s and angry all the way there.

"'What have I done,' I said to myself, 'to be looked at as if I were
wicked and ungrateful? Why should my life be given up to the fancies of
a foolish old man like bon papa?'

"And when I got to Chalet and told my friends it was not to be, their
regret and their disappointment made me still more displeased.

"'It is too much,' they all said, 'that you should be treated still like
a bebe--you so tall and womanly that one might think you twenty.'

"'And if I were thee, Marie,' said one, 'I would go all the same. They
would soon forgive thee when they found how well things would go with
thee at Paris. How much money thou wouldst gain!'

"'But how could I go?' I asked.

"Then they all talked together and made a plan. The family was to leave
Chalet the beginning of the week following, sooner than they had
expected. I should ask leave from my mother to come again to say good-bye
the same morning that they were to start, and instead of returning to
Stefanos I should start with them for Paris. I had already seen the lady,
a young creature who, pleased with my appearance, concerned herself
little about anything else, and my friends would tell her I had accepted
her offer. And for my clothes, I was to pack them up the evening before,
and carry the parcel to a point on the road where the young man would
meet me. They would not be many, for my pretty fete costumes, the dress
of the country, which were my best possessions, would be of no use in
Paris.

"'And once there,' said my friend, 'we will dress thee as thou should'st
be dressed. For the journey I can lend thee a hat. Thou could'st not
travel with that ridiculous foulard on thy head, hiding all thy pretty
hair.'

"I remember there was a looking-glass in the room, and as Odette--that
was the girl's name--said this, I glanced at myself. My poor foulard, I
had thought it so pretty. It had been the 'nouvel an' of the bon papa!
But I would not listen to the voice of my heart. I set out on my return
home quite determined to carry out my own way.

"It was such a hot walk that day. How well I remember it! my little young
ladies and little Monsieur, you would hardly believe how one can remember
things of fifty years ago and more, as if they were yesterday when one is
old as I am! The weather had been very hot, and now the clouds looked
black and threatening.

"'We shall have thunder,' I said to myself, and I tried to walk faster,
but I was ti