gh and the season was
over, she decided to return to Pont-l'Eveque.

Monsieur Bourais assisted her in the choice of a college. The one
at Caen was considered the best. So Paul was sent away and bravely
said good-bye to them all, for he was glad to go to live in a
house where he would have boy companions.

Madame Aubain resigned herself to the separation from her son
because it was unavoidable. Virginia brooded less and less over
it. Felicite regretted the noise he made, but soon a new
occupation diverted her mind; beginning from Christmas, she
accompanied the little girl to her catechism lesson every day.

CHAPTER III

DEATH

After she had made a curtsey at the threshold, she would walk up
the aisle between the double lines of chairs, open Madame Aubain's
pew, sit down and look around.

Girls and boys, the former on the right, the latter on the
left-hand side of the church, filled the stalls of the choir; the
priest stood beside the reading-desk; on one stained window of the
side-aisle the Holy Ghost hovered over the Virgin; on another one,
Mary knelt before the Child Jesus, and behind the altar, a wooden
group represented Saint Michael felling the dragon.

The priest first read a condensed lesson of sacred history.
Felicite evoked Paradise, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, the
blazing cities, the dying nations, the shattered idols; and out of
this she developed a great respect for the Almighty and a great
fear of His wrath. Then, when she listened to the Passion, she
wept. Why had they crucified Him who loved little children,
nourished the people, made the blind see, and who, out of
humility, had wished to be born among the poor, in a stable? The
sowings, the harvests, the wine-presses, all those familiar things
which the Scriptures mention, formed a part of her life; the word
of God sanctified them; and she loved the lambs with increased
tenderness for the sake of the Lamb, and the doves because of the
Holy Ghost.

She found it hard, however, to think of the latter as a person,
for was it not a bird, a flame, and sometimes only a breath?
Perhaps it is its light that at night hovers over swamps, its
breath that propels the clouds, its voice that renders church-bells
harmonious. And Felicite worshipped devoutly, while enjoying the
coolness and the stillness of the church.

As for the dogma, she could not understand it and did not even
try. The priest discoursed, the children recited, and she went to