laughed at me! My feet weren't a yard long, anyway!"

"Poetic and artistic license allows a few slight exaggerations. Even
Shakespeare took liberties with his subjects!" returned the authoress
blandly. "If not exactly a yard long, your feet, not small by nature,
looked absolutely enormous! It's the truth!"

CHAPTER XVIII

Mademoiselle

"Parlez-vous francais, Mademoiselle?
She opened the window, and out she fell.
And what happened next I've never heard tell,
Parlez-vous francais, Mademoiselle?"

chanted Raymonde, dancing into the dormitory and plumping down on
Fauvette's bed amid a pile of chiffons, muslins, and other flimsy
articles of wearing apparel. "Why, what's the matter, child? Whence
this spread-out? You look weepy! Packing to go home? Mother ill? Or
are you expelled?"

"Neither," gulped Fauvette with a watery smile. "It's only
her--Mademoiselle! She's turned all my drawers out on to the floor,
and says I've got to tidy them. She lectured me hard in French. I
couldn't understand half of what she said, but I knew she was
scolding. And I've to sort all these things out, and put them neatly
away, and mend up everything that needs mending before this evening,
or else she'll tell the Bumble to come and look at them, and I shall
get 'sadly lacking in order' down in my report again. It's too bad!"

"It's positively brutal of Mademoiselle!" said Raymonde reflectively.
"If it had been Gibbie, now, it would have been no surprise to me.
Don't cry, you little silly! You look like a weeping cherub on a
monument! Shovel your clothes back again into your drawers, and put a
tidy top layer. That's what I always do!"

"So do I," wailed Fauvette. "But it won't work this time. Mademoiselle
was really cross, and I could see she means to come to-night, and hold
what she calls 'une inspection'. She said something about making me an
example. Why, if she wants an example, need she choose me?"

"It's certainly breaking a butterfly," agreed Raymonde. "I'm afraid
there's something seriously wrong with Mademoiselle. She's completely
altered this last week. She never used to worry about things, and
she's suddenly turned as fussy as Gibbie."

Raymonde was not the only one who had noticed the change in the French
mistress. It was apparent to everybody. Her entire character seemed
suddenly to have altered. Whereas beforetime she had been easygoing,
slack, and ready to shut eye