As Seen By Me | Page 9

I want a beefsteak, with mushrooms, and some potatoes au gratin, like those we have in America. I hate the stuff we get here. I wish I could never see another chop as long as I live."
"'The Insular' is considered very good," I remarked, pensively.
"Considered!" cried she. "Whose consideration counts, I should like to know, when you are always hungry for something you can't get?"
"I know it; and we are paying such prices, too. Who, except ostriches, could eat their nasty preserves for breakfast when they are having grape-fruit at home? And then their vile aspic jellies and potted meats for luncheon, which look like sausage congealed in cold gravy, and which taste like gum arabic."
"Let's move," said my sister. "Not into another hotel--that wouldn't be much better. But lot's take lodgings. I've heard that they were lovely. Then we can order what we like. Besides, it will be very much cheaper."
"I didn't come over here to economize," I said.
"Well, I wouldn't say a word if we were getting anything for our money, but we are not. Besides, when you get to Paris you will wish you hadn't been so extravagant here."
"Are the Paris shops more fascinating than those in Regent Street?" I asked.
"Much more."
"More alluring, than Bond Street?"
"More so than any in the world," she affirmed, with the religious fervor which always characterizes her tone when she speaks of Paris. The very leather of her purse fairly squeaks with ecstasy when she thinks of Paris.
"Heavens!" I murmured, with awe, for whenever she won't go to Du Maurier's grave with me, and when I won't do the crown jewels in the Tower with her, we always compromise amiably on Bond Street, and come home beaming with joy.
"We might go now just to look," I said. "I have the addresses of some very good lodgings."
"We'll take a cab by the hour," said she, putting her hat on before the mirror, and turning her head on one side to view her completed handiwork.
"Now take off that watch and that belt and that chatelaine if you don't want these harpies to think we are 'rich Americans' (how I have come to hate that phrase over here!), because they will charge accordingly."
She looked at me with genuine admiration.
"Do you know, dear, you are really clever at times?"
I colored with pleasure. It is so seldom that she finds anything practical in me to praise.
"Now mind, we are just going to look," she cautioned, as we rang a bell. "We must not do anything in a hurry."
We came out half an hour afterwards and got into the cab without looking at each other.
"It was very unbusinesslike," said she, severely. "You never do anything right."
"But it was so gloriously impudent of us," I urged. "First, we wanted lodgings. This was a boarding-house. Second, we wanted two bed-rooms and a drawing-room. They had only one drawing-room in the house; could we have that? Yes, we could. So we took their whole first floor, and made them promise to serve our breakfasts in bed, and our other meals in their best drawing-room, and turned a boarding-house into a lodging-house, all inside of half an hour. It was lovely!"
"It was bad business," said she. "We could have got it for less, but you are always in such a hurry. If you like a thing, and anybody says you may have it for fifty, you always say, 'I'll give you seventy-five,' You're so afraid to think a thing over."
"Second thoughts are never as much fun as first thoughts," I urged. "Second thoughts are always so sensible and reasonable and approved of."
"How do you know?" asked my sister, witheringly. "You never waited for any."
The next day we moved. Everybody said our rooms were charming, and that they were cheap, for I told how much we paid, much to my sister's disgust. She is such a lady.
"We have cut down our expenses so much," I said, looking around on the drab walls and the dun-colored carpets, "don't you think we might have a few flowers?"
"I believe you took this place for the balcony, so that you could put daisies around the edge and in the window-boxes!" she cried.
"No, I didn't. But the houses in London are so pretty with their flowers. Don't you think we might have a few?"
"Well, go and get them. I've got to write the home letter to-day if it is to catch the Southampton boat."
I came home with six huge palms, two June roses, some pink heather, a jar of marguerites, and I had ordered the balcony and window-boxes filled. My sister helped me to place them, but when her back was turned I arranged them over again. I can't tie a veil on the way she can, but I can arrange flowers to look--well, I won't boast.
Our landladies