'But she did find something very curious that day,' said Heister.

"'What day?' asked Jacques.

"'It might be ten days since,' said Heister.

"'Ten days?' repeated Jacques; 'what makes you remember ten days ago so
particularly?'

"'Well, but was it not about ten days ago,' returned Heister, 'that she
found something very curious in the grass, and called on you to come
and look at it?'

"'There is scarce a day,' answered Jacques, 'in which she does not call
me to come to her and see something she has met with more wonderful
than ordinary. What was it she said when she called me that day you
speak of? If you can tell me, why then I shall better know how to
answer you.'

"'She spoke of having found a net with golden fish and moons,' replied
Heister; 'what could she mean?'

"'It is difficult to know what she does mean sometimes,' said Jacques;
'for the dear little lamb talks so fast that we do not attend to half
she says. But is she not a nice little creature, Madame Kamp, and a
merry one too?'

"'Yes, to be sure,' replied Heister; 'but about the net and the
fish--what could the little one mean?'

"'Who heard her talk of them?' asked Jacques. 'Ask those who heard her,
madame. _They_ ought to be able to tell you more about it. But I must
wish you good evening, as I am in haste to go to the pastor's.'

"Heister saw that she could make nothing of Jacques, so she let him go,
pretending that she was herself going no higher, but about to turn
another way.

"As soon, however, as Jacques was out of sight, she came back into the
path which ran at the bottom of the cottage garden, and there she saw
little Margot seated on the bank under the hedge, with a nosegay in her
hand.

"The little one was dressed in her clean Sunday clothes, in the fashion
of the country, and she wore a full striped petticoat which Monique had
spun of lamb's-wool, a white jacket with short sleeves like the body of
a frock, and a flowered chintz apron. Her pretty hair was left to curl
naturally, and no child could have had a fairer, softer, purer
complexion.

"'Now,' thought Heister, 'I shall have it;' and she walked smilingly up
to the child, and spoke fondly to her, asking her, 'where she got that
pretty new apron?'

[Illustration: "_Margot rose and made a curtsey._"--Page 262.]

"Margot rose, made a curtsey, as she had been taught, and said:

"'Grandmother made it, madame.'

"Heister praised her pretty face, her bright eyes, her nice c