Madame must have felt something of it besides the loss of the handsome salary for years from the little old withered woman. But conventionality is inexorable; and the St. Denis's great recommendation was its conventionality. Madame Joubert must have felt something of it,--she must have felt something of it,--for why should she volunteer? Certainly madame could not have imposed _that_ upon _her. It must_ have been an inspiration of the moment, or a movement, a _tressaillement_, of the heart. "Listen, Pupasse, my child. Go home, study your lesson well. I shall come every evening myself and hear it; and as soon as you know it, I shall fetch you back myself. You know I always keep my word." Keep her word! That she did. Could the inanimate past testify, what a fluttering of fools' caps in that parlor--"Daily Bees," and "Weekly Couriers," by the year-full! What could Pupasse say or do? It settled the question, as Madame Joubert assured madame, when the tall, thin black figure with the bag of books disappeared through the gate. Madame Joubert was never known to break her word; that is all one knows about her part of the bargain. One day, not three years ago, ringing a bell to inquire for a servant, a familiar murmuring fell upon the ear, and an old abécédaire's eyes could not resist the temptation to look through the shutters. There sat Pupasse; there was her old grammar; there were both fingers stopping her ears--as all studious girls do, or used to do; and there sounded the old words composing the rule for irregular verbs. And you all remember how long it is since we wore funnel-shaped hoop-skirts! End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Balcony Stories, by Grace E. King