did not worry him in the least; and when he had said his mass, read his
breviary, confessed the devout sinners and visited the sick, he gave the
rest of his time to profane but respectable amusements. He was of robust
temperament, with a tendency to corpulency, which he fought against by
taking considerable exercise; his face was round and good-natured, his
calm gray eyes reflected the tranquillity and uprightness of his soul,
and his genial nature was shown in his full smiling mouth, his thick,
wavy, gray hair, and his quick and cordial gestures.

When Julien was ushered into the presbytery, he found the cure installed
in a small room, which he used for working in, and which was littered up
with articles bearing a very distant connection to his pious calling:
nets for catching larks, hoops and other nets for fishing, stuffed birds,
and a collection of coleopterx. At the other end of the room stood a
dusty bookcase, containing about a hundred volumes, which seemed to have
been seldom consulted. The Abbe, sitting on a low chair in the chimney-
corner, his cassock raised to his knees, was busy melting glue in an old
earthen pot.

"Aha, good-day! Monsieur de Buxieres," said he in his rich, jovial
voice, "you have caught me in an occupation not very canonical; but what
of it? As Saint James says: 'The bow can not be always bent.' I am
preparing some lime-twigs, which I shall place in the Bois des Ronces as
soon as the snow is melted. I am not only a fisher of souls, but I
endeavor also to catch birds in my net, not so much for the purpose of
varying my diet, as of enriching my collection!"

"You have a great deal of spare time on your hands, then?" inquired
Julien, with some surprise.