ve thought so too if he
could, but he was too sleepy to think at all, as he "cruddled" himself
into his shell in the corner of the laurel hedge, and dreamt of the nice
hot days that were past.

And upstairs, inside the old house, somebody else was thinking so too--a
little somebody who seemed to be doing her best to make herself,
particularly her nose, colder still, for she was pressing it hard on to
the icy window-pane and staring out on to the deserted, snow-covered
garden, and thinking how cold it was, and wishing it was summer time
again, and fancying how it would feel to be a raven like old "Dudu," all
at once, in the mixed-up, dancing-about way that "thinking" was
generally done in the funny little brain of Mademoiselle Jeanne.

Inside the room it was getting dark, and the white snow outside seemed
to make it darker.

"Mademoiselle Jeanne," said a voice belonging to a servant who just then
opened the door; "Mademoiselle Jeanne, what are you doing at the window?
You will catch cold."

Jeanne gave a little start when she heard herself spoken to. She had
been all alone in the room for some time, with not a sound about her.
She turned slowly from the window and came near the fire.

"If I did catch cold, it would not be bad," she said. "I would stay in
bed, and you, Marcelline, would make me nice things to eat, and nobody
would say, 'Don't do that, Mademoiselle.' It would be charming."

Marcelline was Jeanne's old nurse, and she had been her mother's nurse
too. She was really rather old, how old nobody seemed exactly to know,
but Jeanne thought her _very_ old, and asked her once if she had not
been her grandmother's nurse too. Any one else but Marcelline would have
been offended at such a question; but Marcelline was not like any one
else, and she never was offended at anything. She was so old that for
many years no one had seen much difference in her--she had reached a
sort of settled oldness, like an arm-chair which may once have been
covered with bright-coloured silk, but which, with time and wear, has
got to have an all-over-old look which never seems to get any worse. Not
that Marcelline was dull or grey to look at--she was bright and cheery,
and when she had a new clean cap on, all beautifully frilled and crimped
round her face, Jeanne used to tell her that she was beautiful, quite
beautiful, and that if she was _very_ good and always did exactly what
Jeanne asked her, she--Jeanne--would have her to be nurs