Page:Stories by Foreign Authors (French I).djvu/97

96 to that. My sister and her husband had gone to bed; the servants were waiting in the kitchen till it was time for the midnight mass. The kitchen was in the front of the house on the ground-floor. At the other end of the corridor, facing the entrance, was a door leading into the garden, which was latched. The garden communicated with the street by a low gate, the key of which hung in the woodshed. It was therefore easy enough for me to get out unseen, provided I made no noise. In a quarter of an hour I could go and return. Suppose I were caught? Well, I would say that I wanted to hear the midnight mass. I should be terribly scolded; but a sense of justice, common to children and to animals, made me accept the fear of some punishment for my wicked deed. Besides, it was enough for me to perceive the possibility of undoing my wickedness to have it become in my eyes an imperative necessity. My anguish had been too great, and the comfort was sure. Imagine me therefore slipping from my bed and putting on, one by one, the garments Miette had laid on a chair. My shoes I took in my hand—at the risk of losing my Christmas presents if the child Jesus came down the chimney in my absence. Then I crept down the staircase, my heart beating violently at the least sound, and opened the door into the garden, the creaking of which made me almost faint away. A minute more and I was in the street, all alone, for the