when the woman began berating her. The girl slid cunningly along the
wall, for Mademoiselle's wrinkled, trembling hand was stretched out as
she demanded the key.

There was a grating, a round bronze grating in the side wall for the
furnace pipe. Felice moved toward it. She was not answering
Mademoiselle; just breathing hard, just staring.

Suddenly the key dropped. The two could hear it tinkling, down, down,
through the rusty metal of the furnace pipe.

And that was the moment that the infuriated little French woman struck
Felice.

The child was nearly as tall as the woman, she could have struck back,
but instead she ran. She fled down the stairway, her angry breath
coming in choking gasps. She flung herself against the door of her
mother's room.

"Maman! Maman!" she screamed.

And that was where the Major found her.

"I hate--hate--hate--Mademoiselle!" And down the stair came the thin
visaged French woman crying.

"And I monsieur, I hate zis ongrateful child! I theenk I hate your
whole ongrateful race--I served your wife like one slave! And for Miss
Octavia I was like two slaves! Zis child has ever hated me! I am weary
of your whole race--I shall go back to ze country where I belong--"