celestial colour of the cloak he wore on festival days.

[Footnote 1: Virgin's blue.]

Six years had passed since Gabriel had last seen him, but he had not
forgotten his greasy carcase, his surly face with its narrow, wrinkled
forehead fringed with bristly hair, his bull neck that scarcely
allowed him to breathe, and that made every breath like the blast of a
bellows. All the servants of the Cathedral envied him his post, which
was the most lucrative of all, to say nothing of the favour he enjoyed
with the archbishop and the canons.

"Virgin's blue" considered the Cathedral as his own peculiar property,
and he often came very near turning out those who inspired him with
any antipathy.

He fixed his bold eyes on the vagabond he saw walking about the
church, making an effort to raise his overhanging brows. Where had he
seen this strange fellow before? Gabriel noted the effort he made
to recall his memory, and turned his back to examine with pretended
interest a coloured panel hanging on a pillar.

Flying from the curiosity excited by his presence in the fane, he went
out into the cloister; there he felt more at his ease, quite alone.
The beggars were chattering, seated on the doorsteps of the Mollete;
many of the clergy passed through them, entering the church hurriedly
by the door of the Presentacion; the beggars saluted them all by name,
but without stretching out their hands. They knew them, they all
belonged to the "household," and among friends one does not beg. They
were there to fall on the strangers, and they waited patiently for the