Page:Des Grieux, The Prelude to Teleny.djvu/151

 "What's the matter with you, you little monster?" She hissed in my ear.

"I… I fell out of my bed."

"Oh! you fell, you toad"—and catching hold of my hair she shook me violently—"and. how did you manage to fall, pray?"

"I… I don't know, I think I slipped," I answered gasping.

"In your sleep?" said she relenting.

"Yes, I think I was dreaming."

"Oh! you were dreaming poor dear, were you?" added she in a soothing voice, kissing me.

Thereupon she helped me to get back into my bed, she tucked me and then bade me go off to sleep.

I had seen what I wanted, though perhaps not quite as much as I should have liked; of course I could not go off to sleep after that.

For a while they kept very silent, then—after some time—I heard the matron come up to my bed. I did exactly what I had done before. She called me again by my name. I did not vouchsafe any answer. She then went back to her bed.