ine, began to climb the path to the villa above.

As she reached the door a pony-carriage drove up. A big servant with
many buttons on his coat told her to go away. Gita paused, holding the
box. The pale lady in the carriage, who was wrapped in furs, motioned
her to approach. Quickly the girl ran forward and held out the frog.

"I found it in a hole at the foot of the olive-tree," she explained. "It
must belong to this house."

The lady took the box and opened it, emptying the contents on her lap.
There lay the diamond lizard, and the roll of French bank-notes.

"You see that Pierre was a dishonest servant, although nothing was found
on him," said the lady to those about her. "He must have hidden this box
in the olive grove to return from Nice later and find it."

Gita listened with her mouth and eyes wide open. The lady looked at her
and smiled.

"You are a good girl," she said.

Then she selected one of the bills and gave it to Gita. It was a note of
one hundred francs.

"Now I can marry Raphael!" she cried.

Raphael was standing beside grandmother's chestnut-roaster when both saw
Gita running toward them, her cheeks red, and her eyes flashing like
stars. She had to tell all about the frog, not only to them, but to the
neighbors. As for grandmother, she could not hear the story often
enough. When she had been a lemon girl no such luck had befallen her.

"Who would have thought of finding a wedding dowry in a frog?" laughed
Raphael.

Gita and Raphael are soon to be married in the yellow church on the
hill. The olive-pickers in the grove seek for something beside the dark
berries; they hope to find a green frog under a stone, containing money
and a diamond lizard; but this will never again happen.

JAPANESE LIFE.

The Japanese is the cleanest of mankind. Cleanliness is, so to speak,
more than godliness with him. Though he has no soap, he washes all over
at least once a day--he worships but once a week. His candles are made
of vegetable wax. He uses a cotton coverlet, well stuffed and padded,
for bed-covering and mattress. A sort of stereoscope case--made of
wood--makes his pillow. He resorts to that, and so do his wife and
daughters, that their carefully arranged hair may not be disarranged
during sleep. No head-covering is worn by the Japanese. No nation
dresses the hair so tastefully. Usually it is with the men shaved in
sections. They are coming now to wear it in European fashion. They are
ado