A boy of eleven or twelve years, confined in the convent of St. Saturnine in Anjou, was leaning on his elbows at the sill of a narrow window on the first floor of one of the buildings of the abbey, and looking out upon the fields. The vaulted room in which the boy was kept was cold, spacious, bare and floored with stone. In a corner stood a little bed, and on a table a few toys roughly cut out of coarse wood. A few stools and a trunk were its only furniture. The boy himself, dressed in a threadbare and patched black serge, had a sickly appearance. His face, biliously pale, expressed profound sadness. He looked at the distant fields, and tears ran down his hollow cheeks. While he was dreaming awake, the door of the room opened and a young girl of about sixteen stepped in softly. Her complexion was dark brown but extremely fresh, her lips were red, her hair as well as her eyes jetty black, and her eyebrows were exquisitely arched. A more comely figure could ill be imagined, despite her drugget petticoat and coarse apron, the ends of which were tucked under her belt and which was full of hemp ready to be spun. Septimine held her distaff in one hand and in the other a little wooden casket. At the sight of the boy, who remained sadly leaning on his elbows at the window, the young girl sighed and said to herself: "Poor little fellow ... always sorry ... I do not know whether the news I bring will be good or bad for him.... If he accepts, may he never have cause to look back with regret to this convent." She softly approached the child without being heard, placed her hand upon his shoulder with gentle familiarity and said playfully: "What are you thinking about, my dear prince?" The child was startled. He turned his face bathed in tears towards Septimine, and letting himself down with an air of utter dejectment on a stool near the window, said: "Oh, I am weary!... I am weary to death!" and the tears flowed anew from his fixed and red eyes. "Come now, dry those ugly tears," the young maid replied affectionately. "I came to entertain you. I brought along a large supply of hemp to spin in your company while talking to you, unless you prefer a game of huckle-bones--" "Nothing amuses me. Everything tires me." "That is sad for those who love you; nothing amuses you, nothing pleases you. You are always downcast and silent. You take no care of your person. Your hair is unkempt ... and your clothes in rags! If your hair were well combed over your forehead, instead of falling in disorder, you would not look like a little savage.... It is now three days since you have allowed me to arrange it, but to-day, will ye, nill ye, I shall comb it." "No; no; I won't have it!" said the boy stamping his foot with feverish impatience. "Leave me alone; your attentions annoy me." "Oh, oh! You can not frighten me with your stamping," Septimine replied mirthfully. "I have brought along in this box all that I need to comb you. Be wise and docile."