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.
"You naughty little old woman," she said; "you very naughty little old woman, to say things like that to puzzle me--just what you know I don't like.

Go back to your own country, naughty old Marcelline; go back to your fairyland, or wherever it was you came from, if you are going to tease poor little Jeanne so." "_Tease_ you, Mademoiselle ?" Marcelline repeated.
"Yes, tease me," insisted Jeanne.