ircase with its heavy baluster and wooden
steps, though very clean, looked as if it might easily give way under
the feet. On the other side of the house, opposite to the entrance
door, another door opening upon the kitchen garden enabled the Abbe de
Rastignac to judge of the narrowness of that garden, which was closed
at the back by a wall cut in the white and friable stone side of
the mountain, against which espaliers were fastened, covered with
grape-vines and fruit-trees so ill taken care of that their leaves were
discolored with blight.

The abbe returned upon his steps and walked along the paths of the first
garden, from which he could see, in the distance beyond the village,
the magnificent stretch of valley, a true oasis at the edge of the vast
plains, which now, veiled by the light mists of morning, lay along the
horizon like a tranquil ocean. Behind him could be seen, on one side,
for a foil, the dark masses of the bronze-green forest; on the other,
the church and the ruins of the castle perched on the rock and vividly
detached upon the blue of the ether. The Abbe Gabriel, his feet creaking
on the gravelly paths cut in stars and rounds and lozenges, looked down
upon the village, where some of the inhabitants were already gazing up
at him, and then at the fresh, cool valley, with its tangled paths, its
river bordered with willows in delightful contrast to the endless plain,
and he was suddenly seized with sensations which changed the nature of
his thoughts; he admired the sweet tranquillity of the place; he felt
the influence of that pure air; he was conscious of the peace inspired
by the revelation of a life brought back to Biblical simplicity; he saw,
confusedly, the beauties of this old parsonage, which he now re-entered
to examine its details with greater interest.

A little girl, employed, no doubt, to watch the house, though she was
picking and eating fruit in the garden, heard the steps of a man with
creaking shoes on the great square flags of the ground-floor rooms. She
ran in to see who it was. Confused at being caught by a priest with a
fruit in one hand and another in her mouth, she made no answer to the
questions of the handsome young abbe. She had never imagined such an
abbe,--dapper and spruce as hands could make him, in dazzling linen and
fine black cloth without spot or wrinkle.

"Monsieur Bonnet?" she said at last. "Monsieur Bonnet is saying mass,
and Mademoiselle Ursule is at church."

The