I noticed that she was sitting in a big red armchair. I began to remember some ghost stories which I had heard the girls tell about her, and when I saw her sitting there, all black in the middle of all that red, I compared her in my mind to a huge poppy which had grown in a cellar. She opened and closed her eyelids several times. She had a smile on her face which was like an insult. I felt myself blushing, but I did not turn my eyes away. She gave a little sneering chuckle, and said, "You know why I sent for you?" I answered that I thought it was to talk to me about Mademoiselle Maximilienne. She sneered again, "Oh, yes; Mademoiselle Maximilienne," she said. "Well, my child, you must undeceive yourself. We have made up our minds to place you on a farm in Sologne." She half closed her eyes and snapped out, "You are to be a shepherdess, young woman." Then she added, rapping the words out, "You will look after the sheep." I said simply, "Very well, mother." She pulled herself up out of the depths of her armchair and asked me, "Do you know what looking after the sheep means?" I answered that I had seen shepherdesses in the fields. She bent her yellow face towards me and went on, "You will have to clean the stables. They smell very unpleasantly, and the shepherdesses are dirty. You will help in the work of the farm, and be taught to milk the cows and look after the pigs." She spoke very loud, as though she were afraid I should not understand her. I answered as I had answered before, "Very well, mother." She pulled herself up by the arms of her chair, fastened her shining eyes on me, and said, "You don't mean to tell me that you are not proud?" I smiled, and said, "No, mother." She seemed very much surprised, but, as I went on smiling, her voice grew softer. "Really, my child?" she said. "I always thought you were proud." She dropped back into her chair again, hid her eyes under their lids, and began talking quickly in a monotonous voice, as she did when she said prayers. She said that I must obey my masters, that I must never forget my religious duties, and that the farmer's wife would come and fetch me the day before the feast of St. John. I went out of her room with feelings which I could not express. But I felt horribly afraid of hurting Sister Marie-Aimee's feelings. How could I tell her? I had no time to think. Sister Marie-Aimee was waiting for me in the passage. She took hold of my two shoulders, bent her face towards me, and said, "Well?" She looked anxious. I said, "She wants me to be a shepherdess." She did not understand, and frowned, "A shepherdess," she said. "What do you mean?" I hurried on, "She has found a place for me in a farm, and I am to milk cows and look after the pigs." Sister Marie-Aimee pushed me away so roughly that I bumped against the wall. She ran towards the door. I thought she was going to the Mother Superior's room, but she went out, and came back again, and began walking up and down the passage, taking long steps. Her fists were clenched, and she kept tapping with her foot on the floor. She was breathing hard. Then she leaned up against the wall, let her arms fall as though she were overcome, and, in a voice which seemed to come from a long way off, she said: "She is revenging herself. Yes, she is revenging herself." She came back to me, took my two hands affectionately in hers, and asked, "Didn't you tell her that