it was unavoidable. Virginia brooded less and less over it. Felicite
regretted the noise he made, but soon a new occupation diverted her
mind; beginning from Christmas, she accompanied the little girl to her
catechism lesson every day.




CHAPTER III

After she had made a curtsey at the threshold, she would walk up the
aisle between the double lines of chairs, open Madame Aubain's pew, sit
down and look around.

Girls and boys, the former on the right, the latter on the left-hand
side of the church, filled the stalls of the choir; the priest stood
beside the reading-desk; on one stained window of the side-aisle the
Holy Ghost hovered over the Virgin; on another one, Mary knelt before
the Child Jesus, and behind the alter, a wooden group represented Saint
Michael felling the dragon.

The priest first read a condensed lesson of sacred history. Felicite
evoked Paradise, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, the blazing cities,
the dying nations, the shattered idols; and out of this she developed a
great respect for the Almighty and a great fear of His wrath. Then, when
she had listened to the Passion, she wept. Why had they crucified Him
who loved little children, nourished the people, made the blind see, and
who, out of humility, had wished to be born among the poor, in a stable?
The sowings, the harvests, the wine-presses, all those familiar things
which the Scriptures mention, formed a part of her life; the word of God