"You no taka mine fires! Get out!"
Felicia did "get out," speeding so recklessly back to Mademoiselle's old room that she was breathless as she shut the door behind her and leaned against it laughing weakly.
"Oh! Oh! I know it is all a dream! It's too ridiculous to be true!"
She found enough water in a pitcher on the table to bathe her face.
She sat on the edge of the bed thinking hard as she brushed her hair.
"It is not a dream"—she shuddered, "The back yard is real—even with all the rubbish there, the back yard is real! The gate is there—the first thing I shall make them clean will be the back yard—after all, it won't be so difficult as my garden in the woods. I shall not have to wait to find the pattern, I know exactly how it all belongs. And I know that about this whole house. I shall"—she grew more determined, "make it all as it was before. First I shall put all these filthy dirty heathen out—it will be exactly like making the garden—only I shall have people pulled out instead of weeds—they are all like weeds, these filthy dirty people—I am not afraid of weeds."
But all the same, when she was dressed and had begun the perilous journey downward, she found herself very much afraid of the "weeds" that she encountered on her way to the tailor's missus.
Nor did she issue victoriously as she had planned from her attempt to send the tailor's missus away.
The tailor's missus stood her ground stoutly, she even forced Felicia to give her three dollars for room rent from Louisa's purse; the woman's awe of the night before had departed, she moaned strange things about her children's starving, she reiterated her absolute lack of belief that Felicia owned the house, she laughed toothlessly over such a thing being possible.
"You tell that to Mister Grady," she scoffed, "Mr. Grady, he is goin' to buy this house, comes the auction next Tuesday—"
Mr. Grady, Felicia discovered, was the rent collector; this fact at last was something to seize upon. If he was the rent collector and it was her house, certainly she could go and collect from him. She learned that he lived across the street, a grimy finger indicated where and she set forth valiantly.