“Let us go over to the chest and sit down!” said Lisle, who was trying not to show his emotion and his unbounded surprise, but he failed in this, for they could all see that he was fairly dazed. He sat down on the chest with Marie Josephine beside him, and in spite of her dust and grime, he kept his arm close about her. Then he beckoned to Jean. “Come and sit on the other side, won’t you, Jean?” he said. Dian had gone over to the heap of rugs, and coming back with a soft brown one, put it on the floor in front of the chest. Jean sat down on it with his legs crosswise. “You sit down between us on the chest, Dian,” suggested Marie Josephine excitedly. “We can talk and talk but I don’t know where to begin. There are so many things I want to tell and to hear about!” It was true. It was all so strange and unreal, the journey, their coming through the gates meeting Dian, then the alley, an odd dark room, a funny fat man, whose name was Humphrey Trail and who was Lisle’s friend, and with him Rosanne! Then the walk through the noisy streets with Dian to her own home, to the secret cellar! Marie Josephine had to be the one to talk first. She talked so fast and said so much that her words fairly tumbled over themselves, but her hearers were so interested that they did not miss one of them! Jean sat listening as eagerly as any one, nodding his head vigorously every now and then, and blushing at Marie Josephine’s praise of him. They drank in all she had to tell them of that spring night less than a week ago when she had dressed herself in the disguise which she had been all winter in procuring, and which she told them would furnish a story all of itself. She told of the pitiful whine of Flambeau when she had come away and left him, of the last glimpse of Mother Barbette’s cottage, and then of her words to Grigge. She told of the run through the sweet, night air of their dear Pigeon Valley, and finally of finding Jean just behind her! When she reached this stage in her narrative she stopped for sheer lack of breath and Dian stood up, saying: “You both need food, Little Mademoiselle. I shall prepare it.” At these words of Dian’s Jean cried, “Bravo!”