isters knelt during the office, their haughty
air contradicting the humble attitude. At the sound of the _Ave
maris stella_, the lowly bookbinder's son would lift his eyes
to these ladies of high degree, the plainest of whom feels herself
a jewel of price and cherishes a natural and unaffected pride of
birth. The chants and incense, the flowers and sacred images,
whatever troubles the imagination and stimulates to prayer, all
these things united to enervate his spirit and deliver him a
trembling victim to the glamour of these patrician dames.

But it was Gabrielle he worshipped in them, Gabrielle to whom
he offered up his prayers, his supplications. All that element
in religion which gives to love the fascination of forbidden
fruit appealed powerfully to his imagination. Unbeliever though
he was, he loved the Magdalen's God and savoured the creed that
has bestowed on lovers one amorous bliss the more--the bliss
of losing their immortal souls.

XXV

Little by little the boys wearied of this insubordination, their
imaginations proving unequal to the invention of any new forms
of mischief. Even de Grizolles himself left off shooting beans.
Instead, he conceived the notion of brewing chocolate inside
his desk with a spirit-lamp and a silver patty-pan. Jean left
him in peace and reopened his Sophocles with a sigh of relief.
But the Superintendent, going by in the court, caught a smell of
cooking, searched the desks and unearthed the patty-pan, which he
offered, still warm, for the Reverend the Director's inspection,
with the words: "There! that's what goes on in Monsieur Servien's
class-room." The Director slapped his forehead, declared they
would be the death of him and ordered the patty-pan to be restored
to its owner. Then he sent for the Assistant in charge and
administered a severe reprimand, because he believed it to be
his bounden duty to do so.

The next day was a whole holiday, and Jean went to spend the
day at his father's. The latter asked him if he was ready for
his professorial examination.

"My lad," he adjured him, "be quick and find a good post if you
want me to see you in it. One of these days your aunt and I will
be going out at yonder door feet foremost. The old lady had a
fit of dizziness last week on the stairs. _I_ am not ill, but
I can feel I am worn out. I have done a hard life's work in the
world."

He looked at his tools, and walked away, a bent old man!

Then Jean gathered up in b