"Well, and of what use is that, mignonne?" demanded Martine,
clicking her knitting-needles violently and stooping over her work
to wink away the sudden tears that had risen in her bold brown eyes
at Babette's enthusiastic desire to benefit her afflicted child.--
"Asking our Lord is poor business,--you may ask and ask, but you
never get answered!"

Babette hung her curly brown head despondingly, and looked
appealingly at her brother. Now Henri was a decided cynic;--but his
sister exercised a weird fascination over him,--a sort of power to
command which he always felt more or less constrained to obey. He
stared solemnly at Martine, and then at the little Fabien, who, half
rising from his mat, had listened with a visibly painful interest to
Babette's story.

"I think you might let us take Fabien and see if a Cardinal CAN do
anything," he said with a kind of judicial air, as of one who,
though considering the case hopeless, had no objection to try a last
desperate remedy. "This one is a very old man, and he must know a
good deal. He could not do any harm. And I am sure Babette would
like to find out if there is any use at all in a Cardinal. I should
like it too. You see we went into Notre Dame last night,--Babette
and I,--and everything was dark,--all the candles were out at Our
Lady's statue--and we had only ten centimes between us. And the
candles are ten centimes each. So we could only light one. But we
lit that one, and said an Ave for Fabien. And the candle was all by
itself in the Cathedral. And now I think we ought to take him to the
Cardinal."

Martine shook her head, pursed up her lips, and knitted more