ignorance with some complacency; she lost her timidity, and acquired a
self-possession which gave to her "speeches" something of the
solemnity with which the British enunciate their patriotic
absurdities,--the self-conceit of stupidity, as it may be called.

As she approached her uncle, on this occasion, with a majestic step,
she was ruminating over a question that might draw him from a silence,
which always troubled her, for she feared he was dull.

"Uncle," she said, leaning on his arm and clinging to his side (this
was one of her fictions; for she said to herself "If I had a husband I
should do just so"),--"uncle, if everything here below happens
according to the will of God, there must be a reason for everything."

"Certainly," replied the abbe, gravely. The worthy man, who cherished
his niece, always allowed her to tear him from his meditations with
angelic patience.

"Then if I remain unmarried,--supposing that I do,--God wills it?"

"Yes, my child," replied the abbe.

"And yet, as nothing prevents me from marrying to-morrow if I choose,
His will can be destroyed by mine?"

"That would be true if we knew what was really the will of God,"
replied the former prior of the Sorbonne. "Observe, my daughter, that
you put in an /if/."

The poor woman, who expected to draw her uncle into a matrimonial