e was very unkind, and punished you severely if you talked too
much. Then all of a sudden she jumped down and shouted "Augustine."
Her voice was like a boy's voice, and her legs were a little twisted.
At the end of recreation I saw her on Augustine's back. Augustine was
rolling her from one shoulder to the other, as if she meant to throw
her down. When she passed me Ismerie said in that big voice of hers,
"You will carry me too sometimes, won't you?" I soon became friends
with Augustine.

My eyes were not well. At night my eyelids used to close up tight, and
I was quite blind until I had them washed. Augustine was told off to
take me to the infirmary. She used to come and fetch me from the
dormitory every morning. I could hear her coming before she got to the
door. She caught hold of my hand and pulled me along, and she didn't
mind a bit when I bumped against the beds. We flew down the passages
like the wind and rushed down two flights of stairs like an avalanche.
My feet only touched a step now and again. I used to go down those
stairs as if I was falling down a well. Augustine had strong hands and
held me tight. To go to the infirmary we had to pass behind the chapel
and then in front of a little white house. There we hurried more than
ever. One day when I fell on to my knees she pulled me up again and
smacked my head saying, "Do be quick, we are in front of the dead
house." After that she was always afraid of my falling again, and used
to tell me when we got in front of the dead house. I was frightened
chiefly because Augustine was frightened. If she rushed along like
that there must be danger. I was always out of breath when I got to
the infirmary. Somebody pushed me on to a little chair, and the pain
in my side had been gone a long time when they came and washed my eyes.
It was Augustine who took me into Sister Marie-Aimee's classroom. She
put on a timid kind of voice, and said, "Sister, here is a new girl."
I expected to be scolded; but Sister Marie-Aimee smiled, kissed me
several times, and said, "You are too small to sit on a bench, I shall
put you in here." And she sat me down on a stool in the hollow of her
desk. It was ever so comfortable in the hollow of her desk, and the
warmth of her woollen petticoat soothed my body, which was bruised all
over by tumbling about on the wooden staircases, and on the stone ones.
Often two feet hemmed me in on each side of my stool, and two warm le