astor's house; and there was a lady seated on Madame
Eversil's mule, on a Spanish saddle, and a little page in a rich livery
was leading the mule. The pastor was walking immediately behind her
with two gentlemen, her husband and her son. This lady was a countess,
and she it was who had lost the purse a few weeks before, when she had
come to see the cascade.

"In going home that day the carriage had been overturned, and she had
been so much hurt that she never thought of her purse until a few days
afterwards, and then she supposed that it must have been lost where the
carriage had been overturned. She caused great search to be made about
that place; and it might have appeared to be quite by accident that
Monsieur Eversil heard of that search; but there is nothing which
happens in this world by accident. He knew the count and countess, and
wrote to them to tell them that if they would come again to Hartsberg
and take dinner in his humble house, he would give them good news of
the purse.

"When they came he told them of the honesty of the family of the
Stolbergs; and when he had placed the purse in the hands of the
countess, and she had seen that nothing had been taken out of it, the
pastor brought the venerable Monique and the fair Ella before the noble
lady, and she was as much pleased with one as with the other. Her mind,
therefore, was full of some plan for rewarding these poor honest
people, and more especially when Monique told her how the least of the
family had found the net and the golden fish and the moons.

"'I must see that little Margot,' she said, 'and if she is like her
sister, I shall love her vastly;' and then it was settled that the mule
should be saddled, and that she and the gentlemen should go up the
hill, whilst Madame Eversil remained to look after dinner.

"This party were also on the hill, though lower down and hidden by the
winding of the way, when Margot set out to run; but none of Margot's
friends would have been in time to save her, if it had not been for
Wolf. The wicked gipsy had resolved, if she could catch her, to stop
her cries one way or another; to take her in her arms, hold her hand
over her mouth, and to run with her to some place in the hills, not far
off, some cave or hole known only to herself and her own people; and if
the poor child had once been brought there, she would never have been
suffered to go free again among her friends to tell where the zingari
hole was.

"When Ma