"Wake up, dear nurse! it's very late. I have a thousand things to tell you. Get up, I beg of you—you have slept long enough."
Marguerite, who never had to be awakened, because she always rose sufficiently early, rubbed her eyes, believing that the house was on fire, sought to recall her ideas, to recover the talisman which had been entrusted to her and which had been lost among the bedclothes, while invoking her patron saint, and muttering,—
"Where has it gone to? I've looked for it—has the devil taken it away from me during the night? Wait now—ah, I shan't find it again. I thought I felt something. It must have been the devil who took it maliciously!"
Finally Marguerite found the little scrap of Urbain's breeches, and recalling all that had taken place on the evening before, she hastened to open the door to Blanche, and said,—
"Has Ursule gone? It's necessary to hasten her away, my child."
"Oh, yes, she's gone; that is to say, he's gone. But don't be afraid, my good friend is willing that he should come—he wishes him to marry me; he's no longer angry. He's coming here this evening as a boy; you will see how nice he is; and when we are married, we shall go into the country and you shall come with us. Oh, how happy I shall be! Come, Marguerite, laugh too; you see it's no longer necessary to have any fear."
Marguerite had no desire to laugh, she would rather have wept, for she understood nothing that Blanche was saying; she opened her eyes as widely as possible and exclaimed,—
"O good God, my dear child, is your head turned this morning? Can that Ursule be a sorcerer? Don't jump like that, I beg of you."
Blanche recommenced her narrative and at last made Marguerite understand that Ursule was a boy. The old woman cried, affrightedly,—
"My God! a boy, and he slept with you?"