oman, whose daughter, a young married lady,
received visits a great deal too frequent (according to the superior)
from a certain manufacturer."

"What do you say?" cried Agricola. "This manufacturer must be--"

"M. Hardy. I had too many reasons to remember that name, when it was
pronounced by the superior. Since that day, so many other events have
taken place, that I had almost forgotten the circumstance. But it is
probable that this young lady is the one of whom I heard speak at the
convent."

"And what interest had the superior of the convent to set a spy upon
her?" asked the smith.

"I do not know; but it is clear that the same interest still exists,
since the young lady was followed, and perhaps, at this hour, is
discovered and dishonored. Oh! it is dreadful!" Then, seeing Agricola
start suddenly, Mother Bunch added: "What, then, is the matter?"

"Yes--why not?" said the smith, speaking to himself; "why may not all
this be the work of the same hand? The superior of a convent may have a
private understanding with an abbe--but, then, for what end?"

"Explain yourself, Agricola," said the girl. "And then,--where did you
get your wound? Tell me that, I conjure you."

"It is of my wound that I am just going to speak; for in truth, the
more I think of it, the more this adventure of the young lady seems to
connect itself with other facts."

"How so?"

"You must know that, for the last few days, singular things are passing
in the neighborhood of our factory. First, as we are in Lent, an abbe
from Paris (a tall, fine-looking man, they say) has come to preach in
the little village of Villiers, which is only a quarter of a league from
our works. The abbe has found occasion to slander and attack M. Hardy in
his sermons."

"How is that?"

"M. Hardy has printed certain rules with regard to our work, and the
rights and benefits he grants us. These rules are followed by various
maxims as noble as they are simple; with precepts of brotherly love such
as all the world can understand, extracted from different philosophies
and different religions. But because M. Hardy has chosen what is best in
all religions, the abbe concludes that M. Hardy has no religion at all,
and he has therefore not only attacked him for this in the pulpit,
but has denounced our factory as a centre of perdition and damnable
corruption, because, on Sundays, instead of going to listen to his
sermons, or to drink at a tavern, our comrades, with their