go into the adjoining room. I ran to the round window, which was an
immense "bull's-eye" above the doorway. I pressed my stubborn brow
against the glass, and began to scream with rage on seeing no trees, no
box-weed, no leaves falling, nothing, nothing but stone--cold, grey,
ugly stone--and panes of glass opposite me. "I want to go away! I don't
want to stay here! It is all black, black! It is ugly! I want to see the
ceiling of the street!" and I burst into tears. My poor nurse took me up
in her arms, and, folding me in a rug, took me down into the courtyard.
"Lift up your head, Milk Blossom, and look! See--there is the ceiling of
the street!"

It comforted me somewhat to see that there was some sky in this ugly
place, but my little soul was very sad. I could not eat, and I grew pale
and became anaemic, and should certainly have died of consumption if it
had not been for a mere chance, a most unexpected incident. One day I
was playing in the courtyard with a little girl, called Titine, who
lived on the second floor, and whose face or real name I cannot recall,
when I saw my nurse's husband walking across the courtyard with two
ladies, one of whom was most fashionably attired. I could only see their
backs, but the voice of the fashionably attired lady caused my heart to
stop beating. My poor little body trembled with nervous excitement.

"Do any of the windows look on to the courtyard?" she asked.

"Yes, Madame, those four," he replied, pointing to four open ones on the
first floor.

The lady turned to look at them, and I uttered a cry of joy.

"Aunt Rosine! Aunt Rosine!" I exclaimed, clinging to the skirts of the