you dart your bare feet into satin slippers and reenter your bedroom,
shivering slightly. To see you walking thus with hurried steps, wrapped
tightly in your dressing-gown, and with your pretty head hidden in its
nightcap, you might be taken for a little girl leaving the confessional
after confessing some terrible sin.

Gaining the bedside, Madame lays aside her slippers, and lightly and
without effort, bounds into the depths of the alcove.

However, Monsieur, who was already asleep with his nose on the Moniteur,
suddenly wakes up at the movement imparted to the bed.

"I thought that you were in bed already, dear," he murmurs, falling off
to sleep again. "Good-night."

"If I had been in bed you would have noticed it." Madame stretches out
her feet and moves them about; she seems to be in quest of something. "I
am not in such a hurry to go to sleep as you are, thank goodness."

Monsieur, suddenly and evidently annoyed, says: "But what is the matter,
my dear? You fidget and fidget--I want to sleep." He turns over as he
speaks.

"I fidget! I am simply feeling for my hot-water bottle; you are
irritating."

"Your hot-water bottle?" is Monsieur's reply, with a grunt.

"Certainly, my hot-water bottle, my feet are frozen." She goes on
feeling for it. "You are really very amiable this evening; you began by