as a very pleasant, bright-faced, young woman, with a baby in her arms,
talking, or at least looking as if she had just been talking very
eagerly.

"Is he here?" said auntie, quite breathless, "my little boy, my little
nephew, I mean. Is Baby here?"

The young woman looked at the old man with a sort of little nod of
triumph.

"You see," she said quickly, "I said there was no need to frighten the
poor darling by taking him to the police office." "Yes, Madame," she
went on, turning to auntie, "the dear bebe is here--that is to say, he
cannot but be the one you are looking for. I sent him out into the
little garden with his cat and my little girl, while my grandfather and
I talked about what to do. I would have sent him home, I mean we would
have tried to find his home, if my husband had been here, but he is
away."

"And I am too feeble, Madame, as you see, to walk far," said the old
man, who seemed now anxious to be very amiable.

"But you talked of taking him to the police office," said the young
woman, in a low voice, "the idea! to frighten a bebe like that."

"Hush, hush," said the old man, "all was to be done for the best. You
shall see him, your dear child, Madame," he went on, bustling about.

"But tell me first--a moment----" said auntie, "What did he come for?
Did he buy the picture?"

"The picture," repeated the old man, "no, surely. It was the glass jugs,
the little gentleman wanted, and he had his money all right--I took but
the just price, Madame--I would not deceive any one."

"They are very dear to _my_ mind," said the young woman, "but there--I
know nothing about old things. This is not our shop, Madame--I look in
in passing, to see the grandfather sometimes, that is all."

[Illustration: Auntie stood still a moment to listen.--P. 155.]

"And Baby came to buy some _jugs_, you say," repeated auntie. There
was a confused remembrance in her mind of something Baby had said about
jugs, something he had asked her to look at the day they had stood at
the shop window, but which she had since forgotten. Her only idea in
coming to the little old shop had been the picture. "You said he came to
buy some jugs?" she said again.

"Yes, Madame," said the old man "two glass jugs--Venetian glass."

"Ah!" said auntie, and then she remembered it all--about the glass jugs
that Baby had broken at home, and what he had said to her about those in
the shop window being like them. "And the picture?" she said, "is it