sweet--and her eyes--they have that same longing to be happy--" she
sighed as she tiptoed clumsily out of the room and down the draughty
stairway. She stood respectfully beside the Major's chair. "Monsieur,"
she said gravely, "does Miss Felicia know anything at all about all
of us?"

He looked up at her quickly, his dark eyes sparkling with anger at her
audacity, but something in her sober, respectful gaze quieted him.

"I do not desire that she shall--" he answered. "It is better not to
have her--but--" his voice faltered. "I regret that she does not
understand that her mother--that Miss Octavia--" his thin old hand
tightened its grip on the frail arm of the chair, "I do not know," he
ended miserably, "just how it came about that she is expecting to find
Miss Octavia here--in the garden. Perhaps you can tell her something
to comfort her--perhaps--"

Gray-haired, wrinkled, her skin brown from exposure, Margot leaned
forward, her eyes shining with excitement.

"Sometimes I think," she said distinctly, "that Miss Octavia _is_ in the
garden, Monsieur--" She laughed softly at his start. "Do not think I am
out of my wits--" She tapped her head significantly. "I do not mean like
a ghost--I do not see her. Only there is something, most of all in the
springtime--that makes me happy. Perhaps Octavia's daughter will feel
it. Perhaps that thing, whatever it is, will make it easier for me--"
she wiped her eyes, "to answer all things she will ask me--"

Upstairs in the four-poster bed that Poquelin had carved, Felicia
slept, she smiled as she stirred in her slumbers. She was very tired.