The Cardinal was still in his room alone with the boy Manuel, when Madame Patoux, standing at her door under the waving tendrils of the "creeping jenny" and shading her eyes from the radiance of the sun, saw her children approaching with Fabien Doucet between them.
"Little wretches that they are!" she murmured—"Once let them get an idea into their heads and nothing will knock it out! Now I shall have to tell Monseigneur that they are here,—what an impertinence it seems!—and yet he is so gentle, and has such a good heart that perhaps he will not mind . . ."
Here she broke off her soliloquy as the children came up, Babette eagerly demanding to know where the Cardinal was. Madame Patoux set her arms akimbo and surveyed the little group of three half-pityingly, half derisively.
"The Cardinal has not left his room since breakfast," she answered—"He is playing Providence already to a poor lad lost in the streets, and for that matter lost in the world, without father or mother to look after him,—he was found in Notre Dame last night,—"
"Why, mother," interrupted Henri—"how could a boy get into Notre Dame last night? When Babette and I went there, nobody was in the church at all,—and we left one candle burning all alone in the darkness,—and when we came out the Suisse swore at us for having gone in, and then locked the door."
"Well, if one must be so exact, the boy was not found actually in Notre Dame, obstinate child," returned his mother impatiently—"It happened at midnight,—the good Cardinal heard someone crying and went to see who it was. And he found a poor boy outside the Cathedral weeping as if his heart were breaking, and leaning his head against the hard door for a pillow. And he brought him back and gave him his own bed to sleep in;—and the lad is with him now."
Little Fabien Doucet, leaning on his crutch, looked up with interest.
"Is he lame like me?" he asked.
"No, child," replied Madame compassionately—"He is straight and strong. In truth a very pretty boy."
Fabien sighed. Babette made a dash forward.