there. He was told no,--that the Government objected to religious
teaching, as it merely created discussion and was of no assistance
whatever in the material business of life. Patoux scratched his head
over this for a considerable time and ruminated deeply,--finally he
smiled, a dull fat smile.

"Good!" said he--"I understand now why the Government makes such an
ass of itself now and then! You cannot expect mere men to do their
duty wisely without God on their side. But Pere Laurent will teach
my children their prayers and catechism,--and I dare say Heaven will
arrange the rest."

And he forthwith dismissed the matter from his mind. His children
attended the Government school daily,--and every Wednesday,
Saturday, and Sunday afternoons Pere Laurent, a kindly, simple-
hearted old priest, took them, with several other little creatures
"educated by the State", and taught them all he knew about the great
France-exiled Creator of the Universe, and of His ceaseless love to
sinful and blasphemous mankind.

So things went on;--and though Henri and Babette were being crammed
by the national system of instruction, with learning which was
destined to be of very slight use to them in their after careers,
and which made them little cynics before their time, they were still
sustained within bounds by the saving sense of something better than
themselves,--that Something Better which silently declares itself in
the beauty of the skies, the blossoming of the flowers, and the
loveliness of all things wherein man has no part,--and neither of
them was yet transformed into that most fearsome product of modern
days, the child-Atheist, for whom there is no greater God than Self.