lorified land, river and sky. Why
not dream and bask? Why not drink exhilarating toddies?

Meantime the entertainment to be given by Gaspard Roussillon occupied
everybody's imagination to an unusual extent. Rene de Ronville,
remembering but not heeding the doubtful success of his former attempt,
went long beforehand to claim Alice as his partenaire; but she flatly
refused him, once more reminding him of his obligations to little
Adrienne Bourcier. He would not be convinced.

"You are bound to me," he said, "you promised before, you know, and the
party was but put off. I hold you to it; you are my partenaire, and I
am yours, you can't deny that."

"No you are not my partenaire," she firmly said; then added lightly,
"Feu mon partenaire, you are dead and buried as my partner at that
dance."

He glowered in silence for a few moments, then said:

"It is Lieutenant Beverley, I suppose."

She gave him a quick contemptuous look, but turned it instantly into
one of her tantalising smiles.

"Do you imagine that?" she demanded.

"Imagine it! I know it," he said with a hot flush. "Have I no sense?"

"Precious little," she replied with a merry laugh.

"You think so."

"Go to Father Beret, tell him everything, and then ask him what he
thinks," she said in a calm, even tone, her face growing serious.

There was an awkward silence.

She had touched Rene's vulnerable spot; he was nothing if not a devout
Catholic, and his conscience rooted itself in what good Father Beret
had taught him.

The church, no matter by what name it goes, Catholic or Protestant, has
a saving hold on the deepest inner being of its adherents. No grip is
so hard to shake off as that of early religious convictions. The still,
small voice coming down from the times "When shepherds watched their
flocks by night," in old Judea, passes through the priest, the
minister, the preacher; it echoes in cathedral, church, open-air
meeting; it gently and mysteriously imparts to human life the
distinctive quality which is the exponent of Christian civilization.
Upon the receptive nature of children it makes an impress that forever
afterward exhales a fragrance and irradiates a glory for the saving of
the nations.

Father Beret was the humble, self-effacing, never-tiring agent of good
in his community. He preached in a tender sing-song voice the sweet
monotonies of his creed and the sublime truths of Christ's code. He was
indeed the spiritual father of his peo