. "You're here
to dig the hole where mademoiselle chooses; not to argufy."

Josephine whispered Rose, "I admire the energy of her character. Could
she be induced to order once for all where the poor thing is to be
planted?"

"Then where WILL you have it, mademoiselle?" asked Dard, sulkily.

"Here, I think, Dard," said Josephine sweetly.

Dard grinned malignantly, and drove in his spade. "It will never be much
bigger than a stinging nettle," thought he, "for the roots of the oak
have sucked every atom of heart out of this." His black soul exulted
secretly.

Jacintha stood by Dard, inspecting his work; the sisters intertwined,
a few feet from him. The baroness turned aside, and went to look for a
moment at the chaplet she had placed yesterday on the oak-tree bough.
Presently she uttered a slight ejaculation; and her daughters looked up
directly.

"Come here, children," said she. They glided to her in a moment; and
found her eyes fixed upon an object that lay on the knights' bough.

It was a sparkling purse.

I dare say you have noticed that the bark on the boughs of these very
ancient trees is as deeply furrowed as the very stem of an oak tree that
boasts but a few centuries; and in one of these deep furrows lay a green
silk purse with gold coins glittering through the glossy meshes.

Josephine and Rose eyed it a moment like startled deer; then Rose
pounced on it. "Oh, how heavy!" she cried. This brought up Dard and
Jacintha, in time to see Rose pour ten shining gold pieces out of the
purse into her pink-white palm, while her face flushed and her eyes
glittered with excitement. Jacintha gave a scream of joy; "Our luck is
turned," she cried, superstitiously. Meanwhile, Josephine had found a
slip of paper close to the purse. She opened it with nimble fingers;
it contained one line in a hand like that of a copying clerk: FROM A
FRIEND: IN PART PAYMENT OF A GREAT DEBT.

Keen, piquant curiosity now took the place of surprise. Who could it
be? The baroness's suspicion fell at once on Dr. Aubertin. But Rose
maintained he had not ten gold pieces in the world. The baroness
appealed to Josephine. She only blushed in an extraordinary way, and
said nothing. They puzzled, and puzzled, and were as much in the dark as
ever, when lo! one of the suspected parties delivered himself into
the hands of justice with ludicrous simplicity. It happened to be Dr.
Aubertin's hour of out-a-door study; and he came mooning along, buried
i