this visit of Madame de Cinq-Cygne he was still undecided; but he now
resolved to give himself up, with or without conviction, to whatever
Madame de la Chanterie and her friends might exact of him, in order
to get affiliated with their order and initiated into their secrets,
assuring himself that in that way he should find a career.

The next day he went to a book-keeper whom Madame de la Chanterie
recommended, and arranged with him the hours at which they should work
together. His whole time was now employed. The Abbe de Veze instructed
him in the mornings; he was two hours a day with the book-keeper; and
he spent the rest of his time between breakfast and dinner in doing
imaginary commercial accounts which his master required him to write at
home.

Some time passed thus, during which Godefroid felt the charm of a life
in which each hour has its own employment. The recurrence of a settled
work at settled moments, regularity of action, is the secret of many a
happy life; and it proves how deeply the founders of religious orders
had meditated on the nature of man. Godefroid, who had made up his
mind to listen to the Abbe de Veze, began to have serious thoughts of
a future life, and to find how little he knew of the real gravity of
religious questions.

Moreover, from day to day Madame de la Chanterie, with whom he always
remained for an hour after the second breakfast, allowed him to discover
the treasures that were in her; he knew then that he never could have
imagined a loving-kindness so broad and so complete. A woman of Madame
de la Chanterie's apparent age no longer has the pettiness of younger
women. She is a friend who offers you all feminine refinements, who
displays the graces, the choice attractions which nature inspires in a
woman for man; she gives them, and no longer sells them. Such a woman is
either detestable or perfect; for her gifts are either not of the flesh
or they are worthless. Madame de la Chanterie was perfect. She seemed
never to have had a youth; her glance never told of a past. Godefroid's
curiosity was far from being appeased by a closer and more intimate
knowledge of this sublime nature; the discoveries of each succeeding day
only redoubled his desire to learn the anterior life of a woman whom he
now thought a saint. Had she ever loved? Had she been a wife,--a mother?
Nothing about her was characteristic of an old maid; she displayed all
the graces of a well-born woman; and an observer w