surrounded with houses, where a
fair was going on. She was fairly bewildered; she had never
been in the town before, and though, in fact, not very far
from the hotel where she was staying, she felt completely
lost.

As she stood still for a moment, in the midst of the
dispersing crowd, looking scared and dazed enough very likely,
she once more attracted the attention of the little girl who
had been kneeling near her in the church, and who now pointed
her out to her parents, good, substantial-looking bourgeois.

"_Comme elle a l'air drole_," said the child, "with her hair all
rough, and that old cotton frock!"

"She looks as if she had lost someone," says the kindly
mother. "I will ask her."

"No, she had not lost anyone," Madelon said, in answer to her
inquiries, "but she did not know where she was; could Madame
tell her the way to the Hotel de l'Aigle d'Or?"

"It is quite near," Madame answered; "we are going that way;
if you like to come with us, we will show it to you."

So Madelon followed the three down the broad steps, and out
into the Place, where she looked a queer figure enough,
perhaps, in the midst of all the gay holiday-folk who were
gathered round the booths and stalls. She did not concern
herself about that, however, for her mind was still full of
what she had seen and heard in the church; and she walked on
silently, till presently Madame, with some natural curiosity
as to this small waif and stray she had picked up, said, "Are
you staying at the hotel, _ma petite?_"

"Yes," answered Madelon, "we came there last night."

"And how was it you went to church all alone?"

"Papa had to go out," says Madelon, getting rather red and
confused, "and I was so dull by myself, and I--I went out into
the street, and got into the church by a little door at the
side--not that other one we came out at just now; so I did not
know where I was, nor the way back again."

"Then you are a stranger here, and have never been to the
church before?" said Monsieur.

"No," said Madelon; and then, full of her own ideas, she asked
abruptly--"what was everyone doing in there?"

"In there!--in the church, do you mean?"

"Yes, in the church--what was everyone doing?"

"But do you not know, then," said the mother, "that it is to-
day a great fete--the fete of the Assumption?"

"No," said Madelon, "I did not know. Was that why so many
people were there? What were they doing?" she persisted.

"How do you mean?--do yo