o
the earth without knowing why, he felt sorry that he remained at home
alone.

Sitting on the steps of his portico he kept his eyes fixed on the iron
railing of the gate through which the child had disappeared, saying as
she left him: "Why won't you come, godfather? how can I be happy without
you?" Though shaken to his very center, the pride of the Encyclopedist
did not as yet give way. He walked slowly in a direction from which he
could see the procession of communicants, and distinguish his little
Ursula brilliant with exaltation beneath her veil. She gave him an
inspired look, which knocked, in the stony regions of his heart, on
the corner closed to God. But still the old deist held firm. He said
to himself: "Mummeries! if there be a maker of worlds, imagine the
organizer of infinitude concerning himself with such trifles!" He
laughed as he continued his walk along the heights which look down upon
the road to the Gatinais, where the bells were ringing a joyous peal
that told of the joy of families.

The noise of backgammon is intolerable to persons who do not know the
game, which is really one of the most difficult that was ever invented.
Not to annoy his godchild, the extreme delicacy of whose organs and
nerves could not bear, he thought, without injury the noise and the
exclamations she did not know the meaning of, the abbe, old Jordy while
living, and the doctor always waited till their child was in bed before
they began their favorite game. Sometimes the visitors came early
when she was out for a walk, and the game would be going on when she
returned; then she resigned herself with infinite grace and took her
seat at the window with her work. She had a repugnance to the game,
which is really in the beginning very hard and unconquerable to some
minds, so that unless it be learned in youth it is almost impossible to
take it up in after life.

The night of her first communion, when Ursula came into the salon where
her godfather was sitting alone, she put the backgammon-board before
him.

"Whose throw shall it be?" she asked.

"Ursula," said the doctor, "isn't it a sin to make fun of your godfather
the day of your first communion?"

"I am not making fun of you," she said, sitting down. "I want to give
you some pleasure--you who are always on the look-out for mine. When
Monsieur Chaperon was pleased with me he gave me a lesson in backgammon,
and he has given me so many that now I am quite strong enough to bea