There is little Alexis on a showery day in June, running first down to the garden to look at the sky, and then back, three steps at a time, to the barometeronly to find that the two are in league against him; and the eight-years-old Marthonie, a delicious picture in her white linen dress, a pair of morocco shoes on her "dear little feet", and her hair, dark as ebony, hanging in loose curls on her shoulders; Marthonie, who insisted on being dressed for a picnic in a frock of the prettiest apple-green taffetas, with rose-coloured ribbons and shoesand came home hatless and draggled, a tearful Cinderella with one shoe left in the mud.
