She knelt there for a minute thinking of the old green lanthorn which she had put out and so carefully placed on its ledge under the secret stone, of the hidden room itself, and of the Lisle Saint Frère who had helped to build it with his own mailed hands. Last of all she thought of her grandfather and of the honor he had done her in letting her be the Saint Frère of her generation to know the secret. Then, suddenly, she remembered that her dancing master was to come at five. She brushed the cobwebs from her wide skirts and climbed up from the sombre cellar to the stately spaciousness of her home. CHAPTER III THE BAL MASQUÉ “You need not worry at all, Proté. No one will know. It will be quite easy. Gonfleur is waiting at the door. You have said yourself that Mademoiselle Marie Josephine should not miss the fun.” A small figure in a white cloak was following the little maid up a stairway leading from a side garden door of the Saint Frère house as she spoke. “Mademoiselle may not be asleep. She often lies awake these nights. It is indeed a shame that she should not have gone with the others. But you, Mademoiselle, will they miss you?” They were outside the nursery door as Rosanne de Soigné answered. She looked up at Proté and spoke indignantly. “They think that I am asleep in bed with some silly bonbons under my pillow. It is the same with me as with Marie Josephine; they treat me as though I were a child. To-night I have an idea! You will hear me tell Mademoiselle!” Proté opened the door leading to a small room off the day nursery which was Marie Josephine’s own apartment. She was not asleep, and as they came into the room she sat up in bed and said: “What is it, Proté? What has happened?” “Nothing has happened, Mademoiselle, except that your friend, Mademoiselle Rosanne de Soigné, has come to see you,” Proté replied, lighting a candle as she spoke. Rosanne came up to the bed and, before Marie Josephine, in her bewilderment, could speak, said eagerly: “You are to come with me, Marie Josephine. Proté is to dress you at once. You shall not be left out of the ball. Listen! I know a place where we can see it all, watch the dancing, and hear the music! Gonfleur is to bring us goûter when the others are having theirs. It will be the greatest fun!” Marie Josephine was so surprised for a moment that she could not speak. “Hurry, for we must not miss any of it. Proté has your stockings. Let her put them on,” urged Rosanne. Marie Josephine stuck out her foot obediently, and Proté, kneeling beside her, pulled on the stockings, muttering to herself distressfully: “This is dreadful. What if Madame la Comtesse should know! May the good saints protect me if Madame should find us out!” When Proté said this, Marie Josephine seemed to wake up to the situation and, leaning over, patted the round knob at the back of the little maid’s head.