g. The young
girls frolicked beneath the eyes of the nuns; the gaze of impeccability
does not embarrass innocence. Thanks to these children, there was,
among so many austere hours, one hour of ingenuousness. The little ones
skipped about; the elder ones danced. In this cloister play was mingled
with heaven. Nothing is so delightful and so august as all these fresh,
expanding young souls. Homer would have come thither to laugh with
Perrault; and there was in that black garden, youth, health, noise,
cries, giddiness, pleasure, happiness enough to smooth out the wrinkles
of all their ancestresses, those of the epic as well as those of the
fairy-tale, those of the throne as well as those of the thatched cottage
from Hecuba to la Mere-Grand.

In that house more than anywhere else, perhaps, arise those children's
sayings which are so graceful and which evoke a smile that is full of
thoughtfulness. It was between those four gloomy walls that a child of
five years exclaimed one day: "Mother! one of the big girls has just
told me that I have only nine years and ten months longer to remain
here. What happiness!"

It was here, too, that this memorable dialogue took place:--

A Vocal Mother. Why are you weeping, my child?

The child (aged six). I told Alix that I knew my French history. She
says that I do not know it, but I do.

Alix, the big girl (aged nine). No; she does not know it.

The Mother. How is that, my child?

Alix. She told me to open the book at random and to ask her any question
in the book, and she would answer it.

"Well?"

"She did not answer it."

"Let us see about it. What did you ask her?"

"I opened the book at random, as she proposed, and I put the first
question that I came across."

"And what was the question?"

"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 butter 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