haughty virtue. Thinking well over it there is some sensuality in
prizing too highly the flesh and guarding excessively what one ought
to despise. There are some matrons to be met with who believe they
have a treasure and who visibly exaggerate the interest God and the
angels may have in them. They believe themselves to be a kind of
natural Holy Sacrament. St Mary the Egyptian was a better judge.
Pretty and divinely shaped as she was, she considered that it would
be all too proud of her flesh to stop in the course of a holy
pilgrimage for a paltry indifferent reason which is no more than a
piece of mortification and far from being a precious jewel. She
humbled herself, madam, and entered by using so admirable a humility
the road of penitence, where she accomplished marvellous works."

"Your reverence," said my mother, "I do not understand you. You are
too learned for me."

"That grand saint." said Friar Ange, "is painted in a state of
nature in the chapel of my convent, and by the grace of God all her
body is covered with long and thick hair. Reproductions of this
picture have been printed, and I'll bring you a fully blessed one,
my dear madam."

Tenderly touched, my mother passed the soup-tureen to him, behind
the back of my teacher. And the holy friar, seated on the cinder
board, silently soaked his bread in the savoury liquid.

"Now is the moment," said my father, "to uncork one of those bottles
which I keep in reserve for the great feasts, which are Christmas,
Twelfth Night, and St Laurence's Day. Nothing is more agreeable than
to drink a good wine quietly at home secure of unwelcome intruders."