfully hungry by tea.”

“Then wait and see what happens to little girls like you,” laughed her father. “But remember—the Louvre at ten. So be ready.”

Mary Jane looked at her watch. It was ten minutes before nine, so there seemed lots of time for another roll.

“Wonder what there is to see at the Louvre?” she remarked to Alice. “It’s such a dull looking building. I shouldn’t care if we’d not go there.”

“It’s just dull on the outside, I’m sure,” said Alice. “The side we see from here doesn’t look like much, it’s true. But it was a palace, you know, and was built plainly on the outside, the street side, because the front is the other way around. Remember how beautiful it looked as we went by in the bus yesterday?”

“No, I don’t know which one it was—we saw so many,” admitted Mary Jane. “But I know how it looks here because I’ve looked at it hard from the window.”

“It’s where the lovely pictures are,” Alice continued. “Don’t you know Mother told us that first evening? Where ‘The Angelus’ that you love is and lots of others, too. You’ll like it, Mary Jane, I know you will.”

Mary Jane was quite willing to believe that she would like it because she had liked almost everything on their trip so far. So she finished her breakfast, dressed herself neatly and then went to her mother’s desk to address some post cards to friends at home while the maid took away the tray and set her room to rights. By five minutes to ten she was finished and ready to put on her hat, which was a good thing, as her father was a little ahead of time, too. So they all left promptly.

Entering the Louvre thru the main door, there still seemed to Mary Jane nothing remarkable to see. But when she had walked a little way and turned to a staircase, wide and stately, she exclaimed, “Oh! There’s the ‘Winged Victory’ that we have at school!” Set there on the staircase, so wide and beautiful, it looked as if it were ready to sail away, it was so full of life.

“Why, it looks as tho it was light as a feather,” cried Alice. “As tho it was just floating—no, not floating, but flying.”

“And yet it’s of stone and weighs tons and tons,” said Mrs. Merrill.

“Then, if it’s so heavy, what makes it look so light?” asked Mary Jane, curiously.

“Because it is carved by an artist—some Greek artist who made it four hundred years before Christ’s time,” replied her mother. “It represents a figurehead at the prow of the boat. Can’t you just imagine the boat dashing thru the water, the waves high on either side? And the wind blowing Victory’s garments as she cuts thru the air? That’s why it is called a masterpiece. Because all thru these years it is so vivid and so beautiful that artists cannot make anything lovelier even now.”

Mary Jane loved the statue. She lingered looking at it and trying to see how it was different from the copy at school. And at once she began to like the Louvre. As they went from corridor to corridor in the next hour, she saw many beautiful pictures and statues that were very familiar to her—she had seen the copies at home or at school many a time and had already learned to love them dearly.

The Merrills had no idea of staying in the Louvre till the girls were worn out. Better to come often and enjoy it than stay too long one time, they thought. So in about an hour, Mr. Merrill piloted them thru one of the inside entrances and they found themselves entering a lovely garden with a view thru a great arch, across the Place de la Concorde and all the way to the Arc de Triomphe.

“Oh! I want to walk here!” cried Mary Jane, gayly. “Look, Mother, at the flower beds! And the trees! And the people! But why don’t they sprinkle the grass so it’s green like in England?”

Mrs. Merrill couldn’t answer that, for she didn’t learn till later that water is sometimes a luxury in Paris. But she could walk along with Mary Jane as she enjoyed the flowers and saw the sights. There were two flower beds that Mary Jane liked most—low ones, with rows and rows of bright red blooms. All the flowers seemed to be planted in designs and rows and to have lots of bloom which looked brilliant compared with the dull, brownish-green grass.

“What I like best are the statues,” said Alice. “Did you ever see so many, Mother? There’s a nymph, and those two must be fairies—they couldn’t be real people. And those over there must be from the Greek myths—they don’t fit in anywhere else.”

“Makes me want to play hide and seek,” said Mary Jane, “think how easy to bend down and hide behind a statue. And you’d never in the world know which one I’d hidden behind—never.”

“Let’s go down this main walk,” suggested Mr. Merrill, as the girls turned off toward the south. “Children seem to be going this way, so let’s go too.”

“Is this where you planned to take us to-day, Daddah?” asked Mary Jane suddenly, realizing that her father seemed to know where they were going, well enough. “Did you hunt this place up sometime when you were walking and we were sleeping?”

“You’re quite a guesser, Pussy,” laughed Mr. Merrill. “But you’d better watch where you’re going or you might miss something.”

“People have picnics here just like at home,” observed Alice. “See that nice family over there?” She looked over to a bench where a pleasant looking French woman was opening a neatly covered basket and three children were looking on eagerly.

“But look,” said Mary Jane, “she’s giving them great pieces of bread. I shouldn’t like just bread in hunks for my luncheon. I think that’s horrid.”

“Maybe they’re hungrier than we are,” suggested Alice, doubtfully.

“Maybe they’re not going to eat it,” said Mr. Merrill. “Watch and see.”

The French children, instead of sitting down on the bench to eat, as the girls expected they would, ran gayly along the wide graveled walk while the woman with the basket, put the cover back on and slowly followed after them. Along the walk, toward a low, round pool at the end and there the children stopped to look into the water.

Mary Jane and Alice followed close behind till they, too, came to the edge of the pool. And what do you suppose they saw in the water? Lovely fish leaping and swimming in plain sight in the fountain.

The little French girl broke off a piece of her hunk of bread and tossed it into the water. A dozen fish leaped for it and fought till it was gone.

“Oh, I wish we had some bread to throw in!” cried Mary Jane. “Let’s ask if we can go and buy some?” She looked all around for a store. But, dear me! The gardens were so wide and long; and beyond the gardens was the wide Place de la Concorde and beyond that the long Champs Élysées on one side and the river on the other—it seemed as tho there wasn’t a store in the world. Or anyway, not near enough to do any good.

She ran back to where her father and mother were walking a few feet behind and cried, “We must get some bread! See what fun it is?”

“But it’s almost as much fun to watch the other children do it,” laughed Mrs. Merrill, “so go back and enjoy yourself while their bread holds out. See what fun?” she added, as she got close enough to see the leaping fish and the struggle for a bit of bread the older French girl had just thrown in.

As Mary Jane came back to the edge of the pool, the littlest French girl spoke to her. The words sounded strange, of course. But the gesture said, “Want a piece of my bread to throw?” as plainly as English. Mary Jane said, “Oh, thank you!” and accepted a generous hunk very delightedly.

“Can you spare it?”

The little French girl nodded and smiled generously, even tho she didn’t understand either and her older sister, not to be outdone, gave Alice a piece of hers. Mary Jane watched to see just how big a piece the girls broke off then she, too, tossed in her bit. By this time the water was stirred to a foam and the fish gleamed and twisted in the sunshine.

“Isn’t it fun!” cried Mary Jane, happily, as an extra big fish leaped after one of her pieces. “Let’s do this every day! Look, Alice! See that big fellow swimming over there? Now watch me throw him a piece.”

Mary Jane broke off a bit the size of an egg, and, pausing to see just where the fish was, she gave it a toss with all the strength she had. There was a splash and a swish of water—then a scream. The little French girls danced up and down in their excitement and shouted something Mary Jane didn’t understand tho she could tell something wrong had happened. Suddenly she knew.

“My purse!” she exclaimed, “I’ve thrown in my purse!”

“Mary Jane! You did!” cried Alice in distress. “And there it is.”

Sure enough! The girls could see it bobbing—it hadn’t sunk yet and was tossing in a lively fashion on the other edge of the pool.

Someone else had seen it, too, and so quickly the girls hardly knew the purse was lost before they saw it being rescued, a boy about Alice’s age jumped into the pool (which wasn’t very deep at that spot) grabbed the purse by the handle and was out again in a jiffy.

The girls, all five of them, ran around to where he stood dripping and Mary Jane said, “Thank you, thank you,” as he handed her the purse.

“Better let us take you where you can change,” said Mr. Merrill, with appreciation. But the boy laughed, shrugged his shoulders, said something in French, then ran off smiling gleefully; plainly delighted with his quick work and their pleasure.

“Please put it in your pocket for me,” said Mary Jane, as she rubbed off the damp purse and handed it to her father. “It’s a good thing it didn’t have any of my new French paper money in it—how wet it would have been!”

“It’s a better thing that it didn’t have many French centimes,” said Alice. “They’re so heavy it would have sunk before he saw it. It was it’s emptiness that saved it.”

The little French girls stood by watching and when the purse was finally put away, they offered to share the last bit of bread.

“You throw it,” said Alice, with a gesture that told what she was saying. So they tossed the bread in, a bit at a time, then they smiled good-by and went off toward the bridge.

“What now, Daddah?” asked Alice, feeling suddenly hungry and tired.

“A taxi at the entrance there,” replied Mr. Merrill, “a quick dash for lunch and then anything you’d like for the rest of the day.” And off the girls ran to signal their cab.

Before Mary Jane went to bed that evening, she laid out her clean dress and underthings, cleaned her shoes and brushed her hat neatly. Next morning early, they were to leave for their all day trip to some of the famous battlefields and it would not do to be late getting off. It was a good thing she made such careful preparations, too, for quarter before six seemed very early to be called after the lazy hours they had been keeping.

Breakfast was served in their room again, which saved some time, as service in the dining room was slow at best. They were just finishing when the telephone in her mother’s room rang and the porter announced that their car and guide were waiting.

“Oh, aren’t we grand!” cried Mary Jane, gayly, as she stepped out of the front entrance and saw the nice car that was awaiting them. Mr. Merrill had thought that the girls would get more out of their trip if they went by themselves so he had engaged a private car and a well recommended guide and they planned to see as much as they possibly could in one day. The car was a good one, shining and new, and the chauffeur seated them comfortably while M. Speigel introduced himself and got Mr. Merrill’s instructions.

“Isn’t everything clean and cool feeling?” said Mary Jane, as the car swung off around the corner, east. The cleanness of the morning air and the rush of wind against their faces as they rapidly drove thru the streets was very pleasant to a little girl who had arisen early. Mary Jane sat back in her comfortable little seat in front of her mother and prepared to enjoy herself.

There was a lot to see in the city. Shops were opening and storekeepers were taking down shutters—the great wooden shutters that Paris shopkeepers put up each evening. Children dashed out of houses doing errands; women appeared at windows shaking dust mops, and milk carts stopped at the curbings to ladle out cream and milk to housewives. Alice and Mary Jane watched carefully, as they didn’t want to miss anything, and the different looking houses, all the same soft gray color, and the activity made it as much fun to see as any movie.

“Mary Jane! Look!” cried Alice suddenly grabbing her sister’s arm. “Now did you ever see the like?”

Mary Jane looked and decided that she never had seen anything so queer. A ten year old boy was riding a bicycle—that was simple enough; but tucked firmly under his arm were seven or eight long loaves of bread—a yard or more long and without any covering. He rode along whistling and occasionally hunched up his shoulders as the bread slipped too low for safety.

“Suppose’n he’d drop it,” said Mary Jane fearfully.

“Then I suppose somebody would have it for breakfast just the same,” laughed the guide unconcerned. “You don’t deliver bread that way in the States?” he added.

Mary Jane began telling him just how carefully bread was wrapped and carted—she knew all about it, for her room at school had once visited a bakery in Chicago. But even while she was talking (and watching, too), the boy came to a slippery place in the street, turned too sharply, twisted to right himself and away went the loaves of bread, here and there on the damp street. As the Merrills passed him, he was dismounting and as far as Mary Jane could see by standing up and looking back, he was picking up bread quite unbothered by the fact that it had been dropped.

Soon they came to the gate of Paris where they were stopped to have the gasoline in their car measured. The girls thought that a funny idea but M. Speigel explained that there was a tax on gas in the city and that a record was made of what you had when you went out and came in. The old walls and the moat were strange looking compared with the long line of cars by the gate. Goats grazed on the grassy sides of the moat and clothes hung up to dry made it look very domestic instead of war-like as moats and walls really should look.

As they left the city behind, Mr. Merrill reminded the girls of some of the sights they were to see that day and their guide told them some of his experiences in the war. He had served in engagements (as he called the battles) in two of the very places they were to see before the day was over.

“Look at the airplanes,” cried Mary Jane, interrupting the war stories, “I never saw so many at one place.”

“That’s because you were never at Le Bourget Flying Field before,” said the guide. “This is one of the best known fields in the world—where passengers take off for many different places. See the great hangars and the large planes? This is the field where your Charles Lindbergh landed when he flew from America; all the children from the States know about his flight. Look quickly, for we’ll soon be past.” That was good advice, for their car was going along at a much faster rate than the girls were used to driving and they fairly whirled by buildings and fields.

Before they had had time to tire of looking, Mary Jane caught sight of something that seemed very strange at such a place. A long row of trees that looked—well more like the tree trunks that had stood through forest fires in northern Wisconsin than anything else she had ever seen.

“Do they have forest fires here?” she asked the guide. It didn’t seem possible because there hadn’t been any forests so far, yet there were the trees all scarred and burned, lining the road at the left.

“Ah, here we come to the battlefields,” said the guide. “Those trees, burned and ruined, are all that is left of a thick, green woods.”

“But what made them burn?” asked Mary Jane, not understanding.

“Cannon fire,” replied the guide, tersely. “Cannon fire that swept over here day after day.”

“Everything else is so green, tho,” said Alice, puzzled at the quiet beauty of the fields and hills.

“Because it’s all new since the war ended. If you will look closely, you will see that there are no real trees—only young saplings, only bushes, only young growth that has come up since the war. All the old trees, and there were lovely ones, are gone. Only these scarred trunks are left where great trees stood. It will take years and years to grow the new ones.”

There was so much to see that one couldn’t look long at any one point. There were the cemeteries—miles of them with the rows on rows of white crosses. And one German cemetery with black crosses—rows and rows of those. English, French, American and German—the girls were appalled by the number of cemeteries and the countless crosses.

Several times they got out to walk about—at Belleau Wood, at the lonely grave of Quentin Roosevelt who was buried where he fell on the hillside, and at Château Thierry where both sides of the road were lined with burned tree trunks, more than they had yet seen. Mary Jane picked some poppies in a field not far from Belleau Wood, as she wanted to press some to take home, and Alice picked not only the pretty red poppies, but a dainty blue flower and some white blossoms as well, for she wanted the three colors in her flower book as a souvenir of this strange trip.

At last they drove into the city of Rheims, passed the beautiful cathedral to a new Inn, just opened and beautifully furnished, where they had an excellent luncheon that refreshed them and revived their spirits.

“I’d like to get some pictures of the ruins of the cathedral,” said Alice, as they set out for a little stroll after luncheon. “Of course, it’s mostly repaired, but the guide says that on the east side we can still see some of the sand bags that were used to protect it and some of the piles of rubbish the cannons left at the base.”

“We don’t have to ask which way to go,” said Mary Jane as they set off, “cause the cathedral’s so big it shows where it is and that’s a handy way to have it.”

There was a lot of building going on; workmen coming and going on bicycles and the new buildings looked very handsome. Yet right in the midst of the new were ruins of the old buildings destroyed by war—the girls thought they had never seen such a strange looking place, all new—or ruins. Nothing comfortably in between.

As they turned the corner they came into the middle of an excited crowd of people all talking at once, in the French way.

“I’m going to take a picture of that,” said Alice delightedly, “I’ve never had a chance to take a French group and this shows the bicycles, the new buildings and the ruins just perfectly.” She took a quick snap and then another to make sure she got it all while Mary Jane with her father edged around to see what the excitement was about.

“He’s been mistreating his horse,” reported the guide as he slipped out from the midst of the crowd where he had gone to investigate. “That driver there—see how angrily the men look at him? He beat his horse and he should know better. He’ll be fined and he well deserves it. The officer has him in charge now.”

As the crowd dispersed the girls saw a small boy about ten years old or thereabouts, who was talking to the officer, a smart little man in a blue uniform whose eyes fairly sparkled he was so excited. They couldn’t tell the boy’s words, of course, but he acted out the man beating his horse so plainly that words weren’t needed to know what he was saying.

“The boy saw him and called the policeman,” said Mary Jane. “That’s just what Tommy did on Fifty-fifth Street one time. Boys must like horses everywhere.”

Mary Jane would have liked to linger and watch the people; she liked that better than cathedrals, but Alice wanted her pictures and the guide wanted to start on the afternoon trip so they went on. It was strange to climb over piles of crushed stone and burned wood that even yet filled parts of the cathedral but it gave the girls a good idea of the damage done by the cannons even tho they hated seeing such sad destruction.

“What I think you girls would like to see,” said their guide as they stood and looked at the cathedral, “is a real dugout and some wire entanglements. That would be a change from ruins and you’ll like to tell your classmates about it when you get back to the States. Let’s go to Hill 108 on the Marne—you’ll be interested in that.”

And indeed they were. The girls climbed over the crumbled wire and had to take care, even these many years after the war, lest the wire trip them as they walked. They crawled down the steep entrance of a real dugout and tried to imagine what it might have been like to live in one (of course they couldn’t imagine, but they tried); they walked in the great hole made by an exploding shell and along the river bank where gravel and stone were churned up over the soil and flowers will never grow again.

They crawled down the steep entrance of a real dugout.

They drove thru ruined villages and passed dozens of new houses and barns; they saw the cathedral at Soissons and, finally, late in the afternoon, the woods where the Armistice was signed at Rethondes. It seemed so quiet as the long shadows of the afternoon sun made the monuments look white against the dark trees. A person couldn’t think what cannon, the roar of hundreds of cannon, must have been like in such a place.

“I’m glad that’s all over, all that war business,” said Mary Jane, as they turned from the woods for the long fast drive back to Paris. “And when I’m grown up, there isn’t going to be any war—not if I can help it.”

And then, would you believe it, she leaned against her father’s arm and went to sleep—and slept most of the way home. It had been a big day, and even though she did miss some sights, somehow, she didn’t care a bit.

For two or three days after their trip to the battlefields, the Merrills didn’t plan any special sight-seeing. That trip and the busy days before had tired them considerably and they enjoyed doing easy, near-by things for a while. That didn’t mean that they slept and loafed, indeed, no. They went to the Louvre each morning for an hour and already Alice and Mary Jane were discovering how to find their favorite pictures and statues. They took a walk to some special point and they ate both luncheon and dinner in a different restaurant so that they could learn to know a good many different kinds of food and service. But the all day trips, no matter how interesting, could wait till the next week.

Each morning when she came down the first time, Mary Jane asked for mail. She didn’t really expect a letter (though a person never could quite tell), but she did like to see the boy at the desk hunt for one. He picked up the stack of mail—sometimes two or three handfuls—and fumbled through it hastily. Then, each time, he tossed the whole lot over to her saying, carelessly, “I don’t see any but maybe you do.” So she looked thru, letter by letter, and then gave the piles back. Careless as this seemed, compared with what the Merrills were used to thinking was good care of mail, it’s only fair to say that so far as they ever heard, no letter was ever lost, so maybe it was a good enough way after all.

But the third morning, there was a letter. Mary Jane almost passed it by, she so little expected to see one. On second look, there was her name, “Mary Jane Merrill,” on an envelope marked “Grand Hotel, Paris.”

“Who could be writing to me from Paris!” she exclaimed, fingering it wonderingly. “I don’t know anybody in Paris except Doris and she lives here in our hotel.”

“Why don’t you open it and see?” suggested Alice, who was looking over the post cards at the same desk.

Without waiting to get a letter opener, Mary Jane slipped her little finger under the flap and tore the envelope open. “Here we are in Paris,” she read, “and won’t you and Alice please come and have tea with us at five this afternoon at the Café de la Paix? We’ll look for you at the third table from the end. Isn’t this fun? Joan.”

“Goody! Goody! Joan and Margery are here!” cried Mary Jane, handing the note quickly to Alice so she could read it, too. “Let’s run right up and tell Mother! And we’re going to have tea at that darling sidewalk-table place we saw yesterday! Goody!”

With a hasty glance at the note, Alice followed Mary Jane up the stairs—lifts were much too slow for such a time as this—and down the hall almost on a run to their rooms where Mrs. Merrill was writing in her diary.

“Now that they are here, let’s plan to do something together,” suggested Alice when Mary Jane was done exclaiming.

“Did they say how long they intended staying here?” asked Mrs. Merrill, thoughtfully. “You know if people have limited time, they want to sight-see, not visit.”

“They’re not on a regular tour any more than we are, Mother,” said Alice. “Don’t you remember we talked about it? And Margery said they would surely stay in Paris quite a while—ten days, anyway. I guess that’s quite a while.”

“Compared with some tourists’ visits it is,” agreed Mrs. Merrill. “And we’ll be here a week or more yet. How would you like to have a party?”

“Really, Mother?” cried Mary Jane, delightedly. “A truly party in Paris? And could we have Doris, too?”

“We couldn’t think of leaving out Doris,” answered Mrs. Merrill. “And I don’t see why you shouldn’t have a truly party. Seems to me you two together ought to get up a pretty good one.”

“Where’ll we have it?” asked Alice.

“How’ll we ask them?” asked Mary Jane at the same minute.

“You’ll have to figure everything out for yourselves,” said Mrs. Merrill. “This is to be your party, remember. I’ll only give you one hint—just a hint. Remember when we were walking down the Champs Élysées, you said you wished you could stop in the park and play as the other children were doing. And that you’d like to roll hoops and see the puppet shows and——”

“Of course, Mother!” cried Alice, delightedly. “You don’t have to say another word. That’s where we’ll have the party. Mary Jane, don’t you remember?”

“Of course I do!” cried Mary Jane, “and I said I wished I could go twice,” she added mysteriously, just to show she knew what Alice was talking about. “And remember those cunning cards at the little picture shop in the first block on the Rue de Rivoli?” By this time she could rattle off that musical word as easily as tho she had been saying it all her life.

“Seems to me I do,” said Alice, doubtfully. “Why?”

“We could use those for invitations. But how would we tell them to meet us in the park? We couldn’t say the third table or the third anything because we don’t know just how it is there.”

“No, you couldn’t,” said her mother. “I’d meet some place better than the park.”

“Could we meet here and walk over to the park?” asked Alice. “Would that be too far? I can’t remember how long it took us yesterday.”

“Too long for the beginning of a party,” said Mary Jane, decidedly. “Now if we only had a car here——”

“What’s the matter with a taxi?” asked Mrs. Merrill. “Seems to me there are plenty of them, even for a party.”

“Isn’t this going to be a fine party, though!” cried Alice, gleefully. “Beginning with a taxi and ending—with food, of course. But where?”

“It must be at a sidewalk table somewhere,” said Mary Jane.

“That’s for you to decide,” reminded her mother. “Why don’t you run along and get your invitations now? Then you can write them—I’d have the party day after to-morrow, seems to me, because that gives them time to plan.”

“May we go by ourselves?” asked Mary Jane.

“That shop is only a block away,” said Mrs. Merrill, “and you know your way perfectly. If you cross the street in front of the hotel, so the doorman can watch you and guard you, I think you can manage quite well. Remember to be mannerly and quiet and you will get along beautifully, I know. Then as soon as you have made your purchases, come directly here and I shall be looking for you. Now skip along and plan a good party.”

The girls needed no second bidding. They got their hats and purses and went at once, being careful to cross the street where the obliging doorman could escort them, and then walking briskly around the corner and to the picture shop. The cards were just as pretty as Mary Jane had remembered them and they bought one apiece, with envelopes to match. Then they looked at some little glass flowers which Alice thought might be nice favors, and priced them, too, so Mother could be consulted before any were purchased.

“I wish Daddah was along so we could walk some more and look at the windows,” said Alice, as she looked down the street and thought regretfully of all the windows she was missing.

“And here I wish we were back in our rooms this minute, writing our invitations,” said Mary Jane. “How can you think of windows when there’s a party? Think how many windows you’ve seen already! Millions of windows I just know!”

Alice laughed good naturedly. She knew looking in windows was her hobby—sometimes her father called it her failing. But she liked looking so well that she didn’t mind being teased about it.

All the same, it was a good thing they went right home, for otherwise their invitations couldn’t have been sent on the morning post and it was nice to have them go then so they could be delivered before the tea that afternoon. Doris’s, of course, was to be given to the bell boy to deliver. But alas! He was nowhere to be found, so Mary Jane, not willing to wait even a minute now the card was ready, hurried along the hall on the third floor to Doris’ room and very softly—oh, so very softly, slipped the envelope under the door.

“Now when she comes up from her walk, I guess she’ll be pretty surprised,” said Mary Jane to herself, as she tiptoed away. “A party in Paris; I guess that’s something she didn’t expect.”

All the time they were walking in the Louvre that morning and while they were taking a drive before luncheon, Mary Jane kept thinking of her party.

“Shall we let them ride on whatever they like best when it comes to that part of the party?” she asked Alice, mysteriously, “or shall we choose for them?”

“I think they should choose. We’ll just buy the tickets and then they choose,” decided Alice. “You’d like that best at the merry-go-round at home.”

“Oh, Alice!” cried Mary Jane, “do be careful! Don’t say merry-go-round out loud because you might say it this afternoon and then they’d know.”

“Not I,” laughed Alice. “We don’t have to surprise ourselves. We know it’s a merry-go-round party. But you can count on me this afternoon. Mum’s the word. But we have to talk about it to plan.”

Probably it was just as well to talk about the party then, otherwise Mary Jane might have exploded by tea time, she was so thrilled. But, having talked once about it, she felt much more comfortable and all thru luncheon and the early afternoon she thought and planned till every single thing they were to eat and to do was decided.

The Wilsons were waiting for them at the third table on the walk and there was so much to talk about of the happenings since they left Bowness, in England, that they almost forgot to order. Mrs. Wilson reminded them and the grown-ups got tea, iced, at one table while the children had ices and cakes by themselves. The party invitations had been received and were accepted with much pleasure and Mary Jane had to watch carefully not to tell her plans when Joan asked where it was to be and what they would do.

“Just come at three like it says,” she replied, “and then you’ll find out.”

“Have you found a bag yet?” Alice interrupted hastily, turning to Margery. “Everyone looks for bags and there are lovely ones in the little shops.”

“I bought my doll’s gloves this morning,” said Mary Jane. “I got gray ones for Betty because her doll has a gray best dress and I bought tan for me because my doll has a brown dress and hat. And you should see them, Joan! They’re the darlingest!”

“Where did you get them?” asked Margery.

Alice was hoping she would ask that because she was keeping addresses and what’s the fun of addresses if you can’t tell them to someone? She opened her little book and Margery copied the street and number. Then they had more ices and cakes; they could have stayed without another order but the children were really hot and hungry so a second ice tasted refreshing.

“Now don’t forget, three o’clock at our hotel,” said Mary Jane, as they finally said good-by.

“And I don’t believe the hotel is all there is to it, either,” said Joan, with a wise look as the Merrills walked away. “I think there’s a surprise because Mary Jane looked awfully pleased with herself and that means a surprise—you just see!”

“Want to know what I think is the nicest thing about Paris, Mary Jane?” asked Alice as they finished their breakfast at their little window table the next morning.

Mary Jane was too full of roll and jam to answer properly but she nodded that she’d like to be told.

“It’s so clean, so spic and span clean every morning.”

“Yes,” agreed Mary Jane, swallowing hard so as to talk, “and I know how they do it ’cause I watched. They do it just like I clean the sidewalk with the hose at home—like I used to before we lived in an apartment, I mean. They push the dirt off with the water that comes from the hose in such a strong stream.”

“Now when did you learn that?” asked Alice, in surprise.

“This morning,” replied Mary Jane proudly, delighted at the chance to tell. “Something wakened me and I ran to the window and looked out and there they were cleaning the square with hoses and it looked such fun! I nearly called Daddah and asked him to let me go out there and then I thought I’d better not, so I went back to bed instead—but not till they were finished in front of our windows.”

“And was it light yet?” asked Alice.

“Oh, yes, plenty light, only hardly anyone was up, so I guess it was a long time ago from now,” said Mary Jane. “Oh, a long time, ’cause now it’s after nine.”

“Some time after,” agreed Mrs. Merrill from the door of her room, “and if we are to take the walk planned for us this morning, we’d better be on our way. Finished with breakfast?”

A glance at the empty tray and the girls’ smiling faces showed her that breakfast was over and she rang for the boy to remove the tray while the girls put on their hats.

“So it’s a walk we are taking this morning,” said Alice, a few minutes later as they met their father at the main entrance.

“Yes, but it begins with a ride,” he answered. “We’re taking this taxi here to the Pont Neuf—that means the ninth bridge if you want to know, but we’ll call it by its right name—and there we shall start our walk. That will be more fun than walking all the way. Now see where you’re going,” he added as he put them in and they started around the corner, “across the square and up the Rue de Rivoli. Now in a minute we’ll turn toward the river.”

The girls watched carefully as their cab dashed along. One might as well watch, for there was always something interesting to see, and if a person looked straight ahead, she’d be frightened at the speed and the traffic, even at that hour in the morning. They saw a market with crowds of curious looking, busy people; they saw a group of officers, some flower girls and a couple of milk carts all in the few minutes till they turned again—and there they were at the bridge where they promptly got out and dismissed the car.

The bridges in Paris are beautiful. But Mary Jane liked this one the best so far because of the view. On one side was Notre Dame—high and gray and impressive; and on the other the view down the river with all the bridges and buildings that make it interesting.

“Which shall we do first?” asked Mr. Merrill. “Shall we visit the cathedral? Or cross to the left bank for our walk?”

“Isn’t that the flower market over there?” asked Alice, nodding toward the cathedral. “Then,” she added when her father said it was, “I want to go there first because Doris says the flowers there are the most beautiful in the morning when they’re fresh.”

“That’s as good a reason as any for going there first,” approved her father and without further talk they set out. But the girls were so interested in the market, with all the lovely flowers, that they would have liked to stay there a day at least instead of seeing anything more. There were growing plants and cut flowers—every kind you can imagine and Mary Jane wished and wished that she had some at home and could plant them in her garden in the country. Some she would keep herself and some she would buy for Grandmother Hodges, for there were some of the very yellow tea roses her grandmother liked best—the very kind.

Finally she bought two yellow roses to pin to her frock and Alice bought two carnations, one white and one pink, and then reluctantly followed their father and mother to the cathedral. It seemed dim and gloomy after the sunshine of the market, but the many people coming and going, the hundreds of burning candles and lovely windows, the pictures and strange relics, were fascinating once a person’s eyes got used to the dimness and she began looking around.

“It looks old,” remarked Alice, standing at one side of the transept and looking across the center. “It looks old as old. I wonder how many years old it is.”

“You wouldn’t remember figures if I told them,” said her mother, “and they’re not really important. But remember this. A church building—not this one, but a building began to be built here as many hundreds of years ago as you are years old. And this present cathedral was finished as many hundred years ago as Mary Jane is years old. It was begun two hundred years before that. I say finished, and I mean about finished, for it never has had the spires put on the towers and probably never will. Now, you see, it is no wonder it seems old to you—it is old. One of the oldest buildings you’ve seen.”

For an hour more they wandered around the cathedral, not always staying close together, just within sight of each other. Mary Jane liked best to watch the cathedral attendants in their strange clothes going here and there, about their business; to see the people come and go, lighting candles, saying prayers, talking with the priests and she was thrilled with the sight of dignitaries in scarlet robes and white lace who arrived for a service. It’s not much wonder that she got tired wandering about the cathedral, indeed anyone would, so they went out into the sunshine, promising themselves to come back again to see more—but they never did, there was too much else to see.

Just outside the door, they all but ran into the Wilsons who were making their first visit, too, at the cathedral.

“Have you been to the book stalls?” Margery asked Alice.

“No, but we’re on our way now.”

“Oh, Mother! May Joan and I go with them while you do the cathedral?” begged Margery. “They’re such fun and we had to come away long before I had finished.”

“Oh, do please,” invited Alice. “We’re just going there and you can show us.”

Mrs. Merrill finally agreed to take the four girls across to the left bank while the others, including Mr. Merrill climbed the cathedral tower. Then they would come over and join them later. What the left bank was or why it should be so interesting Alice and Mary Jane didn’t know. But when they crossed the bridge, they soon discovered. All along the river bank, against the stone balustrade, were tiny little covered counters—cases which opened up displaying wares—books and pictures mostly.

“I’m hunting a pair of pictures for my room,” explained Margery. “I want some of those prints showing ladies with hoop skirts but I haven’t found two that match so far. Here’s hoping!” and she turned to the first case and began looking at the pictures.

The sellers were most obliging and let her take out all they had, look them over and compare them. She found one that was just to her liking, and bought it. Then she walked along from case to case, with that one in her hand, hunting another to match. Alice got so interested helping her that soon she was looking for a pair for herself and the two girls had no eyes for anything else.

Mary Jane thought she wouldn’t care for pictures, but Joan found a book with flower pictures so Mary Jane looked, too, and decided to buy a picture of an old stage coach, brightly colored, to take to her grandfather; she was just paying for it when a whistle sounded near by.

“There’s a balloon man, Joan!” she cried, “just like at home. Let’s get balloons; I love them.”

But tho she looked and looked, no balloons were to be seen. She turned back to the book stall and finished her purchase and again the whistle sounded—nearer this time.

“There it is, Joan! There’s the balloon man, I know!”

But there were no balloons.

Coming along the walk was a strange looking man, weighted down with sticks of wood, bundles of cane and string, and a pot of something tied around his neck by a string. As the girls looked at him, he pulled a whistle from his pocket and blew—just exactly as the balloon man always did in Chicago.

“Now what in the world,” began Mary Jane.

A chatter of rapid French behind her made her step aside as the woman behind her called to the whistler. From beside her stall she brought forth a broken chair and to Mary Jane’s amazement, the man stepped to the side of the walk and began working on it as calmly as tho he were in his own shop. He scraped and glued and tied the broken back; he wove in new canes and when they came back from their walk to the end of the block, he was just finishing his job and getting his pay. Then he started off again, whistling like a balloon man at home, and smiling in a friendly way at the little girls’ interest in his whistle and his chair mending.

By this time, Alice and Margery had their hands full of treasures and even Mary Jane and Joan had several pictures. It was such fun to hunt for them and most of them cost only a few cents. Mary Jane would have gladly bought them just for the fun of having the owners wait on her so politely and help her so kindly.

Very soon, Mr. Merrill and the Wilsons met them; Mary Jane was quite willing to take a cab back to the hotel so as to get her belongings home and rest herself before luncheon.

“I love to buy things,” said Alice, as they drove toward the hotel. “It isn’t hard and I wish I could do some more. In the shops, it isn’t so much fun because the people all talk English. But at the book stalls it was fun because they don’t talk English and we had to make signs.”

“If you could wait for luncheon,” suggested Mrs. Merrill, hopefully, “I’d like to take you to a little shop Mrs. Wilson told me about. It’s not two blocks from the hotel and very French, she says. I am sure you could use your sign language there. And they have hats for women and hats for girls. Wouldn’t it be fun if we could get new ones? I’m tired seeing how weather beaten they are since our Scotland trip. And she says that if we order this morning, we can have them to-morrow.”

“That would be in time for the party,” said Mary Jane.

“Sure enough it would,” replied Mrs. Merrill.

“Then let’s go,” said Mary Jane, “and after we get those, maybe we can have luncheon at my favorite sidewalk table—I’d like that.”

They found the sign language quite successful and tho they couldn’t say any French and the shoplady knew only a half dozen words of English, they managed to buy three hats, two scarfs and some hand-made underthings—all in half an hour. Mary Jane’s hat was blue and she planned to wear it with her blue silk dress the next afternoon, so the saleswoman promised it should be done in plenty of time.

“Now may we have luncheon?” asked Mary Jane, as they left the shop. “There’s the place we went to our first day,” she added, as they came to the corner, “and we could have those good appetizers I liked so well.”

“And ate so many of,” laughed Alice. “Yes, let’s go there.” And so they did.

“Do you know, Alice, I almost wish we were having our party at home, I do,” said Mary Jane the next morning as they were finishing breakfast. “That’s funny, but I do.”

“Mary Jane Merrill! You don’t!” exclaimed Alice. “The very idea of not wanting to have a party in Paris when we’ve planned——”

“Yes, I know, and it’s a lovely plan, but I can’t help wishing——”

“What do you wish now, so early in the morning?” said Mrs. Merrill.

“She wishes that the party was going to be at home, Mother,” exclaimed Alice, “imagine that!”

“I expect she has a good reason,” remarked Mrs. Merrill, “or she wouldn’t wish anything so strange. What’s the idea, dear?”

“If we had a party at home,” explained Mary Jane, “we would be rushing around baking and that’s fun. And we would be getting flowers and fixing them and that’s fun. And we would be setting the table and that’s fun. While here, there isn’t anything to do.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Mrs. Merrill. “There’s a lot to do and some of it is with flowers and some of it is for the party.”

“Is there really?” cried Mary Jane, happily. “Then I’m glad the party is here. But I did want to buy some flowers at the market—more than just two roses, you know.”

“And you shall,” replied her mother. “Your father and I were just deciding that we had left out one of the duties that every little American girl should do in Paris. And that this morning was a good time for it. We haven’t been to see the grave of the Unknown French soldier—except at a distance as we have ridden by the Arc de Triomphe. Our plan is to go to the flower market and get some flowers to take with us. Then visit the grave and walk back a way till we have had our morning exercise. After that we can buy the favors for the party and attend to anything else we think needs doing. How is that for a good plan?”

“Perfect!” said Alice, “and I do hope we can get the same kind of flowers I wanted to buy yesterday.”

After a few minutes’ brisk setting the room to rights, the girls announced that they were ready to go. They took a cab to the flower market because Mr. Merrill thought they had better save their energy for walking in a different section, so they arrived at the market very quickly and were delighted to find the flowers every bit as lovely as the ones they had admired the day before. Alice selected a bunch of tea roses, lovely shades of yellow and orange, and Mary Jane chose a bunch of lilies and pink roses that were as fresh and beautiful as tho just picked in some charming garden.

“Now then,” said Mr. Merrill, “let’s get over to the street where we can call a taxi, for if we stay here longer, you girls will be tempted to buy more than you can carry or pay for—I know all about you and flowers.” He hailed a passing automobile and quickly they were on their way west toward the Arc de Triomphe.

As they passed thru the Place de la Concorde, Mary Jane noticed the Egyptian obelisk for the first time. When they drove by there the first morning, she had been too busy talking to Doris to observe it. Anyway, in Paris there is so much to see—often so much right in the same square—that a person is always noticing something new; that’s half the fun.

“There’s an obelisk just like the one on the Embankment in London,” she exclaimed when she spied it. “However did we miss it before?”

“You were so glad to see Doris you didn’t listen to the guide, I suspect,” said Mrs. Merrill. “But the history of this place is as exciting as a movie, so look at it carefully and next winter we shall read about it. This is where many great events occurred. The famous guillotine stood about there—it was moved occasionally, but was always in this square—and nearly twenty-eight hundred people were killed on it. On this square, too, Napoleon reviewed his armies and many gay and beautiful celebrations were held. That obelisk stands where once stood a statue of King Louis XV.”

“There’s one just like it in Central Park, too,” remarked Alice.

“Yes, there is,” said Mr. Merrill. “New York, London and Paris each has its obelisk and all are much the same. Of course, they were brought from Egypt. But the other statues around here are all French. When you study your French history in high school, you will find that this square was a very important spot and you’ll often remember it, I know.”

All this time, they were not standing still, looking at statues, indeed, no! They were dashing along at such a speed that the Place de la Concorde was well behind before they had finished talking about it. They drove to the north side of the great circle in the center of which stands the Arc de Triomphe. There the taxi was dismissed and they walked to the arch. The sides were covered with lovely carvings, but the girls decided to go straight to the center and leave their flowers before they looked around. They did not need anyone to show them where to go, for many people were there and a great mound of flowers showed that other patriots had been among the visitors.

Under the huge arch was a carved slab of stone marked, “Un Soldat Francais,” and just east of that stone was a bronze circle in the center of which burned a flame called the Eternal Flame because it burns continuously. Alice and Mary Jane laid their flowers by the many already there, then they stood aside to let others read the inscriptions and place flowers. It seemed amazing that so long after the war there should be so many flowers and people there on an every day morning like this.

The great arch towered above them, grandly.

“It’s bigger than the railroad station at home,” said Mary Jane, trying to think of the biggest place she had ever been in.

“It’s like a cathedral out of doors,” said Alice. “Now I want to see the carvings and walk all around. We don’t have to hurry, do we, Daddah?”

There was no need for haste, so they spent the next hour examining the carvings, watching the people and enjoying the sights around the arch. By that time, they were tired of looking and were ready for another ride, and Alice declared she had learned more about French history from the stone carvings than she ever had known before—which was probably true.

After a drive around the Eiffel Tower, they went back to the hotel before luncheon and as they turned into the Rue de Rivoli, there was a grinding of brakes and their automobile stopped with the suddenness that sent the girls sprawling off the seats.

Their driver jumped down; Mr. Merrill got out, officers arrived in haste and a great crowd collected.

“Were we going too fast, Mother?” whispered Mary Jane, anxiously. “Shall we be arrested?”

“We were going too fast because we always do,” replied Mrs. Merrill. “But we weren’t going any faster than other times. We seem to have struck a man, but whether we shall be arrested, I haven’t an idea. We shall have to wait and see.”

The two girls listened anxiously, but tho everyone around them talked at once, they couldn’t tell a word of what was being said, and the whole scene seemed like a play. Soon the crowd began to drift away. Mr. Merrill got into the car, the driver climbed back to his seat and the man they had run into, very dusty but apparently not really hurt, walked away with the officers.

“That’s a funny thing,” said Mr. Merrill, as they drove off. “They are arresting the man we ran into for being in the way of an automobile.”

“But we are the ones who were going too fast,” exclaimed Alice.

“Oh, to be sure,” laughed her father. “But they figure the other way about here, it seems. The streets are for automobiles, they say; so pedestrians should keep out of the way. Better remember that, girls, when you cross a street. Watch for the traffic, for it has the right of way.”

“Oh, have him stop here,” cried Alice suddenly. “We’ve never got our flower favors and here’s the glass flower shop! Quickly, Daddah! We’re passing it.”

The taxi stopped so suddenly that the girls were nearly thrown again and were glad indeed to be out and walking on their own two feet once more. They crossed over to the shop, which fortunately Alice had correctly remembered and showed Mrs. Merrill the tiny bouquets of glass flowers they had so admired. She agreed that they would be charming favors, so one was purchased for the two hostesses and for each guest, with an extra one to take home to Betty because she was back in the States and couldn’t come to the party. Then Mrs. Merrill bought some long stemmed glass flowers to take home and Mary Jane bought two postal cards that she hadn’t seen before.

On the way back to the hotel, they stopped for luncheon at their favorite little restaurant. It was now two o’clock, high time they were back for a little rest, a tub and dressing for the party at three.

“Do you expect they’ll come right at three?” wondered Mary Jane as she buttoned her pumps. “I’m all ready but my bag and handkerchief and it’s five minutes yet till three.”

“I think you and Alice had better go down to the lobby,” suggested Mrs. Merrill. “You know we said three and at the front entrance, so I think you should be there then.”

“I thought that maybe they’d come up here and look at my postal cards,” suggested Mary Jane.

“Then they’d have to look at my pictures and we’d never get started to the party.” objected Alice. “Let’s have this just party and ask them to come again to see our things,” and Mary Jane, after a thoughtful moment, decided that was best. So she got her handkerchief and bag and set off down the hall with Alice close behind.

Doris was on the lift when it stopped at their floor, and Margery and Joan came five minutes later, so the party did arrive promptly as expected. Mr. Merrill had ordered a large car, so they could all go together and by quarter past three they were at the gardens on the Champs Élysées.

“Isn’t this fun!” cried Joan, gayly, as she saw where the party was to be. “We’ve been wanting to come here every day—and now we’re here.”

“And we’re going to ride all the merry-go-rounds and see all the puppet shows and everything,” said Mary Jane, with reckless hospitality.

“Well, if not all, at least most of them,” laughed Alice, “so take your choice. Which one will you ride first?”

If you have seen the gardens, as the children saw them then, you realize how hard it was to decide which to enjoy first. Under the great chestnut trees, there were scores of children playing, attended by nurses dressed in the native costumes of the provinces and looking more like actors in plays than like nurses. There were several little puppet shows with audiences of laughing children to show how popular they were. There were merry-go-rounds (called carrousels, by the French) and there were older children playing with hoops and having great fun. No wonder little girls from the States hardly knew where to begin.

Finally they decided to see a Punch and Judy show; then they went on the merry-go-round with the gay red animals carved so queerly; then they saw another puppet show and by that time they wanted to roll hoops. So Mr. Merrill bought each girl a hoop. Mary Jane’s was red, Joan’s blue, Doris’s orange, Margery’s black with gold circles and Alice’s green; and they had a hoop race under the trees. Joan came in first, with Alice who had given her two steps’ start, a close second.

By that time, they were all hungry and breathless, so the invitation to ices at one of the open air restaurants close by was very pleasing. Mrs. Merrill had gone ahead and given the order, so they were served at once and what do you suppose they had to eat? Raspberry ice (one can’t get ice cream just like ours in Paris; ice is the nearest and is awfully good) and little French pastries. These were in the shape of swans and were filled with wild strawberries. The children thought they had never eaten anything so delicious and they each had two and some little French cakes which were passed them. The bouquets of glass flowers were laid by each place and Mary Jane showed her guests how to fasten them onto their frocks with tiny little clasps.

“I almost like eating better than playing hoops or seeing the little shows,” remarked Doris, as she finished her second dish of ice and wondered if she could possibly eat more.

“I do too,” agreed Mary Jane, “but I don’t think I can eat any more—not right now.”

“That’s too bad,” said Joan, regretfully, “but I can’t either.”

“Then let’s see that show over there,” suggested Alice. “I’ve been watching the children and they think it’s awfully funny.”

So one more puppet show was visited and then the party was over.

“That was the best party I ever heard of,” said Margery, appreciatively, as they reached their own hotel, “and I’m going right up stairs to write it all in my diary so I won’t forget one single thing.”

“I’m going to, too,” said Alice.

“I can remember it all in my head without a diary,” said Mary Jane. “Only I wish we could do it all over again, I do.” And you don’t wonder, do you? For it was fun.

It would be fine if we could go with Mary Jane every place she went in her interesting days in Paris. But dear me! There wouldn’t be room between the covers of one book to hold it all! The boat ride on the Seine, the ride and walk on Montmartre and in the amazing Sacré-Cœur; the visit to the Garden of Plants and the aquarium near the Eiffel Tower, and the Cluney Museum so full of lovely relics of carvings and pictures that pleased the two girls so well they wanted to go a second time to see more. The ride on the boulevards at night, thrilling and beautiful because the streets were gay and brightly lighted and the walks in parks and historic places—it all was delightful and made them feel so at home and interested that the days slipped by, faster than any yet since they left Chicago.

One evening as they were finishing dinner at their favorite dining place, the Restaurant Alice on the Rue Roche, the one Mrs. Dana had introduced them to their second day in Paris, Mr. Merrill remarked, “I suppose we shall have about two more days in Paris.”

Mary Jane stared at him in amazement.

“The very idea, Daddah! We haven’t seen half of it yet. There’s more that we haven’t seen than I knew there was to see—at the beginning. We can’t go in two days; we just can’t.”

“You’re quite right, Pussy, when you say that there is more to see than we knew there was,” he replied laughing. “I can say the same. But I am beginning to think that the longer we stay, the better we will like it, and the more there will be to see. You didn’t have any idea that we could see all of Paris, did you, on the same trip when we see England and Scotland and France and Switzerland and Italy? That idea is a joke. All we are hoping this trip is to see something. Then, when you are older and have studied history and know more what to look for, we’ll come again and stay longer.”

“Yes, to be sure,” agreed Mrs. Merrill, “and I know it’s foolish to try to see too much. But all the same, I think Mary Jane is right when she says we can’t go in two days. Can’t we make it four? And change our trip to southern France to the end, stopping there on our way home from Italy? We’re so nicely settled here now and there’s so much to see——”

“That sounds like a good idea, and I’ll see what I can figure out with the travel bureau. But in the meantime, what shall we do tomorrow?”

“I want to see Versailles,” said Alice. “Margery has been there and she says it’s so beautiful, and I’ve been reading about Marie Antoinette in that book I bought to take home, and I want to see her rooms and where she lived and was queen.”

“I want to go there, too,” said Mary Jane, “’cause Joan says it’s lovely.”

“Then we’ll go in the morning,” said Mr. Merrill. “That means an all day trip, so it’s early to bed for two young ladies of my acquaintance.”

“Indeed, it is,” said Mrs. Merrill, gathering up her bag and book. “We’ll walk home along the Avenue because it’s such a lovely evening, but no window shopping and no staying up to watch the sights from our rooms after we get home—not tonight.”

Of course, Alice and Mary Jane were quite willing to give up two of the favorite amusements for one evening because of the treat to come, so very early they were sound asleep, which was a fortunate thing as they had to leave the hotel a little after nine the next morning.

There were several ways of going to Versailles, Mr. Merrill found. They might go by a sight-seeing motor, with a guide; that would have some advantages but a crowd of people would be with them all day and the Merrills had seen enough of sight-seers to know that they could be a real bother sometimes. They might go by the under-ground, but then they would miss the sight of the suburbs of Paris. They might go by steam tram or by railroad and after carefully inquiring, he decided they would go out by railroad which would take them about half an hour, and leave them a whole free day with lots of time before the hordes of usual sight-seers arrived. Coming home, they would choose whatever route seemed best then.

When they arrived at Versailles the next morning after the train ride and walk to the main entrance, Mary Jane’s first feeling was of great disappointment. Of course, this building of stone was big and handsome; there were lots of statues and carvings—but a person could see such anywhere in Paris and as for looking like a queen’s palace—it didn’t, not at all. They went inside, without much talk, up a stairway, off to the right, down thru some rooms, she didn’t know how many because she simply followed along, and then she happened to look out of the window and see the gardens. Miles of gardens—or so it seemed. Great beds of purple bloom; beds of scarlet bloom, hedges clipped to perfection, trees and fountains and flower beds everywhere as far as she could see.

“Isn’t it lovely, Mother!” she exclaimed, gleefully. “This is just the kind of place a queen should live—it’s a regular fairy story palace.” She stayed at the window for many minutes while the others looked at souvenirs and paintings and every minute she liked it better.

“Why did they have the back side front?” she asked when her father came to get her. “This side looks so much more palace-like than where we came in, yet that was the main door.”

“Don’t you remember you thought that about the Louvre, too?” her father reminded her. “We in the States put our gardens in front—we’re beginning to change but mostly we build that way. The French had very simple, dignified entrances and then the gardens and lawns at the back for privacy. Remember the Tuileries Gardens that are seen from the Louvre while the front is so stiff and straight? This is built in the same general fashion with terraces and lawns and gardens at the back. Now suppose we go out of doors for a while and see the setting, and then come back for more of the interior. You’ll enjoy it more that way, I know.”

So they went out to wander in the gardens, and Mary Jane and Alice were kept busy exclaiming at the flowers, trying to decide what the names were, looking at the statues of which there seemed to be hundreds, and climbing up and down the great flight of steps from one terrace to the next. Mary Jane had always loved stairways, you remember, the bigger they were, the better she liked them, and she would have been perfectly happy to stay at Versailles all day enjoying the great stone steps.

So they went out to wander in the gardens.

“You really should come inside again, tho, Mary Jane,” her mother persuaded her, “for I’m sure there is a stairway inside that’s quite the grandest you’ve ever seen.” And sure enough, there was. And Mary Jane went up it twice and thought that was much more fun than seeing paintings.

“You just wait now till I find what I want to see,” said Alice when Mary Jane reached the top the second time. “There’s a room here—Margery told me about it——”

“I know what you want,” said Mr. Merrill. “You want to see the Hall of Mirrors—come with me and see.” He led them along a corridor as the guide directed and thru gilded doors into what Mary Jane thought at first was the most beautiful room she had ever seen. She could only exclaim, “It’s where Cinderella went to the Ball!” as she looked and looked.

The walls were all gold and mirrors—nothing else, except of course the windows, but so much sunshine came in thru them that they seemed golden, too. The floor was so polished it shone and the ceilings glittered with gold and crystal. It was a perfect place for a queen and a ball and Mary Jane had to walk tiptoe and touch a bit of wall with the tip of her finger to make sure it was real—that she wasn’t dreaming it. A person’s dream of a palace was just like that, she knew, because she had dreamed palaces for fairy stories, and with her eyes open or shut she couldn’t have imagined a more beautiful place than this.

There wasn’t any furniture in it. The guide told them it had all been taken away many, many years ago but a person like Mary Jane could quite easily fancy the golden chairs, heavy rugs, and all the lovely things that once were there. She hardly knew whether to stay right there, imagining, to look out of the windows at the garden, or walk around, but Mr. Merrill suggested they walk down the length of the room and see other parts of the palace. There was the gallery of Battles—a great, beautiful hall with battle scenes painted on the walls. The girls loved those and looked till they had twisted necks, trying to see them all.

There were the private rooms of the king and queen, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, with some of their furniture just as it was when they lived there. When they heard about the wardrobes full of gowns, the many ladies in waiting, and the court balls, Mary Jane and Alice thought it was a pity they couldn’t have been there then. But when they saw the beds overhung with heavy draperies, the tiny tubs to which water was carried, the little open stove that was supposed to heat a great room on a cold, damp morning and heard about the crowds of people that threatened the life of the king and queen, they decided that they were just as glad to live when and where they did, thank you kindly just the same. Probably the palace was much more fun to see, taking all things into consideration, than to live in during those historic times.

But one gets tired looking at palaces, even such beautiful golden palaces, and by noon there were crowds around, as this was a day when the fountains were to play, so Mr. Merrill suggested that they stop looking, go out to the garden of colonnades and have a little rest before luncheon. Away from the palace, this little garden seemed quite sheltered and private, and it was fun to sit on the stone benches and see the curious monuments and pretend you were a princess coming out for a morning’s play.

“Did the children really come out here and sit?” Mary Jane asked.

“I don’t imagine they sat so much as played,” laughed her mother. “What would you suppose they would play in such a place?”

“Hide and seek,” replied Mary Jane promptly. “Think of all the places behind statues and pillars. I believe there are more statues here than in the Tuileries Gardens, I really do, Mother. I know I can hide where you’d never find me, Alice.”

“I’ll bet you can’t,” laughed Alice. “Try and see. I’ll shut my eyes and count ten—slowly.”

When she opened them, Mary Jane had disappeared. Alice looked behind the near-by statues, she looked behind the pillars—and she was perfectly sure that Mary Jane couldn’t have gone far in so short a time. But she couldn’t find her. After a five-minute hunt she had to call, “Give up, Mary Jane, where are you?” And there was Mary Jane way across on the other side of the garden.

“But you never got so far while I counted ten!” exclaimed Alice.

“No, I didn’t,” laughed Mary Jane. “I ran to the edge of the colonnade. Then I bent down and ran behind them while you were looking for me. I ran till I got clear over here, then I sat down and rested. Didn’t I tell you it was a good garden for hide and seek? I wish we had Betty and Ed and all the others from Chicago here! We’d have fun, wouldn’t we?”

“We would indeed,” said Mr. Merrill, “but think how many we’d have to feed and I for one am thinking about luncheon. What time does your watch say, Mary Jane?”

Mary Jane looked—but her watch was gone. Watch, ribbon and all. It simply wasn’t there and she hadn’t missed it and had no idea when she had lost it.

Suddenly she realized that the sun was very hot, and she was very tired and that Versailles was an awfully big place and that she was going to have to try very hard not to cry, very hard indeed.

“Never mind, Mary Jane,” said Alice, comfortingly. “I’ll help you hunt and we’ll find your watch, just you see! I know we shall!” So Mary Jane swallowed the lump in her throat without ever letting anyone know that it had been there, and they set to work. They hunted around statues—dozens of statues. They walked over lawns, looking carefully as they went. They climbed stone stairways and wandered over, terraces. But when a little girl has no idea when or where a watch was lost, hunting it in Versailles is a pretty hopeless business. Small wonder that they finally gave up and went to luncheon without it.

Of course, Mary Jane was disappointed, but she bravely tried not to let her loss spoil their good time. And, to tell the truth, after a good meal and her father’s promise to get her another watch in Switzerland (which would be lovely to have even tho not quite as nice as her own dear watch that was lost), she felt much better and they decided to forget about the watch and go on with their exploring and sight-seeing.

As they had already walked so far and climbed so many stairs Mr. Merrill engaged a quaint little carriage to drive them to the Trianon, the Petit Trianon and the carriage house, called the “Musée de Voitures” where are kept the state carriages of that long ago time of kings. Mary Jane liked the gardens but the Trianon and Petit Trianon did not interest her much, perhaps because she was thinking all the while about her lost watch. But the carriages were thrilling. There was one, all gold and crimson, that looked just like the Cinderella coach she had always imagined. Indeed, by half shutting her eyes she could fancy the fairy godmother over in the corner, the prince and Cinderella, it was so royal and so perfect. She would have liked to climb inside and sit down on the broad cushioned seats to do her pretending, but of course one couldn’t even touch them as the carriages were behind ropes to keep people away. But seeing them was fun.

“I never knew anything could go together so well,” she remarked as they went out of doors, “such big palaces, and big carriages and great gardens and fountains—everything is so big and grand.”

“That was what the French court was,” said Mrs. Merrill. “Louis had to make it impressive to keep his place as king.”

“But didn’t he ever get tired of it?” asked Alice, who was getting weary herself, just looking at it.

“Yes, and that is why he had these little palaces!” explained her mother. “The king and queen came here to be quiet and they had the little chalet we are going to see now, as a place for playing at simple living. They thought it great fun.”

They drove next to the little Swiss chalet set in the woods by a mill, where the court ladies and gentlemen kept house, made cheeses, or pretended to, and had frolics. It was amusing to see the small rooms, and homely utensils and to think that the grand ladies and gentlemen had that kind of fun—with the great palace just the other side of the woods.

As the Merrills were coming out of the front entrance of the chalet, a party of sight-seers arrived and two ladies looked so hard at Mary Jane that their stares were almost annoying. Then they began whispering and Mary Jane heard one say, “Well, I think it’s she.” “Then why don’t you speak to her?” asked the other.

Mrs. Merrill heard them, too, and she looked a bit embarrassed and stepped over to Mary Jane, thinking the ladies were mistaking her for someone else. But just then the first lady spoke up.

“Aren’t you the little girl who was playing hide and seek in the garden of colonnades before luncheon?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m one of them,” replied Mary Jane, much surprised, “but I didn’t see you.”

“No, because we came just as you left,” said the lady. “But I was sure it was you because I remembered your brown hat. Did you have any—er—a—accident there?”

Mary Jane thought that was a very funny question. “Of course I didn’t have any accident; I haven’t had any accident all day.” Then she remembered. “But I did lose my watch somewhere—tho that isn’t an accident, not really.”

“What sort of a watch was it?” asked the lady.

“Gold, with my initials, M J M on the back and a black ribbon,” replied Mary Jane.

“Then this is it,” said the lady and after fumbling a bit in her hand bag she handed Mary Jane—yes, it was—her own watch. “We found it behind the colonnade but by that time you were out of sight and we hadn’t noticed which way you went, so we could only bring it along and hope we’d meet you this afternoon.”

Mary Jane was so thrilled that she threw her arms around the lady and hugged her tightly. Then she tucked the watch away in her bag. The ribbon was torn and she wouldn’t risk wearing it again till she had sewed on a new one.

After both her father and mother had also thanked the lady for her kindness, Mary Jane skipped back to the carriage feeling suddenly very rested and gay.

“Now, what more is there to see?” she asked, happily, “I’m not tired a bit.”

“We’ve almost forgotten the fountains!” exclaimed Mrs. Merrill, “and it’s just time for them to begin!” They hurried to their little carriage and were driven around to the park where the grand fountains were even then shooting great streams of water into the air.

The girls exclaimed gleefully at the marvelous sight and, getting out of the carriage, ran to where they could have a fine view. But it didn’t last long, and as soon as it was over the crowd melted away and the Merrills bethought themselves of the return to Paris.

“Let’s drive to the entrance where we arrived and see if we can get an automobile to drive us to Paris,” said Mr. Merrill. “There’s a place I’ve heard of for tea—by the bridge at Suresnes. We could stop there on the way and still get home in time for dinner.”

That plan worked out beautifully. The drive home was very gay and interesting and tea at Suresnes, in the open air, so near the bridge that they could see all the smart cars going to and from Paris, was fun and they got back to the hotel with plenty of time for tubs before dinner.

“Do you know,” remarked Mrs. Merrill, as they finished lobster and grilled tomatoes and were wondering what to order next, “I almost wish we had planned to go to the opera this evening. Aïda is being sung, only I didn’t notice in time to plan properly. The girls would love it and they ought to go once at least.”

“Oh, Mother! May we go!” cried Alice. “We’re not tired a bit! And we’d behave so well!”

“And we could sleep late in the morning,” added Mary Jane, trying to think what might best make up for midnight hours.

“Suppose I step across to the hotel and see if I can get seats,” suggested Mr. Merrill. “I like the idea, but there is no use getting our hopes up if there are no tickets to be had.”

“And we’ll order the salad while you’re gone,” suggested Mary Jane.

“Well, yes, salad,” agreed Mr. Merrill, “but if we can go, we’d better not have dessert. We can eat after the opera instead and we won’t have much time now.”

So while the salad was being ordered and brought, a delicious salad of cress and fruit, Mr. Merrill did his errand, reporting on his return that four tickets in a box were turned in just as he made his inquiry and he had purchased them at once.

“Aren’t we lucky, tho,” said Alice, delightedly, “four tickets in a box, Daddah, just picture us! Let’s not eat any more. We mustn’t miss anything, not a thing!”

Even Mary Jane was more interested in opera than food—perhaps because she had already eaten plenty of lobster—so they made quick work of the excellent salad and hurried to the hotel to change to light frocks and to get evening wraps. It was warm then, but by late evening the cold wind would make wraps needed. Then they called a taxi and departed in state down the Avenue.

Of course, it was still daylight when they reached the Opera House and it was very exciting to see the throngs of gayly dressed people ascending the broad stone steps. Mary Jane had never been to an opera before. Alice had been several times in Chicago but had always gone to matinée performances, so for both girls it was their first evening program and they felt very grown up and important—just as you would yourself.

Many people checked their wraps as Mr. Merrill did, but Mrs. Merrill chose to keep her embroidered shawl with her and to have the girls keep their wraps, too. This didn’t please the woman who expected to check them at all—probably she thought by frowning she would persuade them to change their minds. She followed them in, chattering away glibly, but in vain. Then Mr. Merrill bought four programs from another woman—an old, feeble looking person who seemed very shabby in such a place.

“Isn’t it funny the way they do it here?” said Alice as they went in. “At the opera in Chicago, no one urged us to check wraps and the programs were given away.”

“Here it’s a part of a tipping system, in a way, I fancy,” said Mr. Merrill. “These poor people seem to do these little jobs of checking and selling for a living. But here we go to our box.”

But a box there, as they soon discovered, was quite different from a box at home. The sides were so high that one couldn’t see over; could only look ahead to the stage. And the seats, instead of being chairs that could be placed as you please, were one behind the other, one, two, three, with the fourth one opposite the last. Two other people already in the box were seated opposite the Merrills’ one and two. After some hesitation, Mary Jane was given the front seat, her mother directly behind her and Alice behind her with Mr. Merrill beside Alice. Then they agreed that after each act, Alice and Mary Jane should change places so that each could see what the other seat was like and each could have a fair share of the best one. Alice didn’t know whether to be disappointed or amused at the seating arrangement, so different from what she expected. But the curtain went up before she decided and after the music began, she didn’t think about seats, she was so thrilled with the color and acting and sound of Aïda, which was beautifully sung and was staged with brilliant pageantry.

Between acts, they went out to walk in the beautiful lobbies. Mary Jane thought the gayly dressed people walking up and down those handsome stairways were as much fun as the opera itself and much more interesting. She went down three flights of stairs and up again but, considering how many steps she had climbed at Versailles that day, it’s not much wonder that she found three flights enough, or that she got very sleepy during the last act.

“Did you say anything about dessert, Daddah,” she asked, sleepily, as they drove home along the gayly lighted Avenue.

“Indeed he did,” said Alice quickly, lest her father might have forgotten. “He said we should have dessert after the opera.”

“But you’re sleepy,” objected Mr. Merrill.

“Not too sleepy to eat,” said Mary Jane quickly. And just to show she could she sat up straightly and held her eyes wide, very wide open.

“What would you think of chicken sandwiches in your room instead of something down in the dining room? We could order them while you undressed,” he added as he saw Mary Jane hesitate, “and then as soon as you ate them—there you’d be, all ready to go to sleep without a bit more trouble.”

“Sounds good to me,” agreed Mary Jane, happily. “Only I hope they won’t take long to make them.”

For a wonder, it didn’t. By the time Mary Jane was undressed, a knock on her mother’s door announced the arrival of their order. She sat in her bed and Alice in hers and together they ate their midnight feast with lemonade and pastries for trimmings.

“This is the most fun we’ve had yet,” said Mary Jane, happily, as she ate the last bite. “Let’s do it again before we go home.” And her father promised that they would. Mary Jane went to sleep so quickly that she didn’t dream a single dream about kings or palaces as she had intended to, but she did get nicely rested for the fun she would have the next day.

“Is your shopping finished, Mary Jane?” asked Alice.

“Finished!” exclaimed Mary Jane in surprise, “my, no! It’s only begun!”

“So’s mine,” said Alice. “And yet two days from now we shall be on our way to Switzerland. Daddah says so. I think we had better decide right this minute what we want to buy.”

It was the morning after they went to the opera—pretty late in the morning, too, as was natural enough under the circumstances. The girls had slept late and had finished their breakfast when Alice happened to think about the shopping.

“Mother said that we shouldn’t go out before noon, ’cause we might get too tired,” Alice went on, “so I think I’ll get out all the things I’ve bought so far, and then see what’s to be done.”

“I’ll do that, too,” said Mary Jane, happily. She liked to look at her purchases and to spread them all out would be great fun. Without waiting for the maid to do the rooms, for she was usually late, the girls helped each other make the beds. Then each laid her own purchases on her own bed—spreading them out to look as nice as possible. Alice had some pretty handkerchiefs, one for her teacher, some for girls in her room at school; the pictures she had purchased on the left bank, a pair of slipper buckles, and several other small articles. Mary Jane had two pairs of doll’s gloves, her pile of post cards, so carefully selected, some pictures, two purses, a scarf for Grandmother Hodges and a few novelties from the glass flower shop around the corner. They looked very pretty—but not half as many or as imposing as she had thought they would seem.

“We haven’t any bags,” said Alice, looking over their belongings.

“And I haven’t any buckles,” added Mary Jane.

“I haven’t a thing for Grandmother Hodges,” remarked Alice.

“And I haven’t anything for Grandfather,” said Mary Jane.

“What we need is a list, Mary Jane,” said Alice, suddenly. “I’m surprised at us that we didn’t make one before. Let’s each make a list of all the things we want to buy in Europe——”

“But I don’t know all I want to buy,” objected Mary Jane.

“Silly!” laughed Alice, “I don’t either. I mean a list of as much as we do know. Then we’ll ask Mother what we ought to look for here and what should be left for the other cities we’ll visit. I think she’ll know because she’s been talking to Mrs. Wilson and she knows, I’m sure.”

They got their notebooks and made the list then and there. Mary Jane wanted perfume, a gift for her grandfather and six gifts for friends; and corals and two dresses and a leather book for her cards and a purse and—there’s no telling what more would have got written down on that list, had not Mrs. Merrill arrived just then to see if they were dressed. She admired the display on the beds, looked at their lists, advised waiting to get the corals in Switzerland and the leather in Italy and then suggested lunch.

“Really, Mother?” exclaimed Mary Jane, “we’ve just had breakfast.”

“Nearly two hours ago. And I’ve found a darling place where you can get omelet and sweet rolls and peaches—delicious ones. I told them to expect us in half an hour. Of course, if you don’t want to go——”

“Oh, but we do,” exclaimed Mary Jane, gathering up her purchases and thrusting them hastily into her drawer.

“And then I’ve found a place where we can get just the dresses you want and I have selected two for each of you—you are to see and approve them before they are ordered. But we have to get there promptly.”

“Goody! Goody! Then I’ll have a Paris dress,” exclaimed Alice.

“And then,” continued Mrs. Merrill, “I’ve found where you can get beautiful bags——”

But by then the two girls were flying around, getting into their street frocks, putting lists into purses, counting out money to take along and getting ready for this shopping trip that sounded so promising.

The luncheon was delicious and the dresses were perfect, and an order was given for two for Alice, dark blue and orchid, and two for Mary Jane, one pink and the other brown, and they were promised to be ready for delivery by the time the Merrills returned from Italy, in August. Then hats and gloves to match were selected and a coat to match each dark frock.

“There now!” said Mrs. Merrill, “that’s done and well done, too, I think. What is next on your lists?”

“Aren’t you going to get any dresses, Mother?” asked Mary Jane.

“I have mine ordered. Thank you, dear, for thinking of it, tho. Daddah and I went out this morning, while you two were sound asleep and we made selections from the clothes I had seen with Mrs. Dana. Just wait till you see them!”

“Won’t we all be grand, tho, Mother,” cried Alice, gleefully.

“But I have to find a bag to match my new dress,” Mary Jane reminded them.

“The bag shop is way down, on the Rue de Rivoli,” said Mrs. Merrill. “Let’s take a cab to save time. We’ve an hour left till we are to meet your father, but we’ve lots yet to do.”

The bag shop proved to be full of lovely things from which to choose. There were big bags and little bags, sparkly ones and dull, light and dark—the girls thought they never, never had seen so many bags—and they liked them all. In one corner of the case, Mary Jane spied a bag she liked the best of any. It had bronze beads—just the right color to go with her new brown dress, and rows of quaint roses went round and round. “If I can afford it, that’s the bag I’m going to get,” she said to herself. Then, growing bolder, she said to a saleswoman, “Please show me that one!”

The saleswoman spoke excellent English and could have understood as well as not. But just as Mary Jane spoke a customer who had been handling many of the lovely bags and talking loudly about what she liked and didn’t like, saw that very bag.

“Give me that!” she said, glaring at Mary Jane as the girl who was waiting on her took the bag from the case. Without so much as a look at all the fine bags she had been seeing, the woman took the little bag Mary Jane wanted, paid for it and left—just that suddenly. It almost seemed that she couldn’t make up her mind what she did want till she saw that Mary Jane wanted it, too.

Just as she left the store, Alice and Mrs. Merrill, who had been looking at buckles in another case, came over to Mary Jane and they were amazed to see tears of disappointment in her eyes.

“Why, Mary Jane,” cried Mrs. Merrill, softly, “what is the matter, dear?”

Mary Jane gulped and tried to explain—all the while feeling rather ashamed of herself for caring so much about a bag she had just seen. The shopkeeper herself hurried over to see what was wrong and the girl who had waited on the impatient woman explained about the purchase. For a minute it was hard for Mary Jane to explain what was the matter, but fortunately Mrs. Merrill and the shopkeeper seemed to understand.

“Never mind about the bag, dear,” said Mrs. Merrill, “We’ll find another one just as good, I’m sure.”

“But the little lady shall mind about the bag,” said the shopkeeper. “The little lady has the taste to know what she wanted. It shall be hers. Now, Lucile,” she turned to her assistant, “you are to tell me just what it was. Bronze, yes, to go with the little lady’s brown frock. Indeed, yes, she shall have it. Roses—to go with her cheeks, maybe so?” She smiled at Mary Jane so understandingly that Mary Jane knew something pleasant was coming.

“Can you give me two days, Madame?” she asked Mrs. Merrill, “two days, maybe three? Then we shall have the bag for the little lady. The very bag. Exact. I promise you.”

Mrs. Merrill explained that they were leaving Paris in less than two days. The kind shopkeeper shook her head sadly.

“But less than two days—all the roses—we cannot get it sooner, Madame!” she said.

“But we shall return in August, the very last of August,” continued Mrs. Merrill, “perhaps you could have it then?”

“Oui! Easily by then,” said the shopkeeper, much relieved. “We could have ten bags by then if little lady wanted them.”

“I’d like them, but I couldn’t buy so many,” said Mary Jane, delighted with all this interest. “I want just the one with the roses.”

“And you shall have it, count on me,” said the French woman. “And come to see me again and maybe you will find something more.” Mrs. Merrill left her name and hotel address while Alice bought buckles for Frances and they promised to buy more when they came back next time.

“Wasn’t she kind, Mother?” said Mary Jane, happily, as they went outside and hailed a taxi to take them to Mr. Merrill. “And wasn’t it fun having one made for me? I’m really glad that rude woman bought the other one, because then we got better acquainted and got one made to order for me.”

Mr. Merrill had planned that their last whole day before going to Switzerland should be spent doing some special treat. So, after much talking it over the girls had decided that they would rather go to Fontainebleau. Before they came to France, they hadn’t known much about Fontainebleau, but they heard so many references to it as they learned more about Napoleon and Josephine; and Margery and Joan told them it was something they shouldn’t miss. Then, many of their favorite pictures in the Louvre were painted in the forest near Fontainebleau and they decided they must see it for themselves.

The trip was to be made in a small and comfortable sight-seeing car. Not a great char-à-banc, but a car that seated fourteen persons in comfortable chairs and would give them a fine view of the forest. And as they were to start early, all their purchases of the day before were packed away in the trunk that night.

Mary Jane and Alice had front seats, right next the driver, so as the car went thru the southern part of Paris, they saw and heard everything they should on the way. They passed the many cemeteries with their crowds of pilgrims, mourners, and hackers selling bead flowers around the gates. They passed bridges and churches and country homes and little villages and at last they came to the château of Fontainebleau.

“Why, it isn’t big and wonderful like Versailles!” exclaimed Alice, in disappointment.

“Maybe it’s prettiest on the back side,” said Mary Jane, remembering their other experiences. “And anyway, it has two stairs in front and that will be fun.”

Mrs. Merrill, quite willing, waited at the top of the grandstair, enjoying the view of the courtyard where so much happened to Napoleon, while Mr. Merrill and Alice made inquiry about going thru the château and Mary Jane climbed the other flight of steps. They found that they could go thru at once, so they did, as that would leave them more time for the forest later. Unfortunately, the guide hurried them thru, with the accompaniment of a great deal of talk about chairs and rugs and paintings. They would have liked to wander around by themselves as they had at Versailles, seeing the rooms they cared for most, but it was not allowed. However, the girls were glad to see much of the furniture of Napoleon’s day—it evidently hadn’t been moved out and it made the rooms look much more home-like and real. In some rooms the little tables, sewing stands, and toilet things were still there and Mary Jane almost felt as if she was visiting someone who might come back any minute, and talk to her. From the terrace at the back, they saw the carp pond and got permission to feed the fish.

“Not much good will that do us, tho,” said Alice regretfully, “when we haven’t brought any bread.”

“And there aren’t any picnics here, either,” added Mary Jane, remembering their good fortune in the Tuileries Gardens.

“But there is an old woman with a basket down there by the pond,” remarked Mr. Merrill, “suppose you investigate her.”

The girls ran off toward the pond and there, sure enough, was an old woman, wrapped in a black shawl even on this bright July day, and by her side was a great covered basket.

“Pain! Oui!” she said in answer to their inquiry.

Of course those French words meant nothing to the girls. But as she pulled off the covering to her basket, they saw long loaves of bread inside. So they opened their purses and immediately the old woman gathered up hunks of bread and urged them to help themselves. Alice gave her several small coins and in return she gave them all the bread they could carry.

“Come over here to the dam,” suggested Mr. Merrill, “and better let me take your bags in my pocket. We don’t want to have to do any fancy diving in among those fish!”

The carp must have been hungry, for they swam close to the edge; they dived and fought with each other and watched the girls eagerly with cold, knowing eyes.

Mary Jane tossed a hunk of bread and Alice threw another immediately and such fighting and struggling as there was! Never have you seen such a sight. Some of the carp actually tossed themselves out of the water in their eagerness to reach the bread before another fish got it and they looked so big, Mary Jane was almost afraid of them.

The girls stood there throwing in bread for half an hour. They soon got used to the great fish and Mary Jane lost her fear and was much amused at their antics.

“Mine’s all gone,” she cried at last. “Let’s buy some more bread, Daddah.”

“Let’s have lunch first,” suggested Mrs. Merrill. “It’s almost one thirty and there is still much to do on this trip.”

Reluctantly the girls came away. “Do you suppose the little princes and princesses fed fish here when they lived in the palace?” asked Mary Jane, as she took her father’s hand and walked away.

“I haven’t thought of it before,” said Mr. Merrill, “but I rather think they did. A good many children have lived in this palace. We saw the room where some of them studied with their governess. I can imagine that when their lessons were finished for the day, they liked to come out here and feed the carp—just as you did. Yes, I think they did.”

The Merrills found they could have luncheon in the hotel across from the château or at a small inn at the edge of the woods and on the advice of their guide, they chose the inn. It was a little place, and luncheon was served in the garden back of the house. There they sat at small tables under the trees while the cook made omelets and grilled chops at an open air kitchen and the small children in the family passed bread and fruits and salad. One tiny tot carried such a big tray of bread that Mary Jane thought she would have to help him to keep him from spilling. But he would have none of her assistance. He felt very big and important doing it by himself. So she sat still and ate the good things the children brought.

From the inn they drove around the village and the woods near by. Then they set out, thru the forest, for Barbizon.

If Mary Jane had thought the palace at Versailles reminded her of a Cinderella story, she certainly thought this forest was a place for witches. The trees were so tall they seemed to reach to the sky. The shadows were so gray and gloomy that you could easily imagine a witches’ house, right there, beyond the bend of the road.

“I want to get out and play Hansel and Gretel!” she exclaimed. “Don’t let them go so fast, Mother. We want to stay in it longer.”

“But they want to hurry us back,” said her mother, regretfully. “Some people in the car have an engagement in Paris at five and they are hurrying. So look hard while you can, dear, and when you get back home in Chicago, you can remember it and pretend you are here.”

“I think that’s too——”

But the sentence was never finished. At that minute there was a whine and a shriek of brakes. The great car lurched dangerously, skidded to the side of the road and came to a sudden stop.

“Goody!” cried Mary Jane gleefully, in the sudden silence. “We’ve got a puncture!”

“Not ‘goody’ for the rest of us,” grumbled a man behind her. “Who wants a puncture in a forest? I want to get back to Paris.”

“But think what a jolly place to play,” cried Mary Jane, happily. “And we were going much too fast, much.”

“May we get out?” Alice asked the driver.

“I guess you’ll have to,” he replied. “But stay near the car. I’ll honk when we are ready to start.”

Alice and Mary Jane, along with all the other passengers, got out, and the driver and his assistant went to work changing the great tire. Most of the passengers stayed close by the car, grumbling at the delay. But Alice and Mary Jane counted it rare good luck. Alice took a whole roll of time exposures of scenes in the forest, looking east and looking west, along the road and off into the depths of the forest. While she was doing this, Mary Jane went with her father to the side of the road. Then, stepping daintily over the soft, spongy soil underfoot, they went in among the trees till she felt that she was really truly, off in the forest.

“People really for true could get lost in this forest, couldn’t they, Daddah?” she remarked as she saw the great trees, so much alike, all around her.

“Indeed, they could and they did, often,” answered her father.

“Remember the story of the children who were taken into the forest and found their way out by following pebbles dropped from a sack?”

“Yes, and remember Little Red Riding-hood,” replied Mr. Merrill. “Now you know the kind of woods she went thru. Wood cutters lived here, too; you’ve read about them.”

Mary Jane picked two bits of fern for Alice and for herself for their flower book. She wished that Doris and Joan were here so they could play hide and seek—it would be more fun here than among statues, she was sure. Then the honk of the horn told them the tire was nearly repaired, so they had to go back to the car.

“I’m sorry for the man who’s late,” Mary Jane whispered to her father, “but I’m glad we had the puncture just the same, because now I’ll always remember that we walked in the really-for-true forest.”

Because of the delay the car didn’t stop at Barbizon but dashed back to Paris at a lively speed, stopping only once, that was to see the distant view of the “Angelus” church—the same view the girls so admired in Millet’s picture in the Louvre.

“This is your last night in Paris, girls,” said Mr. Merrill, when their journey was finished. “What shall we do to celebrate?”

“Last night! That sounds so sorrowful, Daddah,” objected Alice. “Let’s stay here longer instead of going to other countries.”

“I didn’t mean it to be sorrowful,” laughed Mr. Merrill. “Let’s call it the last night, on this trip. That’s better. And as for seeing other countries, I rather think you’ll like Switzerland as well as France—not that we’ve seen as much of France as I intended you should. We’ll have to come again, that’s certain. And we shall see something of southern France on our way up from Italy, I’m glad to say.

“But for to-night’s celebration. I hear there is a restaurant in a house boat on the Seine, down below the Exposition Palace. And I also hear that it is famous for lobster. What do you say to dinner there?”

“I say let’s have it,” said Mary Jane. “I don’t think there is anything to decide. We’ll go.”

So they did. Just as quickly as they could get ready. Tho they did stop to get Mrs. Dana and Doris to go with them for their final treat.

Their table was on the top deck of this curious dining place. There they were served lobster and scallops and potatoes and grilled tomatoes and, later, wild strawberries as sweet as honey, and little cakes and pastries. They stayed till the daylight faded and the lights of Paris came on. Lights on Montmartre gleamed and the lights on the tall Eiffel Tower flashed on and off and were reflected in the water of the Seine.

“I wish you weren’t going to-morrow, Mary Jane,” said Doris between times of counting lights. “I wish you were going to stay all summer.”

“I wish you were going with us,” replied Mary Jane. “That would be fun.”

“Maybe we’ll meet you some place again,” suggested Mrs. Dana. “We’ll be going to Italy as soon as your father gets thru his business, so don’t say good-by, girls.”

They gathered up their bags and souvenirs, for the taxi Mr. Merrill had called had arrived at the gang plank and it was time to go.

“I’ll tell you what you do, Doris,” suggested Mary Jane. “You come and find us in Switzerland and maybe we can do something there—wouldn’t that be fun?”

Doris thought it would.

“We’ll look for you—now surely,” promised Mary Jane. “Don’t forget.”

They climbed into the taxi and dashed back to the hotel. To-morrow they would be in Switzerland and who could say the fun they would have there and all the sights they would see?

THE MARY JANE SERIES

By CLARA INGRAM JUDSON

Take a trip with Mary Jane. She is the heroine of this popular series for young girls. You’ll find her a charming traveling companion. Her good nature, her abounding interest in her friends and surroundings, and her fascinating adventures both at home and abroad have endeared her to thousands all over the country.

GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK

Three Stories of Fun and Friendship

THE MAIDA BOOKS

by INEZ HAYNES IRWIN

MAIDA’S LITTLE SHOP

MAIDA’S LITTLE HOUSE

MAIDA’S LITTLE SCHOOL

GROSSET & DUNLAP     Publishers     NEW YORK

THE BOBBSEY TWINS BOOKS

FOR LITTLE MEN AND WOMEN

By LAURA LEE HOPE

ILLUSTRATED. Every volume complete in itself.

These books for boys and girls between the ages of three and ten stand among children and their parents of this generation where the books of Louisa May Alcott stood in former days. The haps and mishaps of this inimitable pair of twins, their many adventures and experiences are a source of keen delight to imaginative children.

GROSSET & DUNLAP     :-:     Publishers     :-:     NEW YORK

The Honey Bunch Books

By HELEN LOUISE THORNDYKE

Individual Colored Wrappers and Text Illustrations

GROSSET & DUNLAP     :-:     Publishers     :-:     NEW YORK

The Little Indian Series

By DAVID CORY

The beauty of Indian legend—the thrill of Indian adventure—the poetry of the Indian’s religion, and, above all, perhaps, the sturdy manhood and the idealism of the Indian boy will be an inspiration to every child.

LITTLE INDIAN

The life of Little Indian, on the prairie and in the forest, is full of exciting adventures. His battle with the wildcat that, in the dead of night, attacks his favorite pony; his escape from a band of hostile Indians to the island of the Great Beaver; his pursuit of the red-winged goose and her seven snow-white goslings will thrill and stir the young imagination.

RED FEATHER

“Red Feather” is the warrior name given to “Little Indian.” In this story the boy learns some of the secrets of healing and his friends, the animals, teach him the Medicine Song. He goes out on his first big hunt with the braves of the tribe and through his daring and skill wins his war shield. And now, no longer considered a child, he is sent on his first important mission for the tribe.

WHITE OTTER

Red Feather has won the admiration and friendship of everyone but the jealous and cowardly boy, White Otter. This mean-spirited youth seeks every opportunity to harm the son of Big Chief. Thus when Red Feather is sent on an important mission to Three Feathers, chief of a friendly tribe, White Otter follows him. But his plot to harm and disgrace Red Feather fails and the son of Big Chief safely reaches the distant camp.

STAR MAIDEN

Now Red Feather, first known as “Little Indian”, has grown to manhood and has proved himself a worthy son of his father Big Chief. But he has to prove himself still further before he wins the heart and hand of lovely Star Maiden. For many moons he strives and at last he brings her to his father’s camp where she is welcomed as his bride.

GROSSET & DUNLAP     Publishers     NEW YORK

The MARY and JERRY

MYSTERY STORIES

By FRANCIS HUNT

THE MESSENGER DOG’S SECRET

The big police dog Flanders carried a strange message in his collar. By following its directions, Mary and Jerry Denton were able to bring a lost fortune to someone in need.

THE MYSTERY OF THE TOY BANK

Jerry Denton was saving for a bicycle, but when his little bank strangely disappeared he had a big mystery to solve. With the aid of Mary, several chums and a queer old sailor, this eager lad brought about a happy solution.

THE STORY THE PARROT TOLD

A fire in a pet shop started a long chain of adventures for Mary and Jerry Denton. The tale the talking parrot told caused plenty of excitement and mystery before the bird was restored to its rightful owner.

THE SECRET OF THE MISSING CLOWN

Mary and Jerry have many happy adventures at the circus while searching for the missing clown and his beautiful pony, Silverfeet.

GROSSET & DUNLAP     Publishers     NEW YORK

Transcriber’s Notes:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected as noted below:

[The end of Mary Jane in France by Clara Ingram Judson]