g it must be a dream. For we heard--both
Mademoiselle Jeanne and I knew it again--the sound of the window on to
the balcony opening, the window through which the little English girl
used to come out to meet her friends. We looked and could scarcely
believe our eyes. Out on to the balcony stepped a young lady, a young
girl rather she seemed, for she was tall and slight and had fair curls
about her sweet fresh face. She stood for one instant looking at us all
as if bewildered, then, with a sudden cry, almost before we knew what
she was doing, she was over the railings and down the bank.

"'Mademoiselle Jeanne or Mademoiselle Eliane!' she cried, 'which of you
is it? for it is one of you, I know! And you are _not_ dead--not all
dead and gone--and there is Dudu, too. Oh, how glad, how very glad, I am
that I came!'

"Laughing and crying both at once, she threw herself into Madame's arms,
while Monsieur looked on in amazement.

"'You know me?' she cried--'your little English Charlotte. See, here is
the bonbonniere,' feeling for it in her pocket as she spoke. 'And you
are Mademoiselle Jeanne. I know you now--if you had twenty peasant caps
on I should know you. But how thin and pale you are, my poor Jeanne!
And is this your husband? I knew you were married. I saw it in the
newspapers ever so many years ago. Do you know it is fifteen years since
I went away? And I am married, too. But tell me first how it is you are
here and dressed like that, and why you look so sad and Monsieur so ill.
Tell me all. You may trust me, you may indeed, and perhaps my husband
and I may be able to be of some use. You may trust me,' seeing that
Madame and her husband looked at each other in bewilderment; 'may they
not, Dudu?' she added, turning to me. 'Tell Mademoiselle Jeanne that she
can indeed trust me.'

"I flapped my wings and croaked.

"'You see,' said Charlotte, and at that they all laughed.

"'It is not that we do not trust you, my dear friend,' said Madame; 'and
indeed you see all in seeing us here as you do. There is nothing to tell
but the same sad story that has been to tell in so many once happy
French homes. But explain to me, my dear Charlotte, how you are here. It
is so strange, so extraordinary.'

"And Charlotte explained. Her husband was a sailor. To be near him, she
had been in Spain at the outbreak of the revolution, and had remained
there till he was ordered home. Now that the terror was subsiding, there
was--for them, as