"Steal!" Aunt Anne echoed indignantly. "We are certainly not thieves, sir, whatever you may be." Barbara was thankful that apparently his knowledge of English was so slight that he did not understand the remark. It was not without difficulty that she prevailed upon her aunt to pass on and cease the wordy argument, which, she pointed out, was not of much good, as neither understood the other's language sufficiently well to answer to the point.

"We shall have all the visitors in the Museum round us soon," she urged, with an apprehensive glance at the people who were curiously drawing near, "and shall perhaps be turned out for making a disturbance."

"Then I should go at once to the English ambassador," Aunt Anne said with dignity. "But, as I have now seen his eyes and am assured he is not the man we want, we can pass on," and with a stately bow, and the remark that if he annoyed her in future she would feel compelled to complain, she moved away, Barbara following, crimson with mingled amusement and vexation.

CHAPTER V.

GOOD-BYE TO PARIS.

The days in Paris flew past far too quickly for Barbara, who enjoyed everything to the full.

As she came to know her aunt better, and got accustomed to her dry manner and rather exact ways, she found her to be a really good companion, not altogether lacking in humour, and having untiring energy in sight-seeing and a keen sympathy with Barbara's delight in what was new.

Perhaps Miss Britton, too, was gaining more pleasure from the trip than she had expected, for up till now she had seen her niece only as one a little sobered by responsibility and the constraint of he