he was feeling.

"Richard is detained by--an important--operation. And breakfast
is--waiting. Sulie, will you call Anne, and light the little tree?"

CHAPTER XX

_In Which a Dresden-China Shepherdess and a Country Mouse Meet on Common
Ground._

MARIE-LOUISE'S room at Rose Acres was all in white with two tall
candlesticks to light it, and a silver bowl for flowers. It was by means
of the flowers in the bowl that Marie-Louise expressed her moods. There
were days when scarlet flowers flamed, and other days when pale roses or
violets or lilies suggested a less exotic state of mind.

On the day when Anne Warfield arrived, the flowers in the bowl were
yellow. Marie-Louise stayed in bed all of the morning. She had ordered
the flowers sent up from the hothouse, and, dragging a length of silken
dressing-gown behind her, she had arranged them. Then she had had her
breakfast on a tray.

Her hair was nicely combed under a lace cap; the dressing-gown was faint
blue. In the center of the big bed she looked very small but very
elegant, as if a Dresden-China Shepherdess had been put between the
covers.

She had told her maid that when Anne arrived she was to be shown up at
once. Austin had suggested that Marie-Louise go down-town to meet her.
But Marie-Louise had refused.

"I don't want to see her. Why should I?"

"She is very charming, Marie-Louise."

"Who told you?"

"Dr. Brooks. And I knew her grandmother."

"Will Dr. Dicky meet her?"

"Yes. And bring her out. I have given him the day."

"You might have asked me if I wanted her, Dad. I don't want anybody to
look after me. I belong to myself."

"I don't know to whom you belong, Marie-Louise. You're a changeling."

"I'm not. I'm your child. But you don't like my horns and hoofs."

He gazed at her aghast. "My dear child!"

She began to sob. "I am not your dear child. But I am your child, and I
shall hate to have somebody tagging around."

"Miss Warfield is not to tag. And you'll like her."

"I shall hate her," said Marie-Louise, between her teeth.

It was because of this hatred that she had filled her bowl with yellow
flowers. Yellow meant jealousy. And she had shrewdly analyzed her state
of mind. She was jealous of Anne because Dad and Dr. Richard and
everybody else thought that Anne was going to set her a good example.

It was early in January that Anne came. The whole thing had been hurried.
Austin had been peremptory in his demand that she should