Part 95 (2/2)

”It was, 'What happened after that?'”

It was there that that profound remark was made anent a rather greedy paroquet which belonged to a lady boarder:--

”How well bred! it eats the top of the slice of bread and b.u.t.ter just like a person!”

It was on one of the flagstones of this cloister that there was once picked up a confession which had been written out in advance, in order that she might not forget it, by a sinner of seven years:--

”Father, I accuse myself of having been avaricious.

”Father, I accuse myself of having been an adulteress.

”Father, I accuse myself of having raised my eyes to the gentlemen.”

It was on one of the turf benches of this garden that a rosy mouth six years of age improvised the following tale, which was listened to by blue eyes aged four and five years:--

”There were three little c.o.c.ks who owned a country where there were a great many flowers. They plucked the flowers and put them in their pockets. After that they plucked the leaves and put them in their playthings. There was a wolf in that country; there was a great deal of forest; and the wolf was in the forest; and he ate the little c.o.c.ks.”

And this other poem:--

”There came a blow with a stick.

”It was Punchinello who bestowed it on the cat.

”It was not good for her; it hurt her.

”Then a lady put Punchinello in prison.”

It was there that a little abandoned child, a foundling whom the convent was bringing up out of charity, uttered this sweet and heart-breaking saying. She heard the others talking of their mothers, and she murmured in her corner:--

”As for me, my mother was not there when I was born!”

There was a stout portress who could always be seen hurrying through the corridors with her bunch of keys, and whose name was Sister Agatha. The big big girls--those over ten years of age--called her Agathocles.

The refectory, a large apartment of an oblong square form, which received no light except through a vaulted cloister on a level with the garden, was dark and damp, and, as the children say, full of beasts. All the places round about furnished their contingent of insects.

Each of its four corners had received, in the language of the pupils, a special and expressive name. There was Spider corner, Caterpillar corner, Wood-louse corner, and Cricket corner.

Cricket corner was near the kitchen and was highly esteemed. It was not so cold there as elsewhere. From the refectory the names had pa.s.sed to the boarding-school, and there served as in the old College Mazarin to distinguish four nations. Every pupil belonged to one of these four nations according to the corner of the refectory in which she sat at meals. One day Monseigneur the Archbishop while making his pastoral visit saw a pretty little rosy girl with beautiful golden hair enter the cla.s.s-room through which he was pa.s.sing.

He inquired of another pupil, a charming brunette with rosy cheeks, who stood near him:--

”Who is that?”

”She is a spider, Monseigneur.”

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