"But I am worse off now than I was before. I thought I was earning your
forgiveness, but if it is my own, I can't be lenient; it would not become
me. Now what can I do? Find me some way out of this with your wise little
head."

The Pere would not stir, for all Joan's pleadings. She was about to cry
again; then she had an idea, and seized the shovel and deluged her own
head with the ashes, stammering out through her chokings and
suffocations:

"There--now it is done. Oh, please get up, father."

The old man, both touched and amused, gathered her to his breast and
said:

"Oh, you incomparable child! It's a humble martyrdom, and not of a sort
presentable in a picture, but the right and true spirit is in it; that I
testify."

Then he brushed the ashes out of her hair, and helped her scour her face
and neck and properly tidy herself up. He was in fine spirits now, and
ready for further argument, so he took his seat and drew Joan to his side
again, and said:

"Joan, you were used to make wreaths there at the Fairy Tree with the
other children; is it not so?"

That was the way he always started out when he was going to corner me up
and catch me in something--just that gentle, indifferent way that fools a