"Bah!" said the Bishop. "Let us announce our Te Deum from the pulpit,
nevertheless, Monsieur le Cure. Things will arrange themselves."

They instituted a search in the churches of the neighborhood.
All the magnificence of these humble parishes combined would not have
sufficed to clothe the chorister of a cathedral properly.

While they were thus embarrassed, a large chest was brought and
deposited in the presbytery for the Bishop, by two unknown horsemen,
who departed on the instant. The chest was opened; it contained
a cope of cloth of gold, a mitre ornamented with diamonds,
an archbishop's cross, a magnificent crosier,--all the pontifical
vestments which had been stolen a month previously from the treasury
of Notre Dame d'Embrun. In the chest was a paper, on which
these words were written, "From Cravatte to Monseigneur Bienvenu."

"Did not I say that things would come right of themselves?" said
the Bishop. Then he added, with a smile, "To him who contents himself
with the surplice of a curate, God sends the cope of an archbishop."

"Monseigneur," murmured the cure, throwing back his head with a smile.
"God--or the Devil."

The Bishop looked steadily at the cure, and repeated
with authority, "God!"

When he returned to Chastelar, the people came out to stare at him
as at a curiosity, all along the road. At the priest's house in
Chastelar he rejoined Mademoiselle Baptistine and Madame Magloire,