It was all in vain. I remained perfectly mute. The customary round was then made, to the bedrooms, the dining-hall, the class-rooms, and the usual exaggerated compliments were paid. “How beautifully it is all kept! How spotlessly clean everything is!” and a hundred stupidities of this kind about the comfort of these prisons for children. My mother went aside with Mme. Fressard, and I clung to her knees so that she could not walk. “This is the doctor’s prescription,” she said, and then followed a long list of things that were to be done for me. Mme. Fressard smiled rather ironically. “You know, madame,” she said to my mother, “we shall not be able to curl her hair like that.” “And you certainly will not be able to uncurl it,” replied my mother, stroking my head with her gloved hands. “It’s a regular wig, and they must never attempt to comb it until it has been well brushed. They could not possibly get the knots out otherwise, and it would hurt her too much. What do you give the children at four o’clock?” she asked, changing the subject. “Oh, a slice of bread and just what the parents leave for them.” “There are twelve pots of different kinds of jam,” said my mother, “but she must have jam one day and chocolate another, as she has not a good appetite, and requires change of food. I have brought six pounds of chocolate.” Mme. Fressard smiled in a good-natured, but rather ironical way. She picked up a packet of the chocolate, and looked at the mark. “Ah! from Marquis! What a spoiled little girl it is!” She patted my cheek with her white fingers, and then, as her eyes fell on a large jar, she looked surprised. “That’s cold cream,” said my mother. “I make it myself, and I should like my little girl’s face and hands to be rubbed with it every night when she goes to bed.” “But——” began Mme. Fressard. “Oh, I’ll pay double laundry expenses for the sheets,” interrupted my mother, impatiently. Ah, my poor mother, I remember quite well that my sheets were changed once a month, like those of the other pupils! The farewell moment came at last, and everyone gathered round mamma, and finally carried her off, after a great deal of kissing, and with all kinds of consoling words: “It will be so good for her—it is just what she needs—you’ll find her quite changed when you see her again, etc.” The General, who was very fond of me, picked me up in his arms and tossed me in the air. “You little chit,” he said; “they are putting you to the barracks, and you’ll have to mind your pace!” I pulled his long mustache, and he said, winking, and looking in the direction of Mme. Fressard, who had a slight mustache: “You mustn’t do that to a lady, you know!” My aunt laughed heartily, and my mother gave a little stifled laugh, and the whole troop went off in a regular whirlwind of rustling skirts and farewells, while I was taken away to the cage where I was to be imprisoned.