It managed to do it. True, it was only a brief shower: but the water came down in sheets. In despair I took off the _chapeau d'uniforme_, and my brother, who wore an Inverness cape, sheltered it under the flap. I stood to hold the cape at a right angle, so that the precious object might not be crushed, and we were watching it under this sheltering wing, and my brother was assuring me it was all right when,--as I stood there bareheaded and rain-beaten, beneath a tree by the side of the broad path near the entrance to the wood--a short, stoutish man, buttoned up to the chin in his greatcoat, and holding his umbrella tightly, walked by us at a great pace, without (so at least it seemed) looking at us at all. And that man was M. Heger. We gasped, and looked at each other. 'He didn't see us,' said my brother cheerily. 'What a bit of luck!' 'You may be quite sure he did see us,' I answered. 'Well, I wonder what will happen now?' With this new anxiety on our hands, even the precious _chapeau d'uniforme_ became a secondary consideration. But the shower having passed, we examined it carefully. There was no disaster this time. The rosebuds were still rosebuds and the blonde still blonde. It is true that a splash had fallen on the white chip crown, but my brother was always ready with comfort. [Illustration: THE GALERIE AND GARDEN IN WINTER (The Allée Defendue is on the left. The old pear-tree, whose lower branches still blossomed in spring, is on the right)] 'When it's dry,' he told me, 'you'll easily get that off with a bit of bread.' This consoled me for the time being: but he was wrong as to the question of facts. Bread had no effect upon that blot. It remained an island, or, to speak more correctly, a coast-line, on the white chip, to the end of that _chapeau d'uniforme_'s existence. But one dusted the stain over with white powder before putting on one's Bonnet, and hoped no one noticed it? So far as I know, no one did. But let it not be supposed that I escaped moral punishment: I, who had once boasted in my pride that nothing was less indifferent to me than my Sunday Bonnet, wore this one uneasily to the end of the term, always conscious that the tell-tale stain was there, and might suggest questions as to its origin. Nor did I escape scot-free from M. Heger's hands, although he did behave with a certain generosity, for he kept the secret. But he used his own method of punishment.