In my turn I blushed, but with delight.  No wonder Pepin had repined at separation from so lovely a mistress!

“I went to your house to inquire for you the other day, mademoiselle,” stammered I, " for I think I have a dog which belongs to you.  Have you not lost a brown poodle with a ribbon like this round his throat?”

As I spoke I produced the tinsel ornament from my pocket, but before I finished my last sentence she started forward with a joyous cry, and but for the timely intervention of Eugene, who stood beside the bed, the injured arm might have suffered seriously from the effects of her excitement.

“Ah!” she cried, weeping with joy; “my Bambin, my dear Bambin!  He is found then,—­he is safe, and I shall see him again!”

“Bambin!” repeated I, dubiously.  “Monsieur Grellois thought that his name was Antoine!”

The rosy color deepened under her delicate cheeks and crept to the roots of her braided hair.

“No,” she replied in a lower tone, “monsieur is mistaken.  My dog’s name is Bambin; we called him so because he is so like a baby.  Don’t you think him like a baby, monsieur?”

She looked wondrously like a baby herself, and I longed to tell her so; I could not restrain my curiosity, her blushes were so enticing.

“And Antoine?” persisted I.

“He is a friend of mine, monsieur; an engraver on wood, an artist.”

Eugene and I exchanged glances.

“And you and he are engaged to be married, is it not so?”
Unconsciously I questioned her as I might have questioned a child. 
She hardly seemed old enough to have the right over her own secrets.

“Yes, monsieur.  But I do not know where he is; and I have looked for him so long, ah, so long!”

What, have you lost him too, then, as well as Bambin?”

She shook her head, and looked troubled

“Tell me,” said I, coaxing her, “perhaps I may be able to find him also.”

“We are Alsatians,” said Noemi, with her eyelids drooping, doubtless to hide the tears gathering behind them; “and we lived in the same village and were betrothed.  Antoine was very clever, and could cut pictures in wood beautifully,—­oh so beautifully,—­and they sent him to Paris to be apprenticed to a great house of business, and to learn engraving thoroughly.  And I stayed at home with my father, and Antoine used to write to me very often, and say how well he was getting on, and how he had invented a new method of wood-carving, and how rich he should be some day, and that we were to be married very soon.  And then my father died, quite suddenly, and I was all alone in the house.  And Antoine did not write; week after week there was no letter, though I never ceased writing to him.  So I grew miserable and frightened, and I took Bambin—­Antoine gave me Bambin, and taught him all his tricks—­and I came to Paris to try and find him.  I had a little