-opened her eyes--no, there was no king to
be seen, only the apple-woman, who had been gently shaking her awake, and
who now stood pointing out to her a little group of four people hurrying
towards them, of whom the foremost, hurrying the fastest of all, was a
fair-haired little girl with a cream-coloured felt hat and feathers, who,
sobbing, threw herself into Sylvia's arms, and hugged and hugged as if
she never would let go.

"Oh, Sylvia, oh, my darling!" she cried. "I thought you were lost for
always. Oh, I have been so frightened--oh, we have all been so
frightened. I thought perhaps they had taken you away to one of the
places where the tops of the beds come down, or to that other place on
the river, the Morgue, where they drown people, only I didn't say so, not
to frighten poor grandmother worse. Oh, grandmother _dear_, aren't you
glad she's found?"

Sylvia was crying too by this time, and the old apple-woman was wiping
her eyes with a corner of her apron. You may be sure grandmother gave her
a present, I rather think it was of a five-franc piece, which was very
extravagant of grandmother, wasn't it?

They had been of course hunting for Sylvia, as people always do for
anything that is lost, from a little girl to a button-hook, _before they
find it_, in every place but the right one. I think it was grandmother's
bright idea at last to make their way to the entrance and wait there.
There had been quite a commotion among the cocked-hats who had _not_ seen
Sylvia, only unfortunately they had not managed to communicate with the
cocked-hats who _had_ seen her, and they had shown the greatest zeal in
trying to "match" the little girl in the cream-coloured hat, held out to
them as a pattern by the brisk old lady in black, who spoke such
beautiful French, that they "demanded themselves" seriously if the
somewhat eccentric behaviour of the party could be explained, as all
eccentricities should of course _always_ be explained, by the fact of
their being English! Aunty's distress had been great, and she had not
"kept her head" as well as grandmother, whose energies had a happy knack
of always rising to the occasion.

"What _will_ Walter think of us," said aunty piteously, referring to
the children's father, "if we begin by losing one of them?" And she
unmercifully snubbed Ralph's not unreasonable suggestion of "detectives;"
he had always heard the French police system was so excellent.

Ralph had been as unhappy as any of