AFTER delivering her letter, the child went slowly on downstairs, to the room she had been on the way to visit. It was on the second floor, just under the room of the Comtesse de Lavalette.

"Come in," said a Cockney voice shrill with youth, in answer to her tap; and the child obeyed.

Though this room was of the same size and shape, it was very different from that of the Comtesse. The plain furniture was stiffly arranged, and there was no litter of clothing or small feminine belongings. By the window, which gave a glimpse of the sea, and of Monaco rock with the old part of the Palace, a plump young girl sat, with a baby a year or two old in her arms, and a nurse's cap on her smooth head.

"You invited me to come down after I'd had my dÉjeÛner, so I came," said the child.

"Right you are, Miss Rosemary," returned the plump girl. "You're such a quaint little body, you're a regular treat. I declare I ain't 'alf sure I wouldn't rather talk to you, than read the Princess Novelettes. Besides, I do get that tired of 'earin' nothin' but French, I'm most sorry I undertook the job; and the Biby don't pick up English much yet."

"Don't you think he's a bright baby?" asked the child, sitting down on a footstool, which was a favourite seat of hers.

"For a French biby, 'e 's as bright as you could expect," replied her hostess, judicially.

"Are they different?"

"Well, they ain't Hinglish."

"I'm half American," said the little girl.

"You don't talk through your nose. Far as I can see, you've got as good a haccent as me."

"I suppose yours is good?" asked Rosemary, as if she longed to have a doubt set forever at rest.

"Rather! Ain't I been brought out from London on purpose so as this biby can learn to speak Hinglish, instead of French? It's pretty near the sime thing as bein' nursery governess. Madame wouldn't trust her own wye of pronouncing the languidge. She must 'ave a Hinglish girl."

"And she sent for you on purpose?" the child enquired, with increasing respect.

"Well, I was the only one as would come at the price. 'Tain't big wages; but I'm seein' loife. Lor', I come down here with Madame and Mounseer a fortnight ago, and Monte Carlo ain't got many secrets from me. I was a duffer, though, at first. When I 'eerd all them shots poppin' off every few minutes, up by the Casino, I used to think 'twas the suicides a shooting theirselves all over the place, for before I left 'ome, I 'ad a warnin' from my young man that was the kind of goin's on they 'ad here. But now I know it's only the pigeon shooters, tryin' for prizes, and I wouldn't eat a pigeon pie in this 'otel, not if 'twas ever so!"

"Do they ever have them?" asked the little girl, awed.

"Not as I knows of, but they may for Christmas. I sye, are you lookin' forward to your Christmas, kiddy?"

"Angel—that's Mother, I mean—says I'm not going to have much of a Christmas this year. I'm trying not to mind. I suppose it's because Santa Claus can't get to the Riviera, with his sleigh and reindeer. How could he, Miss Jane, when there's no snow, and not even a scrap of ice?"

"Pshaw!" said Miss Jane. "It ain't Santa Claus brings you things, snow or no snow. Only babies believe that. You're old enough to know better. It's your father and mother does it all."

"Are you sure?" asked Rosemary.

"Dead sure. Don't be a silly and cry, now, just because there ain't any Santa Claus, nor any fairies."

"It isn't that," said the little girl. "It's because I can never have any more Christmases, if it depends on a father. You know, I haven't a father."

"I supposed you 'adn't, as 'e ain't 'ere, with yer ma," replied the young person. "She's mighty pretty."

"I think she's the prettiest mother in the world," said Rosemary, proudly.

"She don't look much like a mother."

The child opened her eyes very wide at this new point of view. "I couldn't have a mother who looked any other way," she said. "What do you think she does look like?"

"Silly puss! I only mean she isn't much more'n a kid, 'erself."

"She's twenty five, twenty whole years more than me. Isn't that old?"

"Lawkes, no. I'm goin' on seventeen myself. I 'aven't got any father, no more'n you 'ave, so I can feel fur you. Your ma 'as to do typewritin'. Mine does charrin'. It's much the sime thing."

"Is it?" asked Rosemary. "Angel doesn't like typewriting so very well. It makes her shoulder ache, but it isn't that she minds. It's not having enough work to do."

"Bless your hinnercent 'eart, charrin' mikes you ache all over! Betcherlife my ma'd chinge with yours if she could."

"Would she? But Angel doesn't get on at all well here. I've heard her telling a lady she lent some money to, and wanted to have it back, after awhile. You see, when we were left poor, people said that she could make lots of money in Paris, because they pay a good deal there for the things Angel does; but others seemed to have got all the work for themselves, before we went over to Paris to live, so some friends she had told her it would be better to try here where there was no—no com—com—"

"No compertishun," suggested the would-be nursery governess.

"Yes, that's the right word, I think. But there was some, after all. Poor Angel's so sad. She doesn't quite know what we'll do next, for we haven't much money left."

"She's got a job of char—I mean, typin' to-day anyhow," said Jane.

"Yes, she's gone to a hotel, where a gentleman talks a story out loud, and she puts it down on paper. She's been three times; but it's so sad; the story is a beautiful one, only she doesn't think he'll live to finish it. He came here to get well, because there's sunshine, and flowers; but his wife cried on Angel's shoulder, in the next room to his, and said he would never, never get well any more. Angel didn't tell me, for I don't think she likes me to know sad things; but I heard her saying it all to a lady she works for sometimes, a lady who knows the poor man. I don't remember his name, but he's what they call a Genius."

"It's like that out here on the Riviera," said Jane, shaking her head so gloomily that the ruffled cap wobbled. "Lots of ill people come, as well as those who wants fun, and throwin' thur money about. In the midst of loife we are in death. Drat the Biby, I believe 'e's swallowed 'is tin soldier! No, 'ere it is, on the floor. But, as I was sayin', your ma and mine might be sisters, in some wyes. Both of 'em lost their 'usbins, young—"

"How did your father get lost?" Rosemary broke in, deeply interested.

"'E went to the dogs," replied Jane, mysteriously.

"Oh!" breathed the child, thrilled with a vague horror. She longed intensely to know what had happened to her friend's parent after joining his lot with that of the dogs, but was too delicate-minded to continue her questioning, after such a tragic beginning. She wondered if there were a kind of dreadful dog which made a specialty of eating fathers. "And did he never come back again?" she ventured to enquire, at last.

"Not 'e. You never do, you know, if once you goes to the dogs. There ain't no wye back. I was wonderin', since we've been acquainted, kiddy, if your pa didn't go the sime road? It 'appens in all clarses."

"Oh no, my father was lost at sea, not on the road; and there aren't any dogs there, at least I don't think so," said Rosemary.

"If it's only the sea 'as swallered 'im, 'e may be cast up again, any day, alive an' bloomin'," replied Jane cheerfully. "My ma 'ad a grite friend, sold winkles; 'er 'usbin was lost at sea for years and years, till just wen she was comfortably settled with 'er second, along 'e comes, as large as loife. Besides, I've read of such things in the Princess Novelettes; only there it's most generally lovers, not 'usbins, nor yet fathers. Would you know yours again, if you seen 'im?"

Rosemary shook her head doubtfully, and her falling hair of pale, shimmering gold waved like a wheat-field shaken by a breeze. "Angel lost him when I was only two," the child explained. "She's never talked much to me about him; but we used to live in a big house in London—because my father was English, you know, though Angel's American—and I had a nurse who held me in her lap and told me things. I heard her say to one of the servants once that my father had been lost on a yacht, and that he was oh, ever such a handsome man. But—but she said—" Rosemary faltered, her grey-blue eyes suddenly large and troubled.

"What was it she said?" prompted Jane, with so much sympathetic interest that the little girl could not refuse to answer. Nevertheless, she felt that it would not be right to finish her sentence.

"If you please, I'd rather not tell you what Nurse said," she pleaded. "But anyway, I'd give everything I've got if my father would get found again. You see, it isn't only not having proper Christmases any more, that makes me feel sad, it's because Angel has to work so hard for me; and if I had a father, I s'pose he'd do that."

"If 'e didn't he'd deserve to get What For," said Jane, decidedly. "If you was a child in a story book, your pa'd come back and be lookin' for you everywhere, on Christmas Eve; this Christmas eve as ever was."

"Oh, would he?" cried Rosemary, a bright colour flaming on her little soft cheeks.

"Yes; and what's more," went on her hostess, warming to the subject, "you'd know 'im, the hinstant you clapped heyes on his fice, by 'eaven-sent hinstinct."

"What's 'eaven-sent-hinstinct?" demanded Rosemary.

"The feelin' you 'ave in your 'eart for a father, wot's planted there by Providence," explained Jane. "Now do you hunderstand? Because if you do, I don't know but you'd better be trottin'. Biby's gorn to sleep, and seems to be sleepin' light."

"Yes, I think I understand," Rosemary whispered, jumping up from her footstool. "Goodbye. And thank you very much for letting me come and see you and the baby."

She tiptoed across the room, her long hair waving and shimmering again, softly opened, and shut the door behind her, and slowly mounted the stairs to her own quarters, on the fourth floor.