"Yes, Portia Person," she answered sweetly, after she had risen as Mademoiselle had told her to when a visitor should arrive. Although she must have been eleven she was trembling with excitement, because he was her first visitor. "Yes, Portia Person, I will—only, how will I know—that I am in—Trouble—where is Trouble?"
Which seemed to make it hard for the Portia Person.
"I mean, if there's anything you need that you haven't—if there's anything you want some one to tell you about—now do you know?"
She nodded thoughtfully.
"Why, there are things right now that I want some one to tell me about—"
Before he could tell her any of them Mademoiselle came swiftly and let him out through the stable gate talking excitably and softly in French, which Felicia thought most unfair of her.
It is not at all strange that she does not remember when her mother died. You see sometimes there were several days when her mother was too tired or too ill to see such a vigorous person as Felice must have been. She merely remembers that there came a time when she was no longer asked to tiptoe past the door on the second floor landing. But she does remember that the thin visaged old French woman wept one day when she asked her,
"Shall we not go tell Maman I was happy today in the garden?"
She remembers it because they were the first tears she had ever seen and she clapped her hands and said "How queer, Mademoiselle! There are little rains in your eyes."
She did not ask to see her mother any more, for when she did Mademoiselle would answer "Not to-day." It was somehow a rather difficult time for them all; the Major was morose and sullen and Mademoiselle often had "little rains" in her eyes. She was not very patient with the lively young person who had grown tall enough to reach even the topmost drawer of the high walnut bureau.