neither Norman beauty, where flesh
abounds, nor French beauty, as fugitive as its own expressions, nor the
beauty of the North, cold and melancholy as the North itself--it was the
deep seraphic beauty of the Catholic Church, supple and rigid, severe
but tender.

"Where could one find a prettier duchess?" thought Beauvouloir,
contemplating his daughter with delight. As she stood there slightly
bending, her neck stretched out to watch the flight of a bird past the
windows, he could only compare her to a gazelle pausing to listen for
the ripple of the water where she seeks to drink.

"Come and sit here," said Beauvouloir, tapping his knee and making a
sign to Gabrielle, which told her he had something to whisper to her.

Gabrielle understood him, and came. She placed herself on his knee with
the lightness of a gazelle, and slipped her arm about his neck, ruffling
his collar.

"Tell me," he said, "what were you thinking of when you gathered those
flowers? You have never before arranged them so charmingly."

"I was thinking of many things," she answered. "Looking at the flowers
made for us, I wondered whom we were made for; who are they who look at
us? You are wise, and I can tell you what I think; you know so much you
can explain all. I feel a sort of force within me that wants to exercise
itself; I struggle against something. When the sky is gray I am half
content; I am sad, but I am calm. When the day is fine, and the flowers
smell sweet, and I sit on my bench down there among the jasmine and
honeysuckles, something rises in me, like waves which beat against my
stillness. Ideas come into my mind which shake me, and fly away like
those birds before the windows; I cannot hold them. Well, when I have
made a bouquet in which the colors blend like tapestry, and the red
contrasts with white, and the greens and the browns cross each other,
when all seems so abundant, the breeze so playful, the flowers so many
that their fragrance mingles and their buds interlace,--well, then I am
happy, for I see what is passing in me. At church when the organ plays
and the clergy respond, there are two distinct songs speaking to each
other,--the human voice and the music. Well, then, too, I am happy;
that harmony echoes in my breast. I pray with a pleasure which stirs my
blood."

While listening to his daughter, Beauvouloir examined her with sagacious
eyes; those eyes seemed almost stupid from the force of his rushing
thoughts, as the w