evidently bent upon driving a bargain. The vision caught sight of H.C.,
and for the moment calico and everything else was forgotten; the market
woman no doubt had her calico at her own price.

The street itself is one of the most wonderful in France. As you stand
at the end and look down towards _Les Halles_, you have a picturesque
group, an assemblage of outlines scarcely to be equalled in the world.
The street is narrow, and the houses, more and more overhanging as they
ascend floor by floor, approach each other very closely towards the
summit. The roofs are, some of them, gabled; others, slanting backwards,
give room for picturesque dormer windows. Wide lattices stretch across
some of the houses from end to end; in others the windows are smaller
and open outwards like ordinary French windows, but always latticed,
always picturesque.

Below, on the ground floor, many of the houses are given up to shops,
but, fortunately, they have not been modernised.

The whole length of the front is unglazed, and you gaze into an interior
full of mysterious gloom, in which you can scarcely see the wares
offered for sale. The rooms go far back. They are black with age: a dark
panelling that you would give much to be able to transport to other
scenes. The ceilings are low, and great beams run across them. The doors
admitting you to these wonderful old-world places match well their
surroundings. They are wide and substantial, with beams that would
effectually guard a prison, and wonderful old locks and keys and pieces
of ironwork that set you wild with longings to turn housebreaker and
carry away these ancient and artistic relics.

You feel that nothing in the lives of the people who live in these