of it," she said. "He
would not know me now if he saw me, the dear bon papa," she added. "I am
as old as he was then! How it will be in heaven I wonder often--for
friends so changed to meet again? But that we must leave to the good God;
without doubt He will arrange it all."

"And Didier, Marie?" said Sylvia, after a little pause. "Did you also
make friends with him?"

Marie smiled, and underneath her funny old brown wrinkled skin I almost
think she blushed a little.

"Ah yes, Mademoiselle," she said. "That goes without saying. Ah
yes--Didier was not slow to make friends again--and though we said
nothing about it for a long time, not till I was in the twenties, it
came all as he wished in the end. And a good husband he made me."

"Oh!" cried Molly, "I see--then _that's_ how your name is 'Larreya' too,
Marie."

They all laughed at her.

"But grandmother said you had many more troubles, Marie," said Sylvia.
"Long after, when first she knew you. She said you would tell us."

"Ah yes, that is because the dear lady wishes not herself to tell how
good she was to me!" said Marie. "I had many troubles after my husband
died. I told you my son Louis was a great grief, and we were poor--very
poor--I had a little fruit-stall at the market--"

"Like my old woman in Paris," said Molly, nodding her head.

"And there it was the dear lady first saw me," said Marie. "It was all
through the apples--bon papa did well for me the day he planted that
tree! They were so fine--Madame bought them for the poor gentleman who
was ill--and then I came to tell her my history; and when she took this
house she asked me to be her concierge. Since then I have no troubles--my
daughter married, long ago of course, but she died, and her husband died,
and the friends were not good for her children, and it was these I had to
provide for--my grand-daughters. But now they are very well off--each
settled, and so good to me! The married one comes with her bebe every
Sunday, and the other, in a good place, sends me always a part of her
wages. And my son too--he that went to Paris--he writes often. Ah yes, I
am well satisfied! And always my great-nephews send me the apples--every
year--their father and their grandfather made the promise, and it has
never been broken. And still, my little young ladies and little
Monsieur--still, the old apple-tree at the paternal house at Stefanos, is
called 'le pommier de la petite.'"

"How nice!" said the children all