ith a pillow before her, making lace. She looked a
nice old woman, and the room seemed clean, and there were flowers in the
window, so Marie peeped in a little further, and at last got in
altogether, and stood in the doorway. The old woman looked up to see
what it was that was in her light, and when she saw it was a little
girl, she said, 'Good morning, miss,' to her very nicely, and asked her
what she wanted. Marie said, 'Good morning, madame,' to her, quite
nicely too, and then she said, still looking frightened--

"'Oh it's the lion; I ran away from the lion, because I thought he was
going to eat me up.'

"The old woman quite understood, for of course she knew about the fair
and the animals that were there, and she saw that the little girl must
have strayed away from her friends. So she made Marie come in, and she
gave her a little chair to sit on, and some milk to drink, and then she
asked her her name, to try to find out who she was, only unfortunately
Marie didn't know any of her name except just 'Marie.'

"'Dear me,' said the old woman, 'that won't do, there's such lots of
little Maries.'

"But she went on questioning her till she found that Marie was staying
with her grandmother, that she had come over the sea to stay with her,
and that her grandmother had a parrot, whose cage hung out of the
window, and who talked to the people passing in the street, and that he
called her grandmother's maid, 'Babette, Ba-Ba-bette.' And when Marie
said that, the old woman quite jumped.

"'To be sure, to be sure,' she said. 'I know who is the young lady's
grandmother;' and up she got, and put away her lace, and took Marie by
the hand to lead her home. Marie was just a little frightened at first
to go out into the street again, for fear the lion should be coming that
way; but the old woman told her she was sure he wouldn't be, and
_really_, you know, though Marie didn't know it, she had far more reason
to be afraid of the gipsy girl than of the poor lion, who had only been
roaring to amuse himself in his cage. But they got on quite well through
the streets, and just as they came to the corner near where was Marie's
grandmother's house, there they saw her grandmother and the nurse, and
Babette behind them, and the cook behind her, and the gardener last of
all, all coming hurry-scurrying out of the house, all to go different
ways to look for Marie. Her grandmother had come home, you see, thinking
_perhaps_ Marie had found her