"Humph! Good for you, Ardiune!" commented Raymonde. "Not much tenderness about Gibbie, though! And I didn't see anybody's fond tears! You all laughed at me! My feet weren't a yard long, anyway!" "Poetic and artistic license allows a few slight exaggerations. Even Shakespeare took liberties with his subjects!" returned the authoress blandly. "If not exactly a yard long, your feet, not small by nature, looked absolutely enormous! It's the truth!" CHAPTER XVIII Mademoiselle "Parlez-vous francais, Mademoiselle? She opened the window, and out she fell. And what happened next I've never heard tell, Parlez-vous francais, Mademoiselle?" chanted Raymonde, dancing into the dormitory and plumping down on Fauvette's bed amid a pile of chiffons, muslins, and other flimsy articles of wearing apparel. "Why, what's the matter, child? Whence this spread-out? You look weepy! Packing to go home? Mother ill? Or are you expelled?" "Neither," gulped Fauvette with a watery smile. "It's only her--Mademoiselle! She's turned all my drawers out on to the floor, and says I've got to tidy them. She lectured me hard in French. I couldn't understand half of what she said, but I knew she was scolding. And I've to sort all these things out, and put them neatly away, and mend up everything that needs mending before this evening, or else she'll tell the Bumble to come and look at them, and I shall get 'sadly lacking in order' down in my report again. It's too bad!" "It's positively brutal of Mademoiselle!" said Raymonde reflectively. "If it had been Gibbie, now, it would have been no surprise to me. Don't cry, you little silly! You look like a weeping cherub on a monument! Shovel your clothes back again into your drawers, and put a tidy top layer. That's what I always do!" "So do I," wailed Fauvette. "But it won't work this time. Mademoiselle was really cross, and I could see she means to come to-night, and hold what she calls 'une inspection'. She said something about making me an example. Why, if she wants an example, need she choose me?" "It's certainly breaking a butterfly," agreed Raymonde. "I'm afraid there's something seriously wrong with Mademoiselle. She's completely altered this last week. She never used to worry about things, and she's suddenly turned as fussy as Gibbie."