Grandmother Dear | Page 7

it wasn't," retorted Ralph. "It's Sylvia's love of horrors I was laughing at."
"She doesn't love horrors," replied Molly, more and more indignant.
"You needn't talk," said Ralph coolly. "Who was it that took a box of matches in her pocket to Holyrood Palace, and was going to strike one to look for the blood-stains on the floor? It was the only thing you cared to see, and yet you are such a goose--crying out if a butterfly settles on you. I think girls are----"
"Ralph, my boy," said grandmother, seeing that by this time Molly was almost in tears; "whatever you think of girls, you make me, I am sorry to say, think that boys' love of teasing is utterly incomprehensible--and oh, so unmanly!"
The last touch went home.
"I was only in fun, grandmother," said Ralph with unusual meekness; "I didn't mean really to vex Molly."
So peace was restored.
To-morrow turned out fine, deliriously fine.
"Not like England," said Molly superciliously, "where it always rains when you want it to be fine."
They made the most of the beautiful weather, though by no means agreeing with aunty's reminder that even in Paris it did sometimes rain, and the three pairs of eager feet were pretty tired by the time bed-time came.
And oh, what a disappointment the next morning brought!
The children woke to a regular, pouring wet day, no chance of fulfilling the programme laid out, for Sylvia was subject to sore throats, and grandmother would not let her go out in the damp, and there would be no fun in going to the Louvre without her. So, as what can't be cured must be endured, the children had just to make the best of it and amuse themselves in the house in the hopes of sunshine again for to-morrow. These hopes were happily fulfilled.
"A lovely day," said aunty, "all the brighter for yesterday's rain."
"And we may go to the Louvre," exclaimed Sylvia eagerly.
Aunty hesitated and turned, as everybody did when they were at a loss, to grandmother.
"What do you think?" she said. She was reluctant to disappoint the children--Sylvia especially--as they had all been very good the day before, but yet----"It is Saturday, and the Louvre will be so crowded you know, mother."
"But I shall be with you," said Ralph.
"And I!" said grandmother. "Is not a little old lady like me equal to taking care of you all?"
"Will you really come too, dear grandmother?" exclaimed Sylvia and Molly in a breath. "Oh, how nice!"
"I should like to go," said grandmother. "It is ever so many years since I was at the Louvre."
"Do let us go then. Oh, do let us all go," said the little girls. "You know we are leaving on Tuesday, and something might come in the way again on Monday."
So it was settled.
"Remember, children," said grandmother as they were all getting out of the carriage, "remember to keep close together. You have no idea how easily some of you might get lost in the crowd."
"Lost!" repeated Sylvia incredulously.
"LOST!" echoed Molly.
"LOST!" shouted Ralph so loudly that some of their fellow-sight-seers, passing beside them into the palace, turned round to see what was the matter. "How could we possibly get lost here?"
"Very easily," replied aunty calmly. "There is nothing, to people unaccustomed to it, so utterly bewildering as a crowd."
"Not to me," persisted Ralph. "I could thread my way in and out of the people till I found you. The girls might get lost, perhaps."
"Thank you," said Molly; "as it happens, Master Ralph, I think it would be much harder to lose us than you. For one thing we can speak French ever such a great deal better than you."
"And then there are two of us. If one of us was lost, grandmother and aunty could hold out the other one as a pattern, and say, 'I want a match for this,'" said Sylvia laughing, and a little eager to prevent the impending skirmish between Ralph and Molly.
"Hush, children, you really mustn't chatter so," said aunty. "Use your eyes, and let your tongues, poor things, rest for a little."
They got on very happily. Aunty managed to show the children the special picture or pictures each had most wanted to see--including the "beautiful blue and orange" one of Molly's recollection. She nearly screamed with delight when she saw "how like it was to the one in papa's study," but took in good part Ralph's cynical observation that a thing that was copied from another was generally supposed to be "like" the original.
Only Sylvia was a little disappointed when, after looking at the pictures in one of the smaller rooms--a room in no way peculiar or remarkable as differing from the others--they suddenly discovered that they were in the famous "Salle Henri II.," where Henry the Fourth was killed!
"I didn't think it would be like this," said