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

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

"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.

143