"If I were rich like that I would have soup every day, sometimes made of pumpkin and sometimes with macaroni in it," she thought.
Then she turned over a stone with her heavy shoe, and it rolled down the hill. Gita uttered a cry. The stone had covered a hole at the root of the olive-tree where she sat, far away from the other workers. In the hole she saw a green frog; she dropped on her knees to look at it more closely. Yes, it was a green frog. How did it come there? She touched it with her fingers; the frog did not move or croak. Then she took it out carefully. The frog was one of those pasteboard boxes which appear each year in the shop windows of Paris for Easter presents, in company with fish, lobsters, and shells.
Gita raised the lid. Inside were bank-bills and a lizard. She knew lizards very well; they were always whisking over the stone walls; but then those were of a sober brown tint, while this one was white until she lifted it, when it sparkled like a dewdrop. The lizard was an ornament made of diamonds. Gita held her breath and closed her eyes. She believed herself asleep. Soon she rose, took the box in her hand, and crossing the ravine, began to climb the path to the villa above.
As she reached the door a pony-carriage drove up. A big servant with many buttons on his coat told her to go away. Gita paused, holding the box. The pale lady in the carriage, who was wrapped in furs, motioned her to approach. Quickly the girl ran forward and held out the frog.
"I found it in a hole at the foot of the olive-tree," she explained. "It must belong to this house."
The lady took the box and opened it, emptying the contents on her lap. There lay the diamond lizard, and the roll of French bank-notes.
"You see that Pierre was a dishonest servant, although nothing was found on him," said the lady to those about her. "He must have hidden this box in the olive grove to return from Nice later and find it."
Gita listened with her mouth and eyes wide open. The lady looked at her and smiled.
"You are a good girl," she said.
Then she selected one of the bills and gave it to Gita. It was a note of one hundred francs.