to say that the hotel is quite full; we have not a single bed
at your disposal."

"Ah, what shall I do? what do you think would be best?" said
poor Madelon, piteously, suddenly breaking down in the grown-
up part she had been half unconsciously acting, and ready to
burst into tears. Things were not turning out at all as she
had wished or intended. "I did want a room, but I thought I
should have found Madame Bertrand, and she would have helped
me; I don't know what to do now."

"Do you know my aunt? I am Madame Bertrand's niece," says
Mademoiselle Henriette in explanation. "She will not be in
just yet, but if you like to wait in here a little while, you
can do so, or you can return by-and-by."

She opened the door of a small parlour as she spoke, and stood
aside for Madelon to enter. A little faded room, with a high
desk standing in the window, gaudy ornaments on the
mantelpiece, a worn Utrecht velvet sofa, and a semicircle of
worsted-work chairs--not much in it all to awaken enthusiasm,
one would think, and yet, as Madelon came in, she forgot
disappointment, and fatigue, and everything else for a moment,
in a glad recognition of well-remembered objects.

"It is not a bit altered," she cried, quite joyfully, turning
to Mademoiselle Henriette as she spoke.

"You have been here before then," says Mademoiselle, looking
curiously at the child, and seeing for the first time, in the