"Bijou!" called out the marchioness suddenly, "Madame de Juzencourt wants to see the children; go and fetch them. You will allow them to come down, Bertrade? and you, too, monsieur?" she added, turning to the abbe. M. de Clagny looked vexed at being separated from Denyse. It seemed to him already as though he could not do without her. She soon came back, followed by Marcel and Robert, leading by the hand a superb baby-child of four years old, who was smiling amiably and confidingly as he trotted along. "This is my godson," she said, introducing him with evident pride. "Isn't he a pet, and so beautiful and good. He's a love!" "Bijou is so good to that child," said Madame de Rueille, "she is always looking after him and is teaching him now to read." "So early!" exclaimed M. de Clagny, in a reproachful tone, "is he being taught to read already?" "Bijou teaches him plenty of other things, too, don't you, Bijou?" asked the marchioness; "you are teaching him Bible history, are you not? Two days ago he told me about Moses, and he knew it all very well." "Oh!" exclaimed the count jeeringly, "I should like to hear that. Poor unfortunate little mite!" In a graceful, winsome way, Bijou knelt down by the child. On hearing "his story" mentioned, the poor little fellow looked at her beseechingly. "Now, Fred, tell it," she said. Docile, but with a discontented expression on his face, the little fellow looked up at his god-mother. "Tell about Moses, you know it very well." "Well then," began Fred resolutely, "they put him in a 'ittle basket, 'ittle Moses, and they put the basket on the Nile----" He stopped abruptly, his face bathed in perspiration. "And then, what happened?" asked Bijou. "Don't know," replied the little fellow briefly; "don't know any more--don't know, I tell you. Say it yourself--what happened." "Nonsense! come now, have you made up your mind not to answer?" The child replied coaxingly: "P'ease don't make me say it!" Denyse insisted, however. "Oh, yes! now something happened when Moses was going down the Nile. What was it--what happened?" He thought for a minute, his face puckered up, his eyes shut, and then, just when everyone had given up hoping for anything more, he cried out, delighted at having remembered: "Puss in boots came! and called out: 'Help! help! it's the Marquis of Carabas--he's drowning.'" "There, you see," said Bertrade, laughing, "this is what comes of teaching him so many fine things at the same time." M. de Rueille added: "Yes, a day or two ago Denyse gave him a stunning 'Puss in Boots' that we brought with us from Pont-sur-Loire, and this has evidently done Moses a great deal of harm." Bijou turned towards her cousin, and exclaimed in astonishment: "Denyse! how long have you taken to calling me Denyse?" "Oh, I don't know," answered Rueille, "sometimes I do."