XXIV.


THE FIRST MEETING.

"Ah! let him, my child,
Ah! let him proceed.
When I was a Curate
I did much the same."

ANONYMOUS (_Le chant du Curé_).

The first person he saw the next day at morning Mass was Suzanne Durand.
She had not yet come to these low Masses, which are affected usually by the
devout, because the church is then more empty, and they feel themselves
more alone with God or with the priest; therefore the Curé was deeply
affected by this pious eagerness.

It is doubtful whether, on that day, his prayers reached the throne of the
Eternal, for he brought but little fervour to the holy sacrifice.

A good woman who had given twenty sous to buy a place in the firmament for
her defunct spouse, was quite scandalized to remark that the Curé was
eating in a heedless manner the wafer which, for nearly 2000 years, serves
as a lodging for Christ.

His words rose with the incense to the arches of the old church, but his
soul remained below, fluttering round that fair young girl, as if to