The young man looked at him with wide-opened eyes, in astonished silence. Jack’s question remained unanswered, and the child’s thoughts ran on as he lay in his bed, listening to occasional gusts of music that rang through the house from the lungs of Labassandre, and to the perpetual sound of the pumps in the stable.
Moronval’s guests were gone, with a final bang of the large gate, and all was silent. Suddenly the dormitory door was thrown open, and the small black servant entered, with a lantern in his hand.
He shook off the snow that lay thick on his black head, and crept between the two rows of beds, with his head drawn down between his shoulders, and his teeth chattering.
Jack looked at the grotesque shadows on the wall, which exaggerated all the peculiarities of the black boy—the protruding mouth, the enormous ears, and retreating forehead.
The boy hung his lantern at the end of the dormitory and stood there warming his hands, which were covered with chilblains. His face, though dirty, was so honest and kindly, that Jack’s heart warmed toward him. As he stood there the negro looked out into the garden. “Ah! the snow! the snow!” he murmured sadly.
His way of speaking, and the sweet voice, touched little Jack, who looked at the boy with lively pity and curiosity. The negro saw it, and said, half to himself, “Ah! the new pupil! Why don’t you go to sleep, little boy?”
“I cannot,” said Jack, sighing.
“It is good to sigh if you are sorry,” said the negro, sententiously. “If the poor world could not sigh, the poor world would stifle!”
As he spoke, he threw a blanket on the bed next to Jack.
“Do you sleep there?” asked the child, astonished that a servant should occupy a bed in the dormitory of the pupils. “But there are no sheets!”