She felt suddenly very small and very, very helpless--she was utterly spent. But there was something in her wide gray eyes--a dignity and a command--that completely dominated the shrewish wife of the hump- shouldered tailor, something that made the slatternly creature back out of the room, for Felicia Day, with her hand on the battered iron railing of the bed, had said clearly, "Woman, go at once." And when the door was shut she sat down in one chair and put Babiche carefully on the bed. She untied Louisa's bonnet and dropped it to the floor; she loosed the cumbersome traveling coat. Far out on the river the ferry boats and tugs were signaling; across the water the glamour of a million lights shone toward her. It was quite dark now; she stumbled to the window and looked down into the back yard. The dusk had mercifully blurred out for her the heaps of refuse and ashes that were dumped upon the spot where the narcissus border had been. The great iron pots on the top of the garden wall loomed out of the shadows. She looked straight down on the gate to the rectory yard. She sunk in a crumpled heap and rested her weary head on the window sill, then groped for the wee doggie as she heard the faint click of its tiny paws coming toward her over the bare floor. "Oh, Babiche!" she whispered, "Babiche, how happy--we should be--to be home!" CHAPTER IV THE UNFINISHED SONG You can't imagine anything more amusing than the satisfaction with which Felicia Day awoke. The early sun was streaming in her eyes. She rubbed them drowsily and sat up in the middle of the narrow humpy bed. At the foot of the bed Babiche awoke too, yawning and stretching beautifully, reflexing her droll puppy body and wagging her wee feathery tail. On the floor the russet bag gaped open where Felicia had dumped it the night before; her clothes lay in a limp heap beside the window. But the clear spring air, deliciously salty smelling to the woman who had been living inland so long, made her breathe deeply. "Ah! Babiche!" she murmured, smiling at the smudgy spot on the wall, "What a naughty child I used to be!" She had a naive pride in this evidence of her early wickedness. But a moment later she was frowning, her eyes fixed on the grimy woodwork. "What unspeakably lazy servants I must have! I shall send them away at once! Just as soon as that woman has brought my breakfast I shall say to her, "'You are an abom-in-able housekeeper, pack your bags and go!'"