beg M.
le Cure's pardon! In those days of hot youth the church, you know, did
not mean--"

The _abbe_ twinkled and chuckled again, and patted the old man's shoulder
affectionately. "When you did not follow Briand ten years ago, it proved
that half a century had wrought a happy change. I understand anyway. I
am a Breton that has taken root, as everyone here does, in this land of
lofty mountains and deep valleys, of wind and sun, of sea and snow.
Mental as well as physical acclimatization comes. The spirit, the life,
the very soul of the _Risorgimento_ had nothing Italian in it. It was of
Piedmont and Savoy and the Riviera--a product of the Alpes Maritimes."

I would have listened longer. But the bell above us began to ring,
several peals first, and then single strokes, each more insistent than
the last. The _abbe_ was still in the Garibaldi mood, and the volunteer
of '49 and I were in sympathy. He knew it, and refused to hear the
summons to vespers. But out of the door came a girl who could break a
spell of the past, because she was able to weave one of the present. She
dominated us immediately. She would not have had to say a word. A hymn
book was in her hand, opened at the page where she intended it to stay
open. "This afternoon, M. l'Abbe, we shall sing this," she stated.

"No, we cannot do it!" he protested rather feebly. "You see, the
encyclical of the Holy Father enjoins the Gregorian, and I think the boys
can sing it--"

The organist interrupted: "You certainly know, M. l'Abbe, that we cannot
have decent singing for the visits to the stations, unless the big girls,
whom I have been training now for two months--"

"But we must obey the Papal injunction, Mademoiselle Simone," put in the
priest still more mildly.

Mademoiselle Simone's eyes danced mockingly, and her mow confirmed beyond
a doubt the revelation of clothes and accent. Here was a
twentieth-century Parisienne in conflict with a reactionary rule of the
church in a setting where turning back the hands of the clock would have
seemed the natural thing to do.

"Pure nonsense!" was her disrespectful answer. "With all the young men
away, the one thing to do is to make the music go."

I had to speak in order to be noticed. "So even in Cagnes the young
girls know how to give orders to M. le Cure? The Holy Father's
encyclical--" I could stop without finishing the sentence, for I had
succeeded. The dancing eyes and the _moue_ now inclu