ay to some simple home where a happy thing had come to poor
folk--the return of a prodigal son, a daughter's fortunate marriage,
or the birth of a child to childless people; and there together they
exchanged pinches of snuff over the event, and made compliments from
the same mould, nor desired difference of pattern. To the pretty lady's
words, Monsieur Garon blushed, and his thin hand fluttered to his lips.
As if in sympathy, the Cure's fingers trembled to his cassock cord.
"Madame, dear madame,"--the Cure approved by a caressing nod, "we are
all the same here in our hearts and in our homes, and if anything seem
good in them to us, it is because you are pleased. You bring sunshine
and relish to our lives, dear madame."

The Cure beamed. This was after his own heart and he had ever said that
his dear avocat would have been a brilliant orator, were it not for his
retiring spirit.

For himself, he was no speaker at all; he could only do his duty and
love his people. So he had declared over and over again, and the look in
his eyes said the same now.

Madame's eyes were shining with tears. This admiration of her was too
real to be doubted.

"And yet--and yet"--she said, with a hand in the Cure's and the
avocat's, drawing them near her--"a heretic, a heretic, my dear friends!
How should I stand in your hearts if I were only of your faith? Or is
it so that you yearn over the lost sheep, more than over the ninety and
nine of the fold?"

There was a real moisture in her eyes, and in her own heart she
wondered, this fresh and venturing spirit, if she cared for them as they
seemed to care for her--for she felt she had an inherent strain of the
actress temperament, while these honest provincials were wholly real.

But if she made them happy by her gaiety, what matter! The tears dried,
and she flashed a malicious look at the young Seigneur, as though to
say: "You had your chance, and you made nothing of it, and these simple
gentlemen have done the gracious thing."

Perhaps it was a liberal interpretation of his creed which prompted the
Cure to add with a quaint smile:

"'Thou art not far from the Kingdom,' my daughter."

The avocat, who had no vanity, hastened to add to his former remarks, as
if he had been guilty of an oversight:

"Dear madame, you have flattered my poor gleanings in history; I am
happy to tell you that there is here another and a better pilot in that
sea. It is Monsieur Valmond," he added, his voice ch