Flip took a cup and saucer and stirred her tea very carefully. "It was New Year's Day," she said, and then she didn't say anything for a long time. Madame Perceval sat looking quietly into the fire, her feet on the low brass hearth-rail, and waited. At last Flip said, "Mother and father and I were driving over to Philadelphia to have New Year's dinner with some friends and it began to snow and sleet and rain and everything all at once, and another car was passing a truck and skidded and there was an accident. The people in the other car weren't hurt badly and it was all their fault, but the truck driver was killed." She paused again. Then she said, "and my mother was killed." Madame Perceval continued to look into the fire but Flip knew that she was listening. "Father was cut and bruised," Flip continued, "and my knee cap was broken. It's really all right now, though, except it gets sort of stiff sometimes. But I never was any good at running and things anyhow." The gong for tea began to ring. It reverberated even back into Madame Perceval's room as the maid rode up and down in the skeleton of the elevator. Flip put her cup and saucer down on the table and her hand was trembling. "There's the gong for tea," she said. "Do you want to go down?" Madame Perceval asked. "No." Madame Perceval reached for a telephone on one of the bookshelves; Flip had not noticed it before. "One of the advantages of the school's having been a hotel," Madame said, "is that all the teachers have telephones connected with the switchboard downstairs. I'll call Signorina del Rossi--I think she's in charge today--and tell her to excuse you from tea. We won't tell anyone and we'll have all the girls wondering where you are and that ought to be rather fun." "Oh--that's wonderful!" Flip cried. "Oh, Madame, thank you." "Hello, Signorina," Madame said on the telephone. "Madame Perceval." Then she launched into Italian, which Flip did not understand. There was a good deal of laughter, then Madame hung up and took Flip's cup. "All right, little one. Let me give you some more tea." So Flip sat there and drank tea and ate Madame Perceval's cakes and felt warmth from far more than the fire seep into her. Madame passed her the cake plate. "Have another. They come from Zürcher's in Montreux and they're quite special. I blow myself to them every once in a while. What do you want to be after you leave school, Philippa? An artist?" Flip bit into a small and succulent cake, crisp layers of something filled with mocha cream. "I think so. But my father says it's probably just because he paints and he doesn't want me to do anything just because he does it. Anyhow he says he's not at all sure I have enough talent." Madame laughed and filled Flip's tea cup for the third time. "I like your father's work. Especially his illustrations for children's books." "Oh, do you know them?" Flip was excited. Madame reached up to the bookshelves and pulled down a copy of _Oliver Twist_.