[Illustration:  The boys at work in the convent garden.]

“But the Monks come out every morning to look over the garden, and they’ll be sure to find you,” said her brother, anxiously.

“No, I’ll hide!  O, Peter, here is a place where there isn’t any doll!”

“Yes; that doll didn’t come up.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do!  I’ll just stand here in this place where the doll didn’t come up, and nobody can tell the difference.”

“Well, I don’t know but you can do that,” said Peter, although he was still ill at ease.  He was so good a boy he was very much afraid of doing wrong, and offending his kind friends the Monks; at the same time he could not help being glad to see his dear little sister.

He smuggled some food out to her, and she played merrily about him all day; and at night he tucked her into one of the dolls’ cradles with lace pillows and quilt of rose-colored silk.

The next morning when the Monks were going the rounds, the father who inspected the wax doll bed, was a bit nearsighted, and he never noticed the difference between the dolls and Peter’s little sister, who swung herself on her crutches, and looked just as much like a wax doll as she possibly could.  So the two were delighted with the success of their plan.

They went on thus for a few days, and Peter could not help being happy with his darling little sister, although at the same time he could not help worrying for fear he was doing wrong.

Something else happened now, which made him worry still more; the Prince ran away.  He had been watching for a long time for an opportunity to possess himself of a certain long ladder made of twisted evergreen ropes, which the Monks kept locked up in the toolhouse.  Lately, by some oversight, the toolhouse had been left unlocked one day, and the Prince got the ladder.  It was the latter part of the afternoon, and the Christmas Monks were all in the chapel practicing Christmas carols.  The Prince found a very large hamper, and picked as many Christmas presents for himself as he could stuff into it; then he put the ladder against the high gate in front of the convent, and climbed up, dragging the hamper after him.  When he reached the top of the gate, which was quite broad, he sat down to rest for a moment before pulling the ladder up so as to drop it on the other side.

He gave his feet a little triumphant kick as he looked back at his prison, and down slid the evergreen ladder!  The Prince lost his balance, and would inevitably have broken his neck if he had not clung desperately to the hamper which hung over on the convent side of the fence; and as it was just the same weight as the Prince, it kept him suspended on the other.

He screamed with all the force of his royal lungs; was heard by a party of noblemen who were galloping up the street; was rescued, and carried in state to the palace.  But he was obliged to drop the hamper of presents, for with it all the ingenuity of the noblemen could not rescue him as speedily as it was necessary they should.