"I don't think I _do_ care much for dolls," said Jeanne meditatively, when she had munched the last crumbs of the snipped-up almonds, which were supposed to represent some very marvellous dish. ("I like almonds terribly--don't you, Cheri?") she added, as a parenthesis. "No, I don't care for dolls. You are quite right about them; they _are_ stupid, and you can't make fancies about them, because their faces always have the same silly look. I don't know what I like playing at best. O Marcelline!" she exclaimed, as the old nurse just then came into the room, "O Marcelline! _do_ tell us a story; we are tired of playing." "Does Monsieur Cheri, too, wish me tell him a story?" asked Marcelline, looking curiously at Hugh. "Yes, of course," said Hugh. "Why do you look at me that funny way, Marcelline?" "Why," said Marcelline, smiling, "I was thinking only that perhaps Monsieur finds so many stories in the tapestry that he would no longer care for my stupid little old tales." Hugh did not answer. He was wondering to himself what Marcelline really meant; whether she knew of the wonders concealed behind the tapestry, or was only teasing him a little in the kind but queer way she sometimes did. "Marcelline," he said suddenly at last, "I don't understand you." "Do you understand yourself, my little Monsieur?" said Marcelline. "Do any of us understand ourselves? all the different selves that each of us is?" "No," said Hugh, "I daresay we don't. It is very puzzling; it's all very puzzling." "In the country where I lived when I was a little girl," began Marcelline, but Jeanne interrupted her. "Have you never been there since, Marcelline?" she asked. Marcelline smiled again her funny smile. "Oh dear, yes," she said; "often, very often. I should not have been near so happy as I am if I had not often visited that country." "Dear me," exclaimed Jeanne, "how very queer! I had no idea of that. You haven't been there for a great many years any way, Marcelline. I heard mamma telling a lady the other day that she never remembered your going away, not even for a day--never since she was born." "Ah!" said Marcelline, "but, Mademoiselle, we don't always know what even those nearest us do. I might have gone to that country without your mamma knowing. Sometimes we are far away when those beside us think us close to them." "Yes," said Hugh, looking up suddenly, "that is true, Marcelline." What she said made him remember Dudu's remark about Jeanne the night before, that she was far, far away, and he began to feel that Marcelline understood much that she seldom alluded to. But Jeanne took it up differently. She jumped on to Marcelline's knee and pretended to beat her.