nize the three children whom you shamefully put to
death. May you loathe your crime, and repent, that God may pardon you!"

The innkeeper, filled with terror, fled into the storm, amidst the
thunder and lightning.

CHAPTER II

ST. NICOLAS embraced the three children and gently questioned them about
the miserable death which they had suffered. They related that Garum,
having approached them while they were gleaning in the fields, had lured
them into his inn, had made them drink wine, and had cut their throats
while they slept.

They still wore the rags in which they had been clothed on the day of
their death, and they retained, after their resurrection, a wild
and timid air. The sturdiest of the three, Maxime, was the son of a
half-witted woman, who followed the soldiers to war, mounted on an ass.
One night he fell from the pannier in which she carried him, and was
left abandoned by the roadside. From that time forward he had lived
solely by theft. The feeblest, Robin, could hardly recall his parents,
peasants in the highlands, who being too poor or too avaricious to
support him had deserted him in the forest. The third, Sulpice, knew
nothing of his birth, but a priest had taught him his alphabet. The
storm had ceased; in the buoyant, limpid air the birds were calling
loudly to one another. The smiling earth was green. Modernus having
fetched the mules, Bishop Nicolas mounted his, and carried Maxime
wrapped in his cloak: the deacon took Sulpice and Robin upon his
crupper, and they set off toward the city of Trinqueballe.

The road unfolded itself between fields of corn, vineyards, and meadows.
As they went along the great Saint Nicolas who already loved the
children with all his heart, examined them on subjects suitable to their
age, and asked them easy questions such as: "How much is five times
five?" or "What is God?" He obtained no satisfactory answers. But, far
from shaming them for their ignorance, he thought only of gradually
dissipating it by the application of the best pedagogic methods.

"Modernus," he said, "we will teach them firstly the truths necessary
for salvation, and secondly the liberal arts, especially music, so that
they may sing the praises of the Lord. It will also be expedient to
teach them rhetoric, philosophy, and the history of men, plants, and
animals. I desire that they shall study, in their habits and their
structure, the animals, all of whose organs, in their wonderful
perfectio