the kitchen here until we find you something else to do." The fire went on whistling. I went on looking at it, but I could not make out which of the three logs was making the noise. The Mother Superior raised her monotonous voice to draw my attention. She warned me that Sister Desiree-des-Anges would watch me very closely, and that I should not be allowed to talk to my former companions. I saw her point to the door, and I went out into the snow. At the other side of the yard I could see the kitchens. Sister Desiree-des-Anges, who was tall and slim, was waiting for me at the door. I could see nothing of her but her cap and her black dress, and I imagined her to be old and withered. I thought of running away. I need only run to the gate and tell Ox Eye that I had come on a visit. She would let me out, and that would be all. Instead of going to the gate I went towards the buildings where I had lived when I was a child. I didn't know why I went there, but I could not help it. I felt very tired, and I should have liked to lie down and sleep for a long time. The old bench was in the same place. I wiped some of the snow off it with my hands, and sat down leaning against the linden tree as M. le Cure used to do. I was waiting for something, and I didn't know what. I looked up at the window of Sister Marie-Aimee's room. The pretty embroidered curtains were no longer there, and although the window was just like the other windows now, I thought it quite different. And though the thick calico curtains were the same in this room as in the others, they seemed to me to make that window look like a face with its eyes shut. The yard began to get dark, and the lights lit up the rooms inside. I meant to get up from the bench, thinking, "Ox Eye will open the gate for me;" but my body felt crushed, and I seemed to have two broad, hard hands weighing heavily on my head. And, as though I had spoken them aloud, the words, "Ox Eye will open the gate for me," repeated themselves over and over again. All of a sudden a voice, with pity in it, said, quite close to me, "Please, Marie Claire, don't sit out here in the snow." I raised my head, and standing in front of me was a young, quite young, sister, whose face was so beautiful that I could not remember ever to have seen such a face before. She bent over me to help me up, and, as I could hardly stand upright, she put my arm under hers, and said, "Lean on me." Then I saw that she was taking me to the kitchen, the great glass door of which was bright with light. I didn't think of anything. The snow pricked my face, and my eyelids were burning. When I went into the kitchen, I recognized the two girls who were standing by the big square oven. They were Veronique the Minx, and Melanie the Plump, and I seemed to hear Sister Marie-Aimee talking to them by these names. Melanie nodded to me as I passed her, and leaning on the young sister's arm, I went into a room in which there was a night-light burning. The room was divided into two by a big white curtain. The young sister made me sit down on a chair, which she