This refreshing maid, however, was not of cloisteral aloofness all compact. She had a wit for merry days; and, no doubt, a calid spot in her heart that needed only to be blown upon by sympathetic lips to raise a heat in her that should make an intolerable burden of the very veil of modesty. For such Heloïses an Abelard is generally on the road. Now she was busy in her sequestered cot, touching, rather than putting, things into order. She had a gift for cleanliness. Her hands winnowed the dust like the fluttering wings of butterflies. Baptiste, ostensibly occupied with his catechism-book, watched her from his corner, unwinking like a squatting toad. He saw her pause once, with her fingers stroking the back of the chair on which the stranger artist had sat yesterday. A smile was on her lips. Then she moved into the little closet that was her sleeping-place and made her bed, patting the sheets caressingly, as if some child of her fancy lay underneath. “She will punish me if she sees me looking at her now,” thought the sad, sharp child; and he bent over his task. “_Tiens_! little monkey! Here is a biscotin for thee,” said Mademoiselle Lambertine at the door. The child caught and began to devour the cake ravenously. “That will give thee a better relish for the food of the soul,” said Théroigne. She came in languorous and flushed, fanning herself with a spray of large-flowered syringa. The heavy scent of it floated over the room, penetrating to Nicette in her retreat. “Oh, the sweet orange-blossom!” cried the _portière_. “Is it a bride to visit me?” Théroigne stopped the action of her hand. Her teeth bit upon her under lip. “Orange-blossom!” she exclaimed. She passed into the closet; dropped listlessly upon a joint stool. “That is not for me--not yet,” she said. “It is only syringa. See, little minette.” “I see, Théroigne.” “Why do thine eyes appear to rebuke me, thou little cold woman? Yet, I think, I come to visit thee for coolness’ sake: I am so hot and dull. This lodge, it is like a woodland chapel; and here where we sit is the confessional.” “And art thou come into it to confess?” “To thee? to _la sainte_ Nicette! I should expect her to shrink and close, like a sensitive leaf, to my mere approach. Tell me--What is the utmost wickedness thou hast confided to thy pillow here? I wager my littlest peccadillo would overcrow it.” “It is for me to confess, then, it seems?” “Only thine own sweetness, child. This bed of thine--it is planted in a ‘Garden of the Soul.’ And what grows in it, little saint?--white lilies, gentle pansies, stainless ladysmocks? Not Love-lies-bleeding, I’ll warrant.” “Fie, Théroigne! what nonsense thou talkest.” “Do I? My head is light and my heart heavy. Mortality weighs upon me this morning--oh, Nicette, it weighs--it weighs!” “Hast thou done wrong?” “Much; and every day of my life.” “Confess to me, and I will give thee absolution.”