THE MOST WONDERFUL PART
And now comes the most wonderful part of the story!
Madame Dujardin prepared a bath and said to Marie: "You may have the first turn in the tub because you're a girl.In America the girls have the best of everything", she laughed at Jan, as she spoke."I will help you undress.Jan, you may get ready and wait for your turn in your own room." She unbuttoned Marie's dress, slipped off her clothes, and held up the gay little wrapper for her to put her arms into, and just then she noticed the locket on her neck."We'll take this off, too," she said, beginning to unclasp it.
But Marie clungto it with both hands."No, no," she cried.
"Mother said I was never, never to take it off.It has her picture in it.""May I see it, dear?" asked Madame Dujardin."I should like to know what your mother looks like." Marie nestled close to her, and Madame Dujardin opened the locket.
For a moment she gazed at the picture in complete silence, her eyes staring at it like two blue lights.Then she burst into a wild fit of weeping, and cried out, "Leonie! Leonie! It is not possible! My own sister's children!" She clasped the bewildered Marie in her arms and kissed her over and over again.She ran to the door and brought in Jan and kissed him; and then she called her husband.When he came in and saw her with her arms around both children at once, holding the locket in her hands, and laughing and crying both together, he, too, was bewildered.
"What in the world is the matter, Julie?" he cried.