"Don't go, please don't go, Soeur Lucie," she said, "I want to speak to you." "In a moment; I am not going," answered the sister. "Well, what is it, _ma petite?_" she added, coming back to the bedside. "What--what was it Soeur Ursule was saying to you just now?" asks Madelon. "Just now!" cried Soeur Lucie, taken aback; "why, I thought you were asleep." "No, I was not asleep," Madelon answered, "I only had my eyes shut." "But that is very naughty, _mon enfant_, to pretend to be asleep when you are awake." "I didn't pretend," said Madelon aggrieved, "only I hadn't opened my eyes, and I could not help hearing what you said." "Ah well, if you heard, there is no use in my telling you," says Soeur Lucie, who was not at all above using that imperfect, but irrefragable, logic familiar to us from our nurseries; "so you had better go to sleep again, for I cannot stop here any longer. Let me smoothe your pillow." "No," said Madelon, escaping from her hands with an impatient toss. "Ah, don't go away yet," she added piteously. "Was it true what Soeur Ursule said about me?" "About you, _mon enfant?_" "Yes, about me--that I was to become a nun." "Ah!" said Soeur Lucie, with the air of being suddenly enlightened, "yes--yes, I suppose so, since she said it. Now I must go, and do you go to sleep." "No, no," cried Madelon, raising herself in the bed and stretching out both arms after Soeur Lucie's retreating figure. "Ah, Soeur Lucie, don't leave me. I can't be a nun; don't let them make me a nun!" There was something so pitiful and beseeching in her accent, something so frail-looking in the little, white, imploring hands, that Soeur Lucie's heart was touched. She came back again. "_Ecoute_, Madelon," she said, "you will be ill again to-morrow if you talk so much; lie down now, and tell me what it is you want. No one is going to make you a nun now, you know." "No, not now, but by-and-by. Is it true that Aunt Therese said I was to be made one?" "Yes, that is true enough, I believe; but there is nothing to be unhappy about in that," answered Soeur Lucie, who naturally looked at things from a different point of view than Madelon's. "There are many girls who would be glad of such a chance; for you see, _mon enfant_, it is only because nothing could be refused to our late sainted Superior, that it has been arranged at all." "Soeur Ursule said I should be a burthen," answered Madelon. "I don't want to be a burthen; I only want to go away. Ah! why do you keep me? I am miserable here; I always have been, and I always shall be--always."