chasuble La Teuse next laid out the stole, the maniple, the
girdle, alb and amice. But her tongue still wagged while she crossed
the stole with the maniple, and wreathed the girdle so as to trace the
venerated initial of Mary's holy name.

'That girdle is not up to much now,' she muttered; 'you will have to
make up your mind to get another, your reverence. It wouldn't be very
hard; I could plait you one myself if I only had some hemp.'

Abbe Mouret made no answer. He was dressing the chalice at a small
table. A large old silver-gilt chalice it was with a bronze base, which
he had just taken from the bottom of a deal cupboard, in which the
sacred vessels and linen, the Holy Oils, the Missals, candlesticks, and
crosses were kept. Across the cup he laid a clean purificator, and on
this set the silver-gilt paten, with the host in it, which he covered
with a small lawn pall. As he was hiding the chalice by gathering
together the folds in the veil of cloth of gold matching the chasuble,
La Teuse exclaimed:

'Stop, there's no corporal in the burse. Last night I took all the
dirty purificators, palls, and corporals to wash them--separately, of
course--not with the house-wash. By-the-bye, your reverence, I didn't
tell you: I have just started the house-wash. A fine fat one it will be!
Better than the last.'

Then while the priest slipped a corporal into the burse and laid the
latter on the veil, she went on quickly:

'By-the-bye, I forgot! that gadabout Vincent hasn't come. Do you wish me
to serve your mass, your reverence?'

The young priest eyed her sternly.

'Well, it isn't a sin,' she continued, with her genial smile. 'I did
serve a mass once, in Monsieur Caffin's time. I serve it better, too,
than ragamuffins who laugh like heathens at seeing a fly buzzing about
the church. True I may wear a cap, I may be sixty years old, and as
round as a tub, but I have more respect for our Lord than those imps of
boys whom I caught only the other day playing at leap-frog behind the
altar.'

The priest was still looking at her and shaking his head.

'What a hole this village is!' she grumbled. 'Not a hundred and fifty
people in it! There are days, like to-day, when you wouldn't find a
living soul in Les Artaud. Even the babies in swaddling clothes are
gone to the vineyards! And goodness knows what they do among such
vines--vines that grow under the pebbles and look as dry as thistles! A
perfect wilderness, three miles from any