An ironing board added itself to the other confusion. Propped up between the sewing machine and the uneven metal footboard of a child's crib Felicia eyed it with misgiving. She almost laughed aloud. "Do you think you'd better risk it with me, Madame?" she asked. "I am not what-you-call-a-blanchisseuse--I have never held a flat-iron--" she was smiling because she was thinking of Grandy's inflexible order "never let her hand be spread on any heavy object." She lived through My Lady Fretfulness's tirade at this appalling ignorance. She again patiently explained that she was sorry The Exchange had let Madame misunderstand. "I am only a needlewoman for hand work," she reiterated. "I know only embroidery and mending and knitting and the beading of purses--as they should have informed you--" The crisis was tided over by the frowsy maid being summoned to press the frock while Felice corralled various hooks and eyes, mended a rip in a stocking heel, helped to fasten the pressed frock around a stiffly corseted person, breathed a patient "yes" to numerous instructions about the children's lunch. She sighed with relief when two o'clock heard the door bang after a second grand exit when a caricatured edition of the mistress passed out in the form of "Sadie's Thursday out." Not that things were exactly placid after those two disrupting influences had fled to their pleasures. The rain dripped more steadily, the pile of garments heaped upon the sewing machine never seemed to grow less. The children ate the lunches that Felicia found in the half tidied kitchen. The little woman herself carried a plate of not unappetising scraps into the ornate mahogany dining-room, rummaged for a knife and fork and sat down to eat, much to the disapproval of the scraggly nine-year-old who informed her with unconscious imitation of the mother's manner that "Mama doesn't allow her servants to eat in here--" Followed a bumping, dragging, nerve-racking afternoon that made Felicia long to shriek like the raucous-voiced peddler who had disturbed her precious early morning sleep. By four o'clock things had become unendurable: She viewed her squabbling charges with scorn. They behaved no better nor no worse than "the-thousand-weeds-for-which-we- have-no-name--" yet a spirit of fairness roused itself in Felicia's unhappy thoughts. "After all, they're not to blame, these two uncared-for savages!" She put down her needle and thimble, walked with a determination toward the wee contestants in a never ending fight and put her hand on the younger child's shoulder. The child jerked away. Felicia's hand went out more firmly this time. "Let us go out of this room," she said coolly. "I do not think it is possible for any one of us to be happy here any longer--"