"Oh no," she said. "He would be far better in the chickens' house. It's nice and warm, I know, and his cage can be in one corner. He wouldn't be nearly so lonely, and to-morrow I'll tell Houpet and the others that they must be very kind to him. Houpet always does what I tell him." "Who is Houpet?" said Hugh. "He's my pet chicken," replied Jeanne. "They're all pets, of course, but he's the most of a pet of all. He lives in the chicken-house with the two other little chickens. O Cheri," she added, glancing round, and seeing that Marcelline had left the room, "do let us run out and peep at Houpet for a minute. We can go through the tonnelle, and the chickens' house is close by." She darted off as she spoke, and Hugh, nothing loth, his precious Nibble still in his arms, followed her. They ran down the long corridor, on to which opened both the tapestry room and Jeanne's room at the other end, through a small sort of anteroom, and then--for though they were _upstairs_, the garden being built in terraces was at this part of the house on a level with the first floor--then straight out into what little Jeanne called "the tonnelle." Hugh stood still and gazed about him with delight and astonishment. "O Jeanne," he exclaimed, "how pretty it is! oh, how very pretty!" Jeanne stopped short in her progress along the tonnelle. "What's pretty?" she said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Do you mean the garden with the snow?" "No, no, that's pretty too, but I mean the trees. Look up, Jeanne, do." There was no moonlight, but the light from the windows streamed out to where the children stood, and shone upon the beautiful icicles on the branches above their heads. For the tonnelle was a kind of arbour--a long covered passage made by trees at each side, whose boughs had been trained to meet and interlace overhead. And now, with their fairy tracery of snow and frost, the effect of the numberless little branches forming a sparkling roof was pretty and fanciful in the extreme. Jeanne looked up as she was told. "Yes," she said, "it's pretty. If it was moonlight it would be prettier still, for then we could see right along the tonnelle to the end." "I don't think that _would_ be prettier," said Hugh; "the dark at the end makes it look so nice--like as if it was a fairy door into some queer place--a magic cavern, or some place like that." "So it does," said Jeanne. "What nice fancies you have, Cheri! But I wish you could see the tonnelle in summer. It _is_ pretty then, with all the leaves on. But we must run quick, or else Marcelline will be calling us before we have got to the chicken-house."