e, and a
sudden remembrance of her talk with Elise came to her: "I am big enough,
old enough and ugly enough to take care of myself." She thought if it
was beauty that he was admiring she would cure him fast enough. She
grabbed the slab of soggy brown cake from the bag and crammed about six
inches of it into her mouth, the rest of it sticking out in a manner far
from dainty. It had the desired effect. The fastidious Frenchman was
completely disgusted. He immediately stopped his pursuit, exclaiming
with a shrug: "_Ah quelle betise!_"

When Judy arrived at the little station a train was on the track, and
without waiting to ask any question of the guard, since she had her
ticket, she jumped into a second class coach from which someone had just
alighted, slammed the door shut, sank back on the cushions and burst out
crying. Crying was something in which Judy was not an adept and only a
few tears came, but she felt better because of them. Then she settled
herself for a pleasant, if short, trip to Paris. There was no one in the
coach with her, for which she was very thankful.

"I'd hate for anyone, even a Frenchy, to see me blubber. Oh, how I
should have liked to hit that man a good uppercut on the jaw! I shall
crow over Molly. I did as much with a piece of gingerbread as she did
with a tennis racket when she floored the burglar who was after Mildred
Brown's wedding presents. This looks like a long trip to Paris. We
should be getting there by this time. We are going mighty fast for a
local. Oh, these beastly foreign trains where they hermetically seal you
and you can't ask a question until you get to a station."

The train slowed up but did not stop. They passed a village and then
another and another. The country was not familiar to Judy. She read
"Rambouillet" on a passing station, and then the fact became clear to
her that she was on the wrong train, going from Paris instead of towards
it.

"Rambouillet is at least twenty miles from Paris. Judy Kean, you idiot,
you idiot, you idiot!"

Judy was in truth on the Chartres express with six sous in her pocket,
left after she bought her ticket to Paris; and the one piece of jewelry
she might have converted into enough cash at least to telegraph her
friends, was pinned on the coat of that crazy old dancing fiend.

CHAPTER XIV.

COALS OF FIRE.

A furious, vociferous guard bundled Judy out of the coach, when on
arriving at Chartres the door was unlocked. She showed