died. You see sometimes there were several days when her mother was
too tired or too ill to see such a vigorous person as Felice must have
been. She merely remembers that there came a time when she was no
longer asked to tiptoe past the door on the second floor landing. But
she does remember that the thin visaged old French woman wept one day
when she asked her,

"Shall we not go tell Maman I was happy today in the garden?"

She remembers it because they were the first tears she had ever seen
and she clapped her hands and said "How queer, Mademoiselle! There are
little rains in your eyes."

She did not ask to see her mother any more, for when she did
Mademoiselle would answer "Not to-day." It was somehow a rather
difficult time for them all; the Major was morose and sullen and
Mademoiselle often had "little rains" in her eyes. She was not very
patient with the lively young person who had grown tall enough to
reach even the topmost drawer of the high walnut bureau.

Felicia was exploring them thoroughly one rainy afternoon while
Mademoiselle dozed by the nursery fireside. She found a beautiful box
with an inlaid cover that was filled with all sorts of fascinating
trinkets; earrings and breastpins and droll bracelets of tarnished
silver set with jade and coral--queer little letters folded in
triangles with gay red wax seals, addressed in French, most of them--a
soft black lace shawl--Felicia was trailing about grandly when
Mademoiselle awoke to rage and scold.

The child was beginning to long for freedom, she was constantly