"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.
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