The person who seemed most distressed was poor Mlle. Zélie: she blamed no one, but repeated constantly, 'Why then did not Madame warn me? Never should I have permitted it, had I not supposed that it was understood that these gooseberries, without value for that matter, were intended to be eaten. It seemed to me, in the absence of instructions, so natural.' And a chorus of girls answered: 'We thought it too, Mademoiselle: never would we have touched a gooseberry had we understood.' There the matter remained. We were not particularly unhappy: as a matter of fact all the gooseberries in the garden could have been purchased for five francs in Bruxelles. No harm had been done the bushes: it was a _mal entendu_--what would you have? The only person who seemed to take it to heart was poor Mlle. Zélie. 'Quel malheur,' she kept repeating. 'Quel malheur! mais aussi, pourquoi Madame ne m'a-t-elle rien dit?' We continued, Marie Hazard and myself, sitting under our shady tree; our third philosopher, the Nature-worshipper, always good at decoration, had been called off to assist at laying out the tables, and arranging flowers; groups of other girls were sitting in circles on the grass or walking about arm in arm, when--suddenly arrived upon the scene M. Heger. He came up with an amiable expression: but in a moment the look changed to one black as night: he had seen the tell-tale signs of the depredations inflicted on the gooseberry-bushes. 'Who is responsible for this?' he asked, '_c'est une bassesse!_ Mlle. Zélie, what does this signify? Were you not told the fruit was to be respected?' Poor Mlle. Zélie stood there quivering with terror. 'Unhappily,' she said, 'Madame's letter arrived too late: without bad intention, these young girls imagined themselves free to eat gooseberries: from the moment it was known that it was forbidden, I am sure there was no infraction of the rule: but alas! what was done, was done. I regret it profoundly: and so I am sure do you, is it not so, my children?' she asked, turning to Marie Hazard and myself:--there was a clear and empty space around us--every other girl had somehow vanished. 'Yes, Mademoiselle, we are very sorry,' both of us answered at once. M. Heger swooped round upon us in his wrath. 'And so,' he said, 'it is _you_, is it; you two who have so much pride, both of you; who are so little sensitive to the counsels of your teachers, you, who are so superior in your own esteem, who are the guilty ones? It is you two, and you alone in the entire Pension, who have been capable of this indignity? And see what ruin you have made! Are you not ashamed--what gluttony!' 'Mais non, Monsieur, non,' pleaded Mademoiselle Zélie, 'these young girls are not alone responsible; many others also took the fruit; you must not blame them for everything.' 'Is that so, Mademoiselle Hazard? Is that so, Mees?'