was all right," Molly hastened to
assure her. "We lent the money--the fifty francs reward, you know--and
he was so pleased, poor man. I am afraid he is _very_ poor."

"He asked for a certificate--a little note to say he had been honest in
bringing it back," added Sylvia. "But we thought, and so did he, that it
would be better for you to write it. So he is going to call
again--to-morrow or the day after in the evening--it is such a long way
off where he lives, he says."

"What good will the certificate do him?" asked Auntie, stroking and
smoothing her dear watch all the time.

"He said it might get him promoted in the office where he works," said
Molly, "And he says the watch is a _very_ good one--he took it to a
friend of his who is a jeweller. So you see, Auntie, though he couldn't
have sold it here--you remember they told us it was impossible to sell
jewellery that isn't one's own here, as one has to tell all about where
one got it and all that--he might have kept it for himself."

"Or sent it away to be sold somewhere else," said Sylvia.

"Oh yes, no doubt he could have done something with it, if he hadn't
been really honest."

"And yet so poor," said Auntie thoughtfully. Then she looked again at
the watch with such a loving gaze that it brought tears to the girls'
eyes.

"Oh, Auntie darling, _how_ nice it is to see you looking like yourself
again," said Molly. "It seems almost, doesn't it," she added in a lower
voice, "as if its coming back were a little message from grandmother?"

How different appeared everything that happy day! How bright the
sunshine, even though but some pale wintry beams struggling through the
cold gray sky; how nice everything they had to eat seemed--was it,
perhaps, that the kind-hearted cook in her sympathy took unusual
pains?--how Auntie smiled, nay, laughed right out, when Molly suddenly
checked herself in saying something about what o'clock it was,
forgetting that it was no longer a painful subject! How grateful they
all felt to be able to go to bed in peace without the one
ever-recurring, haunting thought, "If the watch could but be found!"

And with the night came another thought to Auntie.

"Sylvia and Molly," she said the next morning, "I have been thinking so
about those poor people--the man who found the watch I mean--and his
family," for he had told them he was married and had children. "I do
feel so grateful to him. I feel that I must go and see for myself if
they are