"But it is _exactly_ like Number Thirty-one,--I mean Madame Desire,"
persisted Joyce.

Monsieur looked at her wildly from under his shaggy brows, and then,
turning away, began to pace up and down the room. "I had a sister once,"
he began. "She would have been seventy-three this month, and her name
was Desire."

Joyce stood motionless in the middle of the room, wondering what was
coming next. Suddenly turning with a violence that made her start, he
cried, "No, I never can forgive! She has been dead to me nearly a
lifetime. Why did you tell me this, child? Out of my sight! What is it
to me if she is homeless and alone? Go! Go!"

He waved his hands so wildly in motioning her away, that Joyce ran out
of the room and banged the door behind her.

"What do you suppose is the matter with him?" asked Jules, in a
frightened whisper, as they listened to his heavy tread, back and forth,
back and forth, in the next room.

Joyce shook her head. "I don't know for sure," she answered,
hesitatingly, "but I believe that he is going crazy."

Jules's eyes opened so wide that Joyce wished she had not frightened
him. "Oh, you know that I didn't mean it," she said, reassuringly. The
heavy tread stopped, and the children looked at each other.

"What can he be doing now?" Jules asked, anxiously.

Joyce tiptoed across the room, and peeped through the keyhole. "He is
sitting down now, by the table, with his head on his arms. He looks as
if he might be crying about something."

"I wish he didn't feel bad," said Jules, with a swift rush of pity. "He
has been so good to me ever since he sent Brossard away. Sometimes I
think that he must feel as much alone in the world as I do, because all
his family are dead, too. Before I broke my leg I was making him a
little Christmas tree, so that he need not feel left out when we had the
big one. I was getting mistletoe for it when I fell. I can't finish it
now, but there's five pieces of candle on it, and I'll get Clotilde to
light them while the fete is going on, so that I'll not miss the big
tree so much. Oh, nobody knows how much I want to go to that fete!
Sometimes it seems more than I can bear to have to stay away."

"Where is your tree?" asked Joyce. "May I see it?"

Jules pointed to the closet. "It's in there," he said, proudly. "I
trimmed it with pieces that Marie swept up to burn. Oh, shut the door!
Quick!" he cried, excitedly, as a step was heard in the hall. "I don't
want anybody to