At madame's entrance Joyce rose as usual, but when the red velvet train had swept on to a seat beside the fire, she still remained standing.

Her lips seemed glued together after those first words of greeting.
"Be seated, mademoiselle," said the lady, with a graceful motion of her hand towards a chair.

"How have you enjoyed your holiday ?" Joyce gave a final swallow of the choking lump in her throat, and began her humble confession that she had framed up-stairs among the rows of dismal blue wall-paper parrots.

She started with Clotilde Robard's story of Jules, told of her accidental meeting with him, of all that she knew of his hard life with Brossard, and of her longing for some one to play with.

Then she acknowledged that she had planned the barbecue secretly, fearing that madame would not allow her to invite the little goatherd.
At the conclusion, she opened the handkerchief which she had been holding tightly clenched in her hand, and poured its contents in the red velvet lap.
"There's all that is left of my Christmas money," she said, sadly, "seventeen francs and two sous.