I arose one September morning, my heart leaping with some remote joy. It was eight o’clock. I pressed my forehead against the windowpanes and gazed out, looking at I know not what. I had been roused with a start in the midst of some fine dream, and I had rushed toward the light in the hope of finding in the infinite space of the gray sky the luminous point that would explain my anxious and blissful expectation. Expectation of what? I could not have answered that question then, any more than I can now, after much reflection. I was on the eve of my fifteenth birthday and I was in a state of expectation as to the future of my life. That particular morning seemed to me to be the precursor of a new era. I was not mistaken, for on that September day my fate was settled for me. Hypnotized by what was taking place in my mind, I remained with my forehead pressed against the windowpane, gazing, through the halo of vapor formed by my breath, at houses, palaces, carriages, jewels, and pearls passing along in front of me. Oh, what a number of pearls there were! There were princes and kings, too; yes, I could even see kings! Oh, how fast one’s imagination travels, and its enemy, reason, always allows it to roam on alone! In my fancy, I proudly rejected the princes, I rejected the kings, refused the pearls and the palaces, and declared that I was going to be a nun, for in the infinite gray sky I had caught a glimpse of the convent of Grandchamps, of my white bedroom, and of the small lamp that swung to and fro above the little Virgin all decorated with flowers. The king offered me a throne, but I preferred the throne of our Mother Superior, and I entertained a vague ambition to occupy it some far-off day in the distant future; the king was heartbroken, and dying of despair. Yes, _mon Dieu_! I preferred to the pearls that were offered me by princes the pearls of the rosary I was telling with my fingers, and no costume could compete in my mind with the black _barège_ veil that fell like a soft shadow over the snowy white cambric that encircled the beloved faces of the nuns of Grandchamps. I do not know how long I had been dreaming thus when I heard my mother’s voice asking our old servant, Marguerite, if I were awake. With one bound I was back in bed, and I buried my face under the sheet. Mamma half opened the door very gently and I pretended to wake up. “How lazy you are to-day!” she said. I kissed her and answered in a coaxing tone: “It is Thursday and I have no music lesson.” “And are you glad?” she asked. “Oh, yes,” I replied promptly.