that he refuses you the Sacrament, though THAT is said to drive away
Satan by the mere touch of it! But wait till I ASK to have the
Sacrament given to me!--it will be time enough then to refuse it!
Many a fat chicken of my stock has the reverend father had as a free
gift to boil in his soup maigre!" and again she laughed angrily--"
But no more of them does he get to comfort his stomach while doing
penance for his soul!--the hypocrite! He must find another silly
woman to cheat with his stories of a good God who never does
anything but kill and curse us every one!--he has had all that he
will ever get out of Martine Doucet!"

It was to this redoubtable virago that Henri and Babette had betaken
themselves in the market place directly school was over. She always
held the same stall in the same position on market days,--and she
sat under her red umbrella on a rough wooden bench, knitting
rapidly, now keeping an eye on her little lame son, coiled up in a
piece of matting beside her, and anon surveying her stock-in-trade
of ducks and geese and fowls, which were heaped on her counter,
their wrung necks drooping limply from the board, and their yellow
feet tied helplessly together and shining like bits of dull gold in
the warm light of the September sun. She listened with an impassive
countenance while Babette poured out her story of the great
Cardinal,--the Cardinal Felix Bonpre, whom people said was a saint,-
-how he had come unexpectedly to stay two nights at the Hotel
Poitiers,--how "petite maman" had declared he was so good that even
angels might visit him,--how kind and gentle and grand he seemed,--
"Yes," said Babette somewhat eagerly, "there was no doubt that he
LOOKED good,--and we have told him all about Fabien and he has
promised to bless him and ask Our Lord to cure his lameness."