_could_ not give her a careless, mocking answer; he sat staring
blankly at her for a few seconds, and then said slowly,

"I cannot tell you."

"Do you not know, papa?"

"Yes, yes, certainly I know," he answered hastily, and with
some annoyance; "but--in short, Madelon, you are too young to
trouble your head about these things; you cannot understand
them possibly; when you are older you shall have them
explained to you."

"When, papa?"

"Oh, I don't know--one of these days, when you are a great
girl, grown up."

"And you can't tell me now?" said Madelon, a little wistfully;
"but you will let me go to the church again before that? Oh,
indeed it was beautiful, with the lights, and the singing, and
the music. Do you know, papa, it made me cry," she added, in a
half whisper.

"_Vraiment!_" said M. Linders, with some contempt in his voice,
and a slight, involuntary shrug of the shoulders.

The contempt was for a class of emotion with which he had no
sympathy, and for that which he imagined had called it forth;
not for his little Madelon, nor for her expression of it. But