"Septimine.... Leave me in peace!" But the young girl was not to be discouraged. With the authority of a "big sister" she turned around the chair of the recalcitrant boy and forced him to let her disentangle his disordered hair. While thus giving him her care with as much affection as grace, Septimine, standing behind him said: "Are you not a hundred times better looking this way, my dear prince?" "What is the difference, good looking or not?... I am not allowed to leave this convent.... What have I done to be so wretched?" "Alack, poor little one ... you are the son of a king!" The boy made no answer, but he hid his face in his hands and fell to weeping, from time to time crying in a smothered voice: "My father.... Oh, my father.... Alas!... He is dead!" "Oh, if you again start crying, and, worst of all, to speak of your father, you will make me also cry. Although I scold you for your negligence, I do pity you. I came to give you some hope, perhaps." "What do you mean, Septimine?" Having finished dressing the boy's hair, the young girl sat down near him on a stool, took up her distaff, began to spin and said in a low and mysterious voice: "Do you promise to be discreet?" "Whom do you expect I can talk to? Whom could I reveal secrets to? I have an aversion to all the people in this place." "Excepting myself.... Not true?" "Yes, excepting you, Septimine.... You are the only one who inspires me with some little confidence." "What distrust could a little girl, born in Septimany, inspire you with? Am not I as well as my mother, the wife of the outside porter of this convent, a slave? When eighteen months ago you were brought to this place and I was not yet fifteen, I was assigned to you, to entertain you and play with you. Since then we have grown up together. You became accustomed to me.... Is it not of course that you should have some confidence in me?" "You just told me you had some hope to give me.... What hope can you give me? I want to hear?" "Do you first promise to be discreet?" "Be easy on that score. I shall be discreet." "Promise me also not to begin to weep again, because I shall have to speak about your father, a painful subject to you." "I shall not weep, Septimine." "It is now eighteen months since your father, King Thierry, died on his domain in Compiegne, and the steward of the palace, that wicked Charles Martel, had you taken to this place and kept imprisoned ... poor dear innocent boy!" "My father always said to me: 'My little Childeric, you will be a king like myself, you will have dogs and falcons to hunt with, handsome horses, chariots to ride in, slaves to serve you'; and yet I have none of these things here. Oh, God! Oh, God! How unhappy I am!" "Are you going to start weeping again?" "No, Septimine; no, my little friend." "That wicked Charles Martel had you brought to this convent, as I was saying, in order to reign in your place, as he virtually reigned in the place of your father, King Thierry."