Autumn came and I began to feel unhappy. I missed Sister Marie-Aimee. I longed so to see her that I used to shut my eyes and believe that she was coming up the path. When I did this I could really hear her steps and the rustling of her dress on the grass. When I felt her quite close to me I opened my eyes and she disappeared at once. For a long time I had the idea of writing to her, but I did not dare to ask for pen and paper. The farmer's wife did not know how to write, and nobody at the farm ever got any letters. I plucked up courage one day and asked Master Silvain if he would take me to town with him that morning. He didn't answer at once. His big quiet eyes rested on me for a time, and then he said that a shepherdess ought never to leave her flock. He said that he didn't mind taking me to mass in the village now and then, but that I must not expect him to take me to the town. This answer quite stunned me. It was as though I had learned of a great misfortune. And every time I thought of it I could see Sister Marie-Aimee. She was like some precious thing which the farmer had smashed all to pieces by accident. On the following Saturday Master Silvain and his wife left in the morning as usual, but instead of remaining in town until evening they came back in the afternoon with a dealer who wanted to buy some of the lambs. I had never thought that one could go to the town and come back again in so short a time. The idea occurred to me that one day I would leave my lambs in the meadow and would run into the town for one kiss from Sister Marie-Aimee. I soon found that that would not be possible, and I decided to go off in the night. I hoped that I should not take much longer that the farmer's horse did, and that by leaving in the middle of the night I could be back in time to take the lambs to pasture in the morning. That evening I went to bed in my clothes, and when the big clock sounded twelve I slipped out on tip-toe with my shoes in my hand. I leaned against a cart and laced them up, and ran off as fast as I could into the dark. I soon got past the outbuildings of the farm, and then I saw that the night was not very dark. The wind was blowing very hard, and big black clouds were rolling across the sky under the moon. It was a long way to the high-road, and to get there I had to cross a wooden bridge which was out of repair. The rain of the last few days had swelled the little river and the water splashed up on to the bridge through the rotten planks. I began to get nervous because the water and the wind between them made a noise that I had never heard before. But I refused to be frightened, and ran across the slippery bridge as quickly as I dared.