However, they expressed themselves as quite ready to prepare for dinner,
and after doning pretty light costumes, they joined Mr. and Mrs.
Farrington, and went down to the dining-room.

The dining-room proper of the hotel was an indoor apartment, but all
through the summer the guests were accustomed to dine under the open
sky, at small tables in the garden.

Owing to an unusually late season, it was still warm enough to dine
outside, and when Patty saw the scene in the garden she thought Paris
was fairyland indeed. Though called a garden, it was really a stone-
paved court, but all round its edge on two sides were large old trees
with gnarled and twisted trunks and thick foliage of glossy green. Under
the trees were flower-beds full of blossoming plants, and in the
branches of the trees themselves were hung vari-coloured globes of
electric lights about the size of an orange. The effect of these
brilliant spheres in the dark trees was as beautiful as it was unusual,
and the scene was further made bright by arches and festoons of
brilliant coloured lights, which crossed and twined above their heads in
every direction. At the end of the garden was an immense fountain
surrounded by statues, and playing many jets of water, which flashed and
sparkled in the light.

Around two sides of the garden ran the verandas of the hotel, and the
diners could sit on these verandas or out in the open, as they
preferred.

The gay scene was completed by the throngs of people; the French women
in their dainty costumes, the French men with their correct garb and
demeanour, as well as a good sprinkling of strangers from other