"I feel it deep inside, Madame. But I don't know. How can you do anything to make up, Madame? How can you help?" "Just never forget," Madame Perceval said. "Never take it for granted." "I don't see how anyone _could_ forget." "It's far too easy," Madame Perceval told her. "But it's important for us to remember, so that we can try to keep it from happening again. That's one reason I'm not going back to school after Christmas." "You're not going back!" Flip cried, and almost upset her tray. "Steady," Madame Perceval said. "I hadn't meant to tell you so soon." "Oh, Madame," Flip wailed. "_Why_ aren't you coming back!" Madame got up and walked over to the window, looking out at the fresh white world, swept clean by the wind the night before. "I feel that I've outlived my usefulness at the school. After the war when my aunt started it up again she needed me to help her, because she's not as young or as strong as she once was. But the school's reëstablished now. Everything's running smoothly. I'm not really needed any longer. As a matter of fact," Madame Perceval turned towards Flip with a half smile, "you're partly responsible for my leaving." "Me? How! Why!" Flip cried. "I think if I hadn't seen your father's letters with their drawings of forlorn and frightened children I might not have been quite so ready to accept when a friend I worked with during the war wrote and asked me to come and help her in a hostel for just such children. So that's where I'm going after the holidays, dear. It's on the border between Switzerland and Germany, right where I was during most of the war, so it will be good for me in many ways to make myself go there. Now, my Flip, I've talked to you far too long already. You're supposed to be resting. Mlle. Duvoisine will be angry with me if I've excited you." "You haven't excited me," Flip said, and her voice was low and mournful. "Only I don't see how I'll bear it back at school if you aren't there." "I'm surprised at you, Philippa." Madame Perceval spoke sharply. "I didn't expect to hear you talk that way again. I thought that was the old Philippa we'd left behind. Bear it! Of course you'll bear it! Things won't be any different without me than they were with me. I've never shown any favoritism at school and I never would." "I didn't mean that!" Flip cried. "Madame, you know I didn't mean that! It just helps me if I know that you're there, and it's _because_ you're so fair and--and just."