ddle.

"I am Mademoiselle Loire," she replied stiffly in French, "and you, I
suppose, are Miss Britton! I am sorry there was no one at the station
to meet you, but we did not expect you so soon."

"Did you not get my post-card?" Barbara asked.

"I could not possibly do that," Mademoiselle Loire returned
reprovingly; "it was posted in Paris far too late for _that_. However,
perhaps you will now come into the _salon_," and Barbara followed
meekly into a room looking out upon the garden, and very full of all
kinds of things. She had hardly got in before she heard a bustle on
the stairs, which was followed by the entrance of Mademoiselle Therese
Loire. Her face was not so long nor her hair so tightly drawn back as
her sister's, and she came forward with a rush, smiling broadly, but,
somehow, Barbara felt she would like the prim sister better.

After asking many questions about the journey they took her to her
room, and Barbara's heart sank a little. The house seemed dark and
cold after that in Neuilly, and her bedroom was paved with red brick,
as was the custom in those parts in old houses.

The dining-room--smelling somewhat of damp--was a long, low room
leading straight into the garden, and the whole effect was rather
depressing. At supper-time, Barbara was made acquainted with the rest
of the household, which consisted of an adopted niece--a plump girl of
about seventeen, with very red cheeks and a very small waist--and two
boys about twelve, who were boarding with the Loires so that they might
go to the Lycee[1] in the town. After supper, Mademoiselle Therese
explained that they usually went for a walk with the widower and his
children who lived next door.

"Poor things!" she said, "they knew nobody when they came to the town,
and a widower in France is so shut off from companionship that we
thought we must be kind to them. They have not a woman in the house
except a charer, who comes in the first thing in the morning."

Barbara, with a chuckle over the "charer," went to put on her hat, and
on coming into the dining-room again, found the widower and his sons
already there. Something in the shape of the back of the elder man
seemed familiar to her, and on his turning round to greet her, she
recognised her little friend of the train on their first arrival in
France. The recognition was mutual, and before she had time to speak
he rushed forward and poured forth a torrent of French, while
Mademoiselle Ther