p--ah, and my little glass--do you know, Madame
used always let me drink out of that glass when I had supper
with her--but you were not here, then, Mademoiselle."

"That is true, I have only been with my aunt about six months;
she is growing old, and wants some one to help her," answered
Mademoiselle Henriette, a most brisk, capable-looking little
personage, "but I daresay she will recollect you. Are you all
alone? Have you come far to-day?"

"Not very far," said Madelon, colouring up, and suddenly
recalled to the present. "I think, please, I will leave my
things here now, and come back presently."

"I think you had better stay here quietly and rest; you look
very tired," said Mademoiselle kindly; and indeed as the glow
faded from her cheeks, Madelon showed a most colourless little
face, with heavy eyelids, that seemed as if they could hardly
open.

"No, I would rather go out now," she answered; "I can rest
afterwards."

Indeed, tired as she felt, she had changed her mind, thinking
that if she stayed now, it would be hard to set off again by-
and-by, and she was determined to get her business done to-
day--she had a morbid dread, too, of questions from strangers,
after her experience with the Countess.

"I _must_ go out," she repeated; "but I will come back again,
and then perhaps Madame Bertrand will have come in, and will
tell me where I can sleep to-night."

Mademoiselle Henriette had neither time nor sufficient
interest in the child to contest the point further; and
Madelon, having safely deposited her bundle in a corner of the
sofa, departed on her errand.

CHAPTER XII.

What Madelon did at the Redoute.

And so more than half Madelon's troubles are over, and she is
really approaching the moment so looked and longed for, for
which so much has been dared and risked! Ah, is it so that our
dearest hopes get fulfilled? In after years Madelon always
looked back upon the remainder of that day, as upon the
previous night, as a sort of horrible nightmare, through which
she struggled more and more painfully--to what awakening we
shall presently see. The golden morning had faded into a grey
drizzle; the mist hung upon the hills, hiding their tops, and
there were low heavy clouds, presaging an afternoon of more
decided rain. The golden hope, too, that had so sustained and
cheered our Madelon, seemed to have suddenly faded also; and
in its place was that ever-increasing sense of utter weariness
and aching