"Well, it shows how fond they are of you, doesn't it?" remarked Susan. "Perhaps," replied Sophia Jane, and after that she was silent for a long time, and Susan stationed herself at the window to watch for Mademoiselle and her friend. Whenever she saw two people in the distance she cried out, "Here they are!" And this happened so often, and turned out to be not the least like them, that at last it made the invalid quite peevish. So many false alarms, when she could not look out of the window herself, were most distracting. "You're not to say it again," she exclaimed in a weak voice of command, "unless you see them _acshally_ coming in at the gate." Susan controlled herself with difficulty, for she was getting very much excited as the time drew near. And now, stepping quickly and neatly along with a large basket on her arm, Mademoiselle's figure did really appear--alone. Where was the friend? Susan's heart sank, and her hands grew quite cold. In another minute she must meet Mademoiselle, and then-- "She's coming in at the gate," she announced to the invalid in a trembling voice; "and she hasn't brought Mrs Jones or anyone, but only a large basket." "You're sure?" said Sophia Jane in a husky agitated tone; "then look here, quick, before she comes in." Susan turned sharply round from the window. Sophia Jane was leaning forward over the grate, with a flush on her white cheeks and her eyes very bright, and in her hand she held, soiled and crumpled, Susan's letter of confession. The next second it had dropped into the heart of the fire, and as the door opened to admit Mademoiselle a little flame sprang brightly up. And that was how Sophia Jane posted the letter. It was such a sudden thing, and so completely altered the state of affairs that Susan could not at first take it in, or remember that she might now answer Mademoiselle's greetings without shame. These were most affectionate and cheerful, and she presently seated herself close to Sophia Jane's arm-chair with her basket on her knees, and untied her bonnet-strings. "Madame, your aunt, is so kind to ask me to take tea with you," she said, "and I have taken the liberty to bring also a Monsieur who is anxious to make his compliments to Miss Sophia." "Is he down-stairs?" asked Sophia Jane. "Mais non," said Mademoiselle with a little burst of laughter; "he is here, in this room, and waits to make himself known." She opened the lid of the basket a very little way and peeped in. "It's Gambetta!" exclaimed Sophia Jane, in a voice hoarse with excitement; "that's what you meant by a friend." There was the tiny tinkle of a bell. Mademoiselle opened the basket wide, and there indeed was Gambetta in all the dignity of the new collar.