left."

"I am sure _anybody_ would be sorry if they understood that it was dear,
_dear_ grandmother's watch--and even if they knew nothing, any one
would be sorry if they saw your poor dear sweet little unhappy face,"
said Molly consolingly.

But though her words called forth a rather wintry smile from Auntie and
Sylvia, it was with sad hearts that all three went to bed on the night
of the ninth day since the loss.

PART II

UP ever so many pairs of steep winding stairs, somewhat later that same
evening, in a small barely furnished little room in one of the busiest
and most thickly inhabited parts of Paris, a young woman with a baby on
her knees was seated in front of a small fire. It was cold--for, alas,
in the dwellings of the poor want of fresh air and ventilation does not
mean _warmth_--and now and then she stirred the embers, though
carefully, as if anxious to extract what warmth she could without
exhausting its source.

"I must keep a little fire together for Bernard," she said to herself.
"He is late this evening. Perhaps I had better put the little one to
bed--still it is cold for her, for it would not yet be prudent to lay
her beside Paul, though he is so much better. What a blessing he is so
much better, my poor little boy! One should not complain, even though it
is hard to think of what this fortnight's illness has cost, fifty francs
at least, and my work in arrears. And to think of that watch lying there
useless all this time! Not that I would have Bernard sell it, even if we
dared. But still I can understand the temptation were it a thing one
_could_ sell, to many even poorer than we. To-morrow, if there is still
no advertisement in any of the papers, I really think I will no longer
oppose Bernard's taking it to the police, and giving up all hopes of any
reward, and even of the satisfaction of knowing its real owner has got
it. For they say lost objects sometimes lie at the Prefecture for years,
and it does not look as if the person it belongs to was very eager to
get it back, otherwise it would have been advertised or placarded.
Perhaps it is some one very rich, who has many watches; and yet--that
old locket with the date of more than a hundred years ago, so simple
too, evidently preserved as a family relic, and the watch too, old,
though still so good, as the watchmaker next door assured Bernard, worth
quite two or three hundred francs. Perhaps the owner is very distressed
about it, but still thre