The child (aged six). “I told Alix that I knew my French history. She says that I do not know it, but I do.”
Alix , the big girl (aged nine). “No; she does not know it.”
The Mother . “How is that, my child?”
Alix . “She told me to open the book at random and to ask her any question in the book, and she would answer it.”
“Well?”
“She did not answer it.”
“Let us see about it. What did you ask her?”
“I opened the book at random, as she proposed, and I put the first question that I came across.”
“And what was the question?”
“It was, ‘What happened after that?’ ”
It was there that that profound remark was made anent a rather greedy parakeet which belonged to a lady boarder:—
“How well bred! it eats the top of the slice of bread and butter just like a person!”
It was on one of the flagstones of this cloister that there was once picked up a confession which had been written out in advance, in order that she might not forget it, by a sinner of seven years:—
“Father, I accuse myself of having been avaricious.
“Father, I accuse myself of having been an adulteress.
“Father, I accuse myself of having raised my eyes to the gentlemen.”