highway! Unless an angel comes
down to serve your mass, your reverence, you've only got me to help you,
on my honour! or one of Mademoiselle Desiree's rabbits, no offence to
your reverence!'

Just at that moment, however, Vincent, the Brichets' younger son, gently
opened the door of the sacristy. His shock of red hair and his little,
glistening, grey eyes exasperated La Teuse.

'Oh! the wretch!' she cried. 'I'll bet he's just been up to some
mischief! Come on, you scamp, since his reverence is afraid I might
dirty our Lord!'

On seeing the lad, Abbe Mouret had taken up the amice. He kissed the
cross embroidered in the centre of it, and for a second laid the cloth
upon his head; then lowering it over the collar-band of his cassock, he
crossed it and fastened the tapes, the right one over the left. He next
donned the alb, the symbol of purity, beginning with the right sleeve.
Vincent stooped and turned around him, adjusting the alb, in order
that it should fall evenly all round him to a couple of inches from
the ground. Then he presented the girdle to the priest, who fastened
it tightly round his loins, as a reminder of the bonds wherewith the
Saviour was bound in His Passion.

La Teuse remained standing there, feeling jealous and hurt and
struggling to keep silence; but so great was the itching of her tongue,
that she soon broke out once more: 'Brother Archangias has been here.
He won't have a single child at school to-day. He went off again like a
whirlwind to pull the brats' ears in the vineyards. You had better see
him. I believe he has got something to say to you.'

Abbe Mouret silenced her with a wave of the hand. Then he repeated the
usual prayers while he took the maniple--which he kissed before slipping
it over his left forearm, as a symbol of the practice of good works--and
while crossing on his breast the stole, the symbol of his dignity
and power. La Teuse had to help Vincent in the work of adjusting the
chasuble, which she fastened together with slender tapes, so that it
might not slip off behind.

'Holy Virgin! I had forgotten the cruets!' she stammered, rushing to the
cupboard. 'Come, look sharp, lad!'

Thereupon Vincent filled the cruets, phials of coarse glass, while
she hastened to take a clean finger-cloth from a drawer. Abbe Mouret,
holding the chalice by its stem with his left hand, the fingers of his
right resting meanwhile on the burse, then bowed profoundly, but without
removing his biret