interrupted her and then she forgot,' said Alie. 'Perhaps they've got
some French relations, mamma.'

'It isn't likely,' her mother replied. 'But some day when I am in the
village, or town--should we call it "town," Bernard?'

'It is a seaport, so it must be a town, I suppose,' said Mr. Vane.

'I should like to see the little girl and her mother,' Mrs. Vane
continued.

'And oh, mamma,' cried Biddy, jumping up and down in her chair as her
spirits rose again, 'when you do, _mayn't_ I go with you, and then
Celestina would show me her dolls' room?'

'We shall see, my dear,' her mother replied.

Biddy was not at all fond of the reply, 'We shall see.' 'It's only a
perlite way of saying "no,"' she once said, but she dared not tease her
mother any more.

'Nobody cares about what I like,' she said to herself disconsolately.

Perhaps she would not have thought so if she had heard what her mother
and Rosalys were talking about later that afternoon.




CHAPTER VII