"Poor father!" he sighed, the expression of his countenance softening. "As I told you before, Felicia, I am a great disappointment to him. If I really thought this specialist he wishes me to consult could do me the least good I would certainly see him, but I know mine is a hopeless case."
"Do see him, if only to please grandfather," pleaded Felicia in a coaxing tone.
"But I so dislike strangers—"
He paused undecidedly. The little girl was wise enough not to press the matter further; instead, she said—
"Do you want to hear about mother from the beginning—I mean from the time she was a tiny baby?"
"Certainly," he replied. "Tell the tale as you like, child; you will not fail to interest me."
"Well, the first place mother remembered was a large underground kitchen in a London lodging-house, and the first person she remembered was a little, old lady called Miss de Musset, who was always cooking at a great stove. Mother used to call Miss de Musset 'aunt,' but she was not related to her really, though she never knew that till she was a big girl. Mother was a foundling; those she belonged to deserted her and left her on the backdoor step of Miss de Musset's house, a little baby of about three months old, wrapped up in an old faded shawl, and Miss de Musset took her in and sent for the police, who wanted to carry her off to the workhouse, because they said it was most improbable her parents would be found, and they never were, you know."
"So Miss de Musset adopted your mother?"
"Yes. Years afterwards she told mother she had a feeling that God meant her to do it, and I think very likely He did, don't you? Well," Felicia continued, as her uncle made no response, "mother grew up with Miss de Musset, who was wonderfully kind and did all she could for her. Miss de Musset was a real lady, though she kept a lodging-house. Her father had been a French teacher, but her grandfather had been a Huguenot gentleman in France—"
"Ah!" exclaimed the invalid, a gleam of comprehension crossing his face which had worn a slightly puzzled expression, "he was an émigré, no doubt, who had been driven from his native country on account of his religious and political opinions. I understand. Go on, Felicia."