Chapter 19 - Page 2

in which she made for him a clear sketch. It was a
sketch of unpleasant little minds, avid and curious on somewhat
exotic subjects, little minds, awake to rather common claptrap
and gossipy pinchbeck interests.

"Yes--unpleasant, luckless, little persons. I quite understand.
They never appeared before. They will not appear again. Thank you,
Mademoiselle," he said.

The little girls did not appear again; neither did any others of
their type, and the fact that Feather knew little of other types
was a sufficient reason for Robin's growing up without companions
of her own age.

"She's a lonely child, after all," Mademoiselle said.

"She always was," answered Dowie. "But she's fond of us, bless
her heart, and it isn't loneliness like it was before we came."

"She is not unhappy. She is too blooming and full of life,"
Mademoiselle reflected. "We adore her and she has many interests.
It is only that she does not know the companionship most young
people enjoy. Perhaps, as she has never known it, she does not
miss it."

The truth was that if the absence of intercourse with youth
produced its subtle effect on her, she was not aware of any lack,
and a certain uncompanioned habit of mind, which gave her much
time for dreams and thought, was accepted by her as a natural
condition as simply as her babyhood had accepted the limitations
of the Day and Night Nurseries.

She was not a self-conscious creature, but the time came when she
became rather disturbed by the fact that people looked at her very
often, as she walked in the streets. Sometimes they turned their
heads to look after her; occasionally one person walking with
another would say something quietly to his or her companion, and
they even paused a moment to turn quite round and look. The first
few times she noticed this she flushed prettily and said nothing
to Mademoiselle Valle who was generally with her. But, after her
attention had been attracted by the same thing on several different
days, she said uneasily:

"Am I quite tidy, Mademoiselle?"

"Quite," Mademoiselle answered--just a shade uneasy herself.

"I began to think that perhaps something had come undone or my
hat was crooked," she explained. "Those two women stared so. Then
two men in a hansom leaned forward and one said something to the
other, and they both laughed a little, Mademoiselle!" hurriedly,
"Now, there are three young men!" quite indignantly. "Don't let
them see you notice them--but I think it RUDE!"

They were carelessly joyous and not strictly well-bred youths,
who were taking a holiday together, and their