n, telling his servant that he
was going to see the archbishop. He returned in two days with a joyous,
triumphant air. And everyone knew the following day that the chancel of
the church was going to be renovated. A sum of six hundred francs had
been contributed by the archbishop out of his private fund. All the old
pine pews were to be removed, and replaced by new pews made of oak.
It would be a big carpentering job, and they talked about it that very
evening in all the houses in the village.

Theodule Sabot was not laughing.

When he went through the village the following morning, the neighbors,
friends and enemies, all asked him, jokingly:

"Are you going to do the work on the chancel of the church?"

He could find nothing to say, but he was furious, he was good and angry.

Ill-natured people added:

"It is a good piece of work; and will bring in not less than two or
three per cent. profit."

Two days later, they heard that the work of renovation had been
entrusted to Celestin Chambrelan, the carpenter from Percheville. Then
this was denied, and it was said that all the pews in the church were
going to be changed. That would be well worth the two thousand francs
that had been demanded of the church administration.

Theodule Sabot could not sleep for thinking about it. Never, in all the
memory of man, had a country carpenter undertaken a similar piece of
work. Then a rumor spread abroad that the cure felt very grieved that
he had to give this work to a carpenter who was a stranger in the
community, but that Sabot's opinions were a barrier to his being
entrusted with the job.

Sabot knew it well. He called at the parsonage just as it was growing
dark. The servant told him that the cure was at church. He went to the
church.

Two attendants on the altar of the Virgin, two soar old maids, were
decorating the altar for the month of Mary, under the direction of the
priest, who stood in the middle of the chancel with his portly paunch,
directing the two women who, mounted on chairs, were placing flowers
around the tabernacle.

Sabot felt ill at ease in there, as though he were in the house of his
greatest enemy, but the greed of gain was gnawing at his heart. He drew
nearer, holding his cap in his hand, and not paying any attention to the
"demoiselles de la Vierge," who remained standing startled, astonished,
motionless on their chairs.

He faltered:

"Good morning, monsieur le cure."

The priest replied wi