t
at once. After a fervent meditation, with his hands clasped before
his face, he took the paten and gathered from the corporal the sacred
particles of the host that had fallen, and dropped them into the
chalice. One particle which had adhered to his thumb he removed with his
forefinger. And, crossing himself, chalice in hand, with the paten once
again below his chin, he drank all the precious blood in three draughts,
never taking his lips from the cup's rim, but imbibing the divine
Sacrifice to the last drop.

Vincent had risen to fetch the cruets from the credence table. But
suddenly the door of the passage leading to the parsonage flew open
and swung back against the wall, to admit a handsome child-like girl of
twenty-two, who carried something hidden in her apron.

'Thirteen of them,' she called out. 'All the eggs were good.' And she
opened out her apron and revealed a brood of little shivering chicks,
with sprouting down and beady black eyes. 'Do just look,' said she;
'aren't they sweet little pets, the darlings! Oh, look at the little
white one climbing on the others' backs! and the spotted one already
flapping his tiny wings! The eggs were a splendid lot; not one of them
unfertile.'

La Teuse, who was helping to serve the mass in spite of all
prohibitions, and was at that very moment handing the cruets to Vincent
for the ablutions, thereupon turned round and loudly exclaimed: 'Do be
quiet, Mademoiselle Desiree! Don't you see we haven't finished yet?'

Through the open doorway now came the strong smell of a farmyard,
blowing like some generative ferment into the church amidst the warm
sunlight that was creeping over the altar. Desiree stood there for a
moment delighted with the little ones she carried, watching Vincent
pour, and her brother drink, the purifying wine, in order that nought of
the sacred elements should be left within his mouth. And she stood there
still when he came back to the side of the altar, holding the chalice in
both hands, so that Vincent might pour over his forefingers and thumbs
the wine and water of ablution, which he likewise drank. But when the
mother hen ran up clucking with alarm to seek her little ones, and
threatened to force her way into the church, Desiree went off,
talking maternally to her chicks, while the priest, after pressing the
purificator to his lips, wiped first the rim and next the interior of
the chalice.

Then came the end, the act of thanksgiving to God. For th