parsonage coming down. However, you are quite content, you've got all
you want. Good heavens! there are holes and to spare. Just look at that
ceiling, now. Isn't it cracked all over? If we don't get buried alive
one of these days, we shall owe a precious big taper to our guardian
angel. However, if it suits you--It's like the church. Those broken
panes ought to have been replaced these two years. In winter our Lord
gets frozen with the cold. Besides, it would keep out those rascally
sparrows. I shall paste paper over the holes. You see if I don't.'

'A capital idea,' murmured the priest, 'they might very well be pasted
over. As to the walls, they are stouter than we think. In my room, the
floor has only given way slightly in front of the window. The house will
see us all buried.'

On reaching the little open shed near the kitchen, in order to please La
Teuse he went into ecstasies over the washing; he even had to dip his
fingers into it and feel it. This so pleased the old woman that her
attentions became quite motherly. She no longer scolded, but ran to
fetch a clothes-brush, saying: 'You surely are not going out with
yesterday's mud on your cassock! If you had left it out on the banister,
it would be clean now--it's still a good one. But do lift it up well
when you cross any field. The thistles tear everything.'

While speaking she kept turning him round like a child, shaking him from
head to foot with her energetic brushing.

'There, there, that will do,' he said, escaping from her at last. 'Take
care of Desiree, won't you? I will tell her I am going out.'

But at this minute a fresh clear voice called to him: 'Serge! Serge!'