Cicely and Other Stories

said madame, with another shrug. "I have feel for her because she was an orphan, and I take her in ze goodness of my heart. Behold how she repay me! Disappoint my customers, ruin my beesness!"

She was pointing to the stains and working herself up into a passion again, when Miss Balfour interrupted her.

"I should like to see the girl, madame. Will you please call her?"

"Certainement! Willingly, mademoiselle! Ze plaisure shall be yours for to scold ze careless creature."

Cicely heard and shivered. It had been hard enough to bear madame's angry reproaches, but to have the added burden of Miss Balfour's displeasure was more than she could endure--the displeasure of the only one who had smiled on her since she left Marcelle! A moment later madame confronted her, and Rhoda could hear the girl's sobs.

"Oh, I can't go in! Indeed I can't, madame! It nearly kills me to think I have spoiled that lovely dress, and that she cannot go to-night after all. I wouldn't have done it f