Felicia listened dreamily; she seemed to be absorbing the whole shop,
the dusty shelves lined with useless "fancy" work, into whose
fashioning no fancy at all had crept; the cracked show counters filled
with pasty china daubed with violets and cross-eyed cupids,--propped
up rakishly in the very front of the dustiest, most battered case of
all the fat string dolly leaned despondently and smiled her red floss
smile.

"Oh, how you've lasted!" breathed Felicia.

"What?" shrilled the Disagreeable Walnut, blushing under her shriveled
skin.

"I mean--the little person made of string--" murmured Felicia abashed.
"I saw her here--when we came for The Wheezy--Mademoiselle D'Ormy and
I."

The Disagreeable Walnut snorted.

"Oh, that Mademoiselle D'Ormy," she squinted through her adjusted
glasses, her shaking, purple-veined hands fumbling with the silk that
was wound around the bows to protect her thin old temples, "She hain't
been here this long while, have you seen her?"

"Do you know me?" demanded Felicia stepping very close.

"Don't know as I do--yet it seems like I did too--you hain't been here
in a long while, have ye?"

"Don't you remember--I lived in that same house where Mademoiselle