a gentleman. How can anyone bring up a little child like that
in such ignorance? She can have no mother, _pauvre petite!_"

"What an odd little girl, Maman," cried Nanette, "never to
have been to church before, and not to know why people go!"

"_Chut_, Nanette!" said her father. "Thou also woudst have known
nothing, unless some good friends had taught thee." And so
these kindly people went their way.

Madelon, meanwhile, was relating all her adventures to her
father. He was too rejoiced at having found her again to scold
her for running away; but he was greatly put out,
nevertheless, as he listened to her little history. Here,
then, was en emergency, such as he had dimly foreseen, and
done much to avoid, which yet had come upon him unawares,
without fault of his, and which he was quite unprepared to
meet. He did not, indeed, fully understand its importance, nor
all that was passing in his child's mind; but he did perceive
that she had caught a glimpse through doors he had vainly
tried to keep closed to her, and that that one glance had so
aroused her curiosity and interest, that it would be less easy
than usual to satisfy her.

"Why do you never go to church, papa?" she was asking. "Why do
you not take me? It was so beautiful, and there were such
numbers of people. Why do we not go?"

"I don't care about it myself," he answered, at last, "but you
shall go again some day, _ma petite_, if you like it so much."