If Tison
heard your cry, we are lost. Hush! it seems to me I hear steps, hide
the things. Let us hurry into bed. Oh, for God's sake, quick!"
She huddled the papers together, and put them hastily into her
bosom, while Marie Antoinette, gathering up the relics, dashed into
her bed.
"She is coming," whispered Elizabeth, as she slipped into her bed.
"We must pretend to be asleep."
And in fact Princess Elizabeth was right. The glass-door, which led
from the sleeping-room of the children to the little corridor, and
from there to the chamber of Mistress Tison, was slowly and
cautiously opened, and she came with a lamp in her hand into the
children's room. She stood near the door, listening and spying
around. In the beds of the children she could hear the long-drawn,
calm breathing, which indicated peaceful slumbers; and in the open,
adjoining apartment, in which the two ladies slept, nothing was
stirring.
"But I did hear a sound plainly," muttered Tison. "I was awaked by a
loud cry, and when I sat up in bed I heard people talking."
She stole to the beds of the children, and let the light fall upon
their faces. "They are sleeping soundly enough," she muttered, "they
have not cried or spoken, but we will see how it is in the other
room." Slowly, with the lamp in her hand, she crept into the
neighboring apartment.
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