Imp."Look!" cried Carol, exhibiting the picture. "What do you think of that?"

The Imp gave it only one disdainful glance.

"Huh!" she sniffed. "Aren't you a little late in the day? I discovered the same thing about a month ago in the same book, or in one just like it!"

The two sat staring at her in stunned silence. Then Carol glanced at the book.

"It's so, Sue," she murmured. "It's the very same kind of a book that we saw her showing to Monsieur that day. Look at the light green cover."

It was indeed the same! But the Imp had had her triumph and now could afford to be magnanimous.

"Since you've discovered the same thing," she said, "I'll tell you how _I_ happened to come across it. Our teacher, Miss Hastings, recently brought and hung up in the schoolroom some pretty new pictures. One that I liked very much was called 'The Girl with the Muff.' One day I asked Miss Hastings something about it, and she told me who the artist was and said there was a book in the library about her, with pictures of her other paintings in it. Next day she brought the book to school and let me look at it. And, girls, it was this book, or one like it, and while I was looking it over I almost jumped out of my shoes to come across this very picture. I didn't say a word about it, though, but just went and joined the library and got the book out and read it all."

"And did you find out who this dauphin was?" Sue asked breathlessly.

"I certainly did," answered the Imp, "and a whole lot more besides."

"Well, who _was_ he, then?"

"I wonder if I ought to tell you?" said the Imp reflectively. "You see I promised Monsieur I wouldn't say anything about what I had discovered. As you can guess now, I showed it to him, and it quite took him off his feet with surprise. He begged me to say nothing about it to any one."

"Look here!" exclaimed Sue suddenly. "You told us once, quite a long while ago, that you asked Monsieur one day who the picture of the 'nice little boy' in his room was, and that he told you then. So how could he be surprised when you found it out later?"

Sue thought she'd surely caught the Imp _that_ time. But the other only laughed.

"He only told me just what you said he told Louis--that it 

 Prev. P 50/120 next