the dancer, never taking her eyes from him.

At this strange name, a burst of wild laughter broke from the young
girls.

"Here's a terrible name for a young lady," said Diane.

"You see well enough," retorted Amelotte, "that she is an enchantress."

"My dear," exclaimed Dame Aloise solemnly, "your parents did not commit
the sin of giving you that name at the baptismal font."

In the meantime, several minutes previously, Berangere had coaxed the
goat into a corner of the room with a marchpane cake, without any one
having noticed her. In an instant they had become good friends. The
curious child had detached the bag from the goat's neck, had opened
it, and had emptied out its contents on the rush matting; it was an
alphabet, each letter of which was separately inscribed on a tiny block
of boxwood. Hardly had these playthings been spread out on the matting,
when the child, with surprise, beheld the goat (one of whose "miracles"
this was no doubt), draw out certain letters with its golden hoof, and
arrange them, with gentle pushes, in a certain order. In a moment they
constituted a word, which the goat seemed to have been trained to write,
so little hesitation did it show in forming it, and Berangere suddenly
exclaimed, clasping her hands in admiration,--

"Godmother Fleur-de-Lys, see what the goat has just done!"

Fleur-de-Lys ran up and trembled. The letters arranged upon the floor
formed this word,--

PHOEBUS.

"Was it the goat who wrote that?" she inquired in a changed voice.

"Yes, godmother," replied Berangere.

It was impossible to doubt it; the child did not know how to write.

"This is the secret!" thought Fleur-de-Lys.

Meanwhile, at the child's exclamation, all had hastened up, the mother,
the young girls, the gypsy, and the officer.

The gypsy beheld the piece of folly which the goat had committed. She
turned red, then pale, and began to tremble like a culprit before the
captain, who gazed at her with a smile of satisfaction and amazement.

"Phoebus!" whispered the young girls, stupefied: "'tis the captain's
name!"

"You have a marvellous memory!" said Fleur-de-Lys, to the petrified
gypsy. Then, bursting into sobs: "Oh!" she stammered mournfully, hiding
her face in both her beautiful hands, "she is a magician!" And she
heard another and a still more bitter voice at the bottom of her heart,
saying,--"She is a rival!"

She fell fainting.

"My daughter! my daughter!" cried the te