One day little Babet, who was now five years old, saw, as she was coming to school, an old woman sitting at a corner of the street beside a large black brazier full of roasted chestnuts.  Babet thought that the chestnuts looked and smelled very good; the old woman was talking earnestly to some people, who were on her other side; Babet filled her work-bag with chestnuts, and then ran after her mother and sister, who, having turned the corner of the street, had not seen what passed.  When Babet came to the schoolroom, she opened her bag with triumph, displayed her treasure, and offered to divide it with her companions.  “Here, Victoire,” said she, “here is the largest chestnut for you.”

But Victoire would not take it; for she staid that Babet had no money, and that she could not have come honestly by these chestnuts.  She spoke so forcibly upon this point that even those who had the tempting morsel actually at their lips forbore to bite; those who had bitten laid down their half-eaten prize; and those who had their hands full of chestnuts rolled them back again towards the bag.  Babet cried with vexation.

“I burned my fingers in getting them for you, and now you won’t eat them!—­And I must not eat them!” said she:  then curbing her passion, she added, “But at any rate, I won’t be a thief.  I am sure I did not think it was being a thief just to take a few chestnuts from an old woman who had such heaps and heaps; but Victoire says it is wrong, and I would not be a thief for all the chestnuts in the world—­I’ll throw them all into the fire this minute!”

“No; give them back again to the old woman,” said Victoire.

“But, may be, she would scold me for having taken them,” said Babet; “or who knows but she might whip me?”

“And if she did, could you not bear it?” said Victoire.  “I am sure I would rather bear twenty whippings than be a thief.”

“Twenty, whippings! that’s a great many,” said Babet; “and I am so little, consider—­and that woman has such a monstrous arm!—­Now, if it was Sister Frances, it would be another thing.  But come! if you will go with me, Victoire, you shall see how I will behave.”

“We will all go with you,” said Victoire.

“Yes, all!” said the children; “And Sister Frances, I dare say, would go, if you asked her.”

Babet ran and told her, and she readily consented to accompany the little penitent to make restitution.  The chestnut woman did not whip Babet, nor even scold her, but said she was sure that since the child was so honest as to return what she had taken, she would never steal again.  This was the most glorious day of Babet’s life, and the happiest.  When the circumstance was told to Madame de Fleury, she gave the little girl a bag of the best chestnuts the old women could select, and Babet with great delight shared her reward with her companions.

“But, alas! these chestnuts are not roasted.  Oh, if we could but roast them!” said the children.