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12 be opened. "Hush, it's Auntie Dorine. . . . I do hope there's nothing wrong at Grand-mamma's! . . ."

But now the maid had opened the door and Dorine rushed into the room excitedly, perspiring under her straw hat, with a face as red as fire. She was in a furious temper; and it was impossible at first to make out what she said:

"Just think . . . just think . . ."

She could not get her words out; the passion of rage seething inside her made her incapable of speaking; moreover, she was out of breath, because she had been walking very fast. Her hair, which was beginning early to turn grey, stuck out in rat-tails from under her sailor-hat, which bobbed up and down on her head; her clothes looked even more carelessly flung on than usual; and her eyes blinked with a look of angry malevolence, a look of spite and discontent gleaming through tears of annoyance.

"Just think . . . just think . . ."

"Come, Sissy, calm yourself and tell us what's the matter!" said Gerrit, admonishing her in a good-natured, paternal, jovial fashion.

"Well then—just think—that horrible creature came to Mamma first thing this morning . . . and made a scene . . ."

"What horrible creature?"

"Why, are you all deaf? I'm telling you, I