"No," she replied; "if you had not taken me in with you to watch the monks beg, I never should have dreamed of going in. Why do you ask me that? I saw the ball-room all finished before the fête. What do I care to see an empty room where no one is dancing? It was the ball, the dancing, the dresses, that I wanted to see! But you wouldn't take me even as far as the door last night!" "Why not tell me the truth when the matter is of no importance? There is nothing out of the way, my dear little sister, in your having come to the naiad's grotto to wake me just now." "Father says that you are asleep on your legs, Michel, and I see that he is quite right. I will take my oath that since yesterday morning, when I brought you the leaves you asked me to pick, I have not been inside the grotto." "Ah! Mila, this is too much. You used not to tell falsehoods, and I am sorry to see that you have that wretched habit now." "Hush, brother, you insult me," said Mila, proudly withdrawing her arm. "I have never lied, and I shall not begin to-day, just to please you." "Little sister," rejoined Michel, walking after her and quickening his pace to keep up with her, for she was hurrying on ahead, hurt and grieved, "will you please show me the locket Princess Agatha gave you?" "No, Master Michelangelo," retorted the girl, "you are not worthy to look at it. In the days when I cut a lock of your hair to wear upon my heart, you were not unkind as you have become since." "If I were in your place," said Michel, ironically, "I would take the locket from my bosom and throw it in the face of the unkind brother who teases me so!" "Here! take it!" said Mila, pulling the locket from her bosom, and handing it to Michel with an angry gesture; "you can take back your hair, I don't care for it any longer. But return me the locket; I care for that because it was given me by somebody kinder than you." "Two lockets just alike!" said Michel to himself, placing them side by side in his hand; "is this the sequel of my vision?" XIX YOUTHFUL LOVES Michel dared not ask his sister for the explanation of such a prodigy. He ran and shut himself up in his little room, and, seating himself upon his bed, instead of going to sleep, he opened and compared those two precisely similar trinkets and their contents. They were absolutely indistinguishable, as were the two locks of hair; so that, after Michel had examined and handled them a long while, he no longer knew which belonged to his sister. Thereupon he recalled a remark of hers, which had made little impression upon him, although it had seemed somewhat strange to him for an instant. Mila declared that the lock of hair she had entrusted to the princess had diminished by one half in the jeweller's hands.