She opened the door of a small parlour as she spoke, and stood aside for Madelon to enter.  A little faded room, with a high desk standing in the window, gaudy ornaments on the mantelpiece, a worn Utrecht velvet sofa, and a semicircle of worsted-work chairs—­not much in it all to awaken enthusiasm, one would think, and yet, as Madelon came in, she forgot disappointment, and fatigue, and everything else for a moment, in a glad recognition of well-remembered objects.

“It is not a bit altered,” she cried, quite joyfully, turning to Mademoiselle Henriette as she spoke.

“You have been here before then,” says Mademoiselle, looking curiously at the child, and seeing for the first time, in the clearer light of the room, what a child she was.

“Yes,” answered Madelon, “I used to come here very often; we liked coming, because Madame Bertrand was so kind.  I know she will be glad to see me again—­ah!” she cried, breaking off in the middle of her sentence, “there is the little china dog I used to play with, and the bonbonniere with the flowers painted on the top—­ah, and my little glass—­do you know, Madame used always let me drink out of that glass when I had supper with her—­but you were not here, then, Mademoiselle.”

“That is true, I have only been with my aunt about six months; she is growing old, and wants some one to help her,” answered Mademoiselle Henriette, a most brisk, capable-looking little personage, “but I daresay she will recollect you.  Are you all alone?  Have you come far to-day?”

“Not very far,” said Madelon, colouring up, and suddenly recalled to the present.  “I think, please, I will leave my things here now, and come back presently.”

“I think you had better stay here quietly and rest; you look very tired,” said Mademoiselle kindly; and indeed as the glow faded from her cheeks, Madelon showed a most colourless little face, with heavy eyelids, that seemed as if they could hardly open.

“No, I would rather go out now,” she answered; “I can rest afterwards.”

Indeed, tired as she felt, she had changed her mind, thinking that if she stayed now, it would be hard to set off again by-and-by, and she was determined to get her business done to-day—­she had a morbid dread, too, of questions from strangers, after her experience with the Countess.

“I must go out,” she repeated; “but I will come back again, and then perhaps Madame Bertrand will have come in, and will tell me where I can sleep to-night.”

Mademoiselle Henriette had neither time nor sufficient interest in the child to contest the point further; and Madelon, having safely deposited her bundle in a corner of the sofa, departed on her errand.

CHAPTER XII.

What Madelon did at the Redoute.