Now they always celebrated this day as well as they could; and used to plant a tree, for one thing. Dard, well spurred by Jacintha, had got a little acacia; and they were all out in the Pleasaunce to plant it. Unhappily, they were a preposterous time making up their feminine minds where to have it set; so Dard turned rusty and said the park was the best place for it. There it could do no harm, stick it where you would. “And who told you to put in your word?” inquired Jacintha. “You’re here to dig the hole where mademoiselle chooses; not to argufy.” Josephine whispered Rose, “I admire the energy of her character. Could she be induced to order once for all where the poor thing is to be planted?” “Then where WILL you have it, mademoiselle?” asked Dard, sulkily. “Here, I think, Dard,” said Josephine sweetly. Dard grinned malignantly, and drove in his spade. “It will never be much bigger than a stinging nettle,” thought he, “for the roots of the oak have sucked every atom of heart out of this.” His black soul exulted secretly. Jacintha stood by Dard, inspecting his work; the sisters intertwined, a few feet from him. The baroness turned aside, and went to look for a moment at the chaplet she had placed yesterday on the oak-tree bough. Presently she uttered a slight ejaculation; and her daughters looked up directly. “Come here, children,” said she. They glided to her in a moment; and found her eyes fixed upon an object that lay on the knights’ bough. It was a sparkling purse. I dare say you have noticed that the bark on the boughs of these very ancient trees is as deeply furrowed as the very stem of an oak tree that boasts but a few centuries; and in one of these deep furrows lay a green silk purse with gold coins glittering through the glossy meshes. Josephine and Rose eyed it a moment like startled deer; then Rose pounced on it. “Oh, how heavy!” she cried. This brought up Dard and Jacintha, in time to see Rose pour ten shining gold pieces out of the purse into her pink-white palm, while her face flushed and her eyes glittered with excitement. Jacintha gave a scream of joy; “Our luck is turned,” she cried, superstitiously. Meanwhile, Josephine had found a slip of paper close to the purse. She opened it with nimble fingers; it contained one line in a hand like that of a copying clerk: FROM A FRIEND: IN PART PAYMENT OF A GREAT DEBT.