I hope you'll excuse me, monsieur, I truly do, but I'm an American, and I can't stand by and keep still when I see anybody being abused, even if I am a girl, and it isn't polite for me to talk so to older people." Joyce fired out the words as if they had been bullets, and so rapidly that monsieur could scarcely follow her meaning.

Then, having relieved her mind, and fearing that maybe she had been rude in speaking so forcibly to such an old gentleman, she very humbly begged his pardon.
Before he could recover from her rapid change in manner and her torrent of words, she reached out her hand, saying, in the meekest of little voices, "And will you please give me back those things, monsieur?
The sheet is Madame Greville's, and I've got to stuff that hair back in the mattress to-night." Monsieur gave them to her, still too astonished for words.

He had never before heard any child speak in such a way.

This one seemed more like a wild, uncanny little sprite than like any of the little girls he had known heretofore.

Before he could recover from his bewilderment, Joyce had gone.