e
hotel.

AFTER

"My darlings," said the Comtesse, "you must go to bed."

The three children, two girls and a boy, rose up, and went to kiss
their grandmother.

Then, they came to say "Good night" to M. le Cure, who had dined at
the chateau, as he did every Thursday.

The Abbe Mauduit put two of the young ones sitting on his knees,
passing his long arms clad in black behind the children's necks; and,
drawing their heads towards him with a paternal movement, he kissed
each of them on the forehead with a long, tender kiss.

Then, he again set them down on the ground, and the little beings went
off, the boy in front, and the girls behind.

"You are fond of children, M. le Cure," said the Comtesse.

"Very fond, Madame."

The old woman raised her bright eyes towards the priest.

"And--has your solitude never weighed too heavily on you?"

"Yes, sometimes."

He became silent, hesitated, and then added: "But I was never made for
ordinary life."

"What do you know about it?"

"Oh! I know very well. I was made to be a priest: I followed my own
path."

The Comtesse kept staring at him:

"Look here, M. le Cure, tell me this--tell me how it was you resolved
to renounce for ever what makes us love life--the rest of us--all that
consoles and sustains us? What is it that drove you, impelled you, to
separate yourself from the great natural path of marriage and the
family. You are neither an enthusiast nor a fanatic, neither a gloomy
person nor a sad person. Was it some strange occurrence, some sorrow,
that led you to take life-long vows?"

The Abbe Mauduit rose up and advanced towards the fire, then drew
towards the flames the big shoes such as country priests generally
wear. He seemed still hesitating as to what reply he should make.

He was a tall old man with white hair, and for the last twenty years
he had been the pastor of the parish of Sainte-Antoine-du-Rocher. The
peasants said of him: "There's a good man for you!" And indeed he was
a good man, benevolent, friendly to all, gentle, and, to crown all,
generous. Like Saint Martin, he had cut his cloak in two. He freely
laughed, and wept too for very little, just like a woman,--a thing
that prejudiced him more or less in the hard minds of the country
people.

The old Comtesse de Saville, living in retirement in her chateau of
Rocher, in order to bring up her grand-children, after the successive
deaths of her son and her daughter-in-law, was very mu