nne's shrill voice could be heard
in the dining-room.

"People don't put a chicken to a carriage; it ought to be a horse! You
don't know how to make a horse, do you?"

"No, my dear; horses are too difficult," said Monsieur Rambaud. "But
if you like I'll show you how to make carriages."

This was always the fashion in which their game came to an end.
Jeanne, all ears and eyes, watched her kindly playfellow folding the
paper into a multitude of little squares, and afterwards she followed
his example; but she would make mistakes and then stamp her feet in
vexation. However, she already knew how to manufacture boats and
bishops' mitres.

"You see," resumed Monsieur Rambaud patiently, "you make four corners
like that; then you turn them back--"

With his ears on the alert, he must during the last moment have heard
some of the words spoken in the next room; for his poor hands were now
trembling more and more, while his tongue faltered, so that he could
only half articulate his sentences.

Helene, who was unable to quiet herself, now began the conversation
anew. "Marry again! And whom, pray?" she suddenly asked the priest, as
she laid her work down on the table. "You have some one in view, have
you not?"

Abbe Jouve rose from his chair and stalked slowly up and down. Without
halting, he nodded assent.

"Well! tell me who he is," she said.

For a moment he lingered before her erect, then, shrugging his
shoulders, said: "What's the good, since you decline?"

"No matter, I want to know," she replied. "How can I make up my mind
when I don't know?"

He did not answer her immediately, but remained standing there, gazing
into her face. A somewhat sad smile wreathed his lips. At last he
exclaimed, almost in a whisper: "What! have you not guessed?"

No, she could not guess. She tried to do so, with increasing wonder,
whereupon he made a simple sign--nodding his head in the direction of
the dining-room.

"He!" she exclaimed, in a muffled tone, and a great seriousness fell
upon her. She no longer indulged in violent protestations; only sorrow
and surprise remained visible on her face. She sat for a long time
plunged in thought, her gaze turned to the floor. Truly, she had never
dreamed of such a thing; and yet, she found nothing in it to object
to. Monsieur Rambaud was the only man in whose hand she could put her
own honestly and without fear. She knew his innate goodness; she did
not smile at his _bourgeois_ heaviness.