‘That is my own daughter!’ cried the enraptured lady: ‘she is in everything worthy of me; she is, indeed! She gave me much trouble as a child, I brought her up at my own breast, and see how she is ready to repay me. She will bring me a thousand pretty things. Oh, rapture! As for Klaus, I will not call him “mein sohn” any more. I will not frame my lips to utter his Swiss jargon. Go to your saints, boy; cut and carve away at them, and remember to your shame that you have refused the entreaty of your mother. No, thank goodness! I am not your mother. I should have overlaid you fifty times had you been mine; I might have guessed what a sort of conscientious creature you would have grown up.’ ‘What is Klaus’s work?’ asked Percenez, to turn the subject. ‘Work!’ repeated Madame Deschwanden, ‘why, he is a wood-carver; he makes saints for churches, and crucifixes, and Blessed Virgins, and all that sort of thing, you know; but it don’t pay now, there’s no demand. Madeleine began that once, but gave it up. You can’t swim against the tide.’ ‘Then what is Madeleine’s work now?’ ‘Oh! she is flower-girl at Versailles.’ Gabrielle looked up. ‘I am a flower-girl,’ she said, timidly. ‘Oh, indeed!’ answered Madame Deschwanden, quickly running her eye over her. ‘You are good-looking, you will do, only fish in a different pool from Madeleine. But oh, ecstasy! here comes Madeleine. What has she got?’ Madeleine was indeed visible pushing her way back from the factory. She had something in her hands, but what, was not distinguishable. In another minute she was upstairs and had deposited a beautiful mother-of-pearl box on the table, a box of considerable size, and of beautiful workmanship. ‘What is in it?’ almost shrieked Madame Deschwanden. ‘My mother, I cannot tell; it is locked, and I have not the key.’