Suddenly the key dropped. The two could hear it tinkling, down, down, through the rusty metal of the furnace pipe.

And that was the moment that the infuriated little French woman struck Felice.

The child was nearly as tall as the woman, she could have struck back, but instead she ran. She fled down the stairway, her angry breath coming in choking gasps. She flung herself against the door of her mother's room.

"Maman! Maman!" she screamed.

And that was where the Major found her.

"I hate--hate--hate--Mademoiselle!" And down the stair came the thin visaged French woman crying.

"And I monsieur, I hate zis ongrateful child! I theenk I hate your whole ongrateful race--I served your wife like one slave! And for Miss Octavia I was like two slaves! Zis child has ever hated me! I am weary of your whole race--I shall go back to ze country where I belong--"

So there they stood, those two antagonists, the woman with her eyes snapping and the outraged child with the tears streaming.

"Felicia," the Major's tone was terrifying, "you must apologize at once!"

Felicia was silent. She shook her head. The Major bowed to the French woman. "I apologize for her," he continued. "But I think Mademoiselle D'Ormy, you are right. She is growing into a woman and you are growing into a child--" And whatever else he said after Felice had fled to the garden doesn't matter. Yet two days later when Mademoiselle bade her farewell the two enemies flung themselves on each others' necks and wept. Much to the disgust of the Major, who fairly shoved Mademoiselle away and who appeared not to see the sobbing and impetuous young person who dashed headlong to the nursery.

But after that life was much more serene, much sweeter. To be sure she could no longer ransack the storeroom. She never had to explain to the Major what had occasioned that last tempestuous quarrel but she roamed at will through the whole dusty house and possessed herself gloriously of all its treasures.

You should have seen her in those days, tricking herself out in what finery she could muster from the walnut bureau. For after Mademoiselle's departure the afternoon chess prolonged itself into twilight and Felicia proudly dined with the Major instead of in the nursery.

She knew how one should look for dinner because there was Maman's portrait over the drawing-room fireplace, in the frock she'd worn when she had dined "with her family in France--" Mademoiselle had dressed Octavia for that wonderful party and she had never tired of telling Felicia how beautiful the eighteen-year Octavia had been.

"It is a woman's duty to think of her charms," Mademoiselle had said, "that is what the husband of Julie, Madame Recamier, said, it is what Madame Louise taught Miss Octavia--"

And so Felicia naively parted her hair and brushed it satin-smooth and coiled it neatly on the nape of her white neck with the same big carved coral Spanish comb tucked into the shining mass that Octavia had worn when she sat for the portrait. Sometimes she wore the lovely black lace shawl, sometimes the creamy white embroidered silk one, and always the delicate coral and silver jewelry. Yet she couldn't possibly have known from the pale image that stared back at her from the dim shimmer of the drawing-room mirrors, how exquisitely lovely she was, not even when the Major bent over her hand and said, as he had said so often to her mother,

"You are very charming today, my dear!"

He did not know himself, the grim old stoic, how much he adored her.

At length there came a certain spring, seductive, too early warm, when the Major grew thoughtful, when Certain Legal Matters came frequently in the evening and left Felicia to ponder over her embroidery frame or wander restlessly in the bit of garden. She was seventeen now, a glowing, radiant seventeen, so divinely happy that the Major smiled whenever he looked at her.

For it had come, the Beautiful, Wonderful time when they were going to the House in the Woods! Already the rooms were filled with trunks and packing boxes, Marthy and Zeb and the housemaids were sorting and folding incessantly. And around them, wandered, starry-eyed, a useless young person who hugged to her heart a joyous dream of a woman in a garden--a woman in a little lace cap and a trailing rose-colored dressing-gown, a woman who would say,

"Oh Felicia! I hope you'll be happy today in the garden!"

You mustn't blame the Major too much that he did not know what a cruel thing he had done--he did not even dream that Felicia believed she was going to find Octavia in the garden. Those long ago evasions that had silenced her little-girl questions he had forgotten. Indeed I think he never let himself remember those days in which the child had asked, "Where is she gone?"

And so they had come to the last night of all, the night before they should start their journey.

Inside the gloomy library grandfather and Certain Legal Matters discussed stupid details about where the furniture should go to storage and whether they should change the route and instead of going around the coast by steamer and down the St. Lawrence, travel part of the way overland--they consulted long yellow time-tables.

Felicia drifted across the dismantled library. She was pulling Octavia's adorable white lace shawl about her firm young shoulders, the flickering gas lights made her rather pale.

"It's hot--" she remarked plaintively. "I think I'll go into the garden--" Her grandfather nodded. She slipped through the French windows out to the narrow balcony and down the circular iron stairway.

A thousand million stars above her, shining through the tops of the old trees of heaven--a tender breeze that blew Marthy's curtains ever so gently and let the wistaria banners stream back and forth--if she shoved it carefully, that smallest iron bench, and then stood tiptoe upon it, she could peer through the top of the gate into the rectory yard.

Fairy land! A score of merry young humans dashing about--a babble of noise and laughter and the dyspeptic choir master nearly wild with the confusion--"Order! Order!" he screamed, "Ladies and gentlemen! Boys! Kindly remember this is the last rehearsal, the final rehearsal! When the organist begins the choir should file in very slowly--the principals remain outside until the choir is in--I would like the tenor and the baritone soloists' voices to sound as far off as possible as they approach--will those gentlemen be so good as to stand at the extreme end of the yard?"

Felicia, behind the ivied gate, caught her breath. For as the rather disorderly procession drifted away through the arch the soloists moved easily toward her. One of them was disgracefully fat, he puffed as he mopped his brow, but the other walked lightly, tossing his cap boyishly as he walked. Close to the wall, he laughed, a youthful, buoyant laugh,

"Jove!" he ejaculated, "Now I _have_ done it--my cap's on top of the wall--"

The music was growing softer, fainter, the fat man had cleared his throat for singing.

Felicia's heart stood still. The moon shone gloriously, it made little white eyes of the narcissi that stared up at her from the garden border. The wind stirred in the ivy. Felicia sighed. His head, beautifully rumpled, topped the wall, he was still laughing softly, talking to the man below.

"Second cap I lost here, lost one when I was a little shaver--there was a girl--"

He was looking straight into her eyes now, he caught at the rusty top of the gate and stared.

"Why--girl!" he murmured.

Oh! if you could have seen Felice! Felice, with her hair coifed smoothly on her dear little head! Felice, with the big carved Spanish comb holding that hair in place! And her white, white throat and the tangle of old lace about it! He stared into her grave young eyes, he looked at that lovely young mouth of hers, that mouth that was wide enough for laughter but small enough for kisses. They swayed toward each other, those two, as naturally as a butterfly sways toward a flower. He kissed her.

As she leaned toward him the treacherous bench toppled too far. She dropped away from his caress as suddenly as a star falls in the heavens. She lay in a little crumpled heap crushing the sweetness of the narcissi. She didn't know what had happened to her, she just lay there and laughed softly and put her hand to her mouth gently.

A perfect din of voices blotted out her consciousness. After all you know, a sprained ankle is a sprained ankle even if you don't know you have it.

CHAPTER II

THE HOUSE IN THE WOODS

However good at pretending Felice might wish you to be she would never like you to pretend you were the crumpled little person that Major Trenton and Certain Legal Matters picked up from the narcissi border. It wasn't only her sprained ankle that frightened her, though that hurt dreadfully of course, but it was all of the persons running with lanterns, the housemaids from the kitchen and Zeb and Marthy from the stable, and from over the top of the wall had vaulted an enormously tall young man who had insisted on dashing off for a doctor. Just having so many persons about all at once terrified her.

But when the ankle was bandaged and the doctor had left her lying