hurch of the Madeleine. Since Madame
Thuillier and Celeste had again become his parishioners, the young
abbe visited them occasionally, and Thuillier, who had gone to him to
explain, after his own fashion, the suitableness of the choice made for
Celeste in the person of la Peyrade (taking pains as he did so to cast
reflections on the religious opinions of Felix Phellion), had easily
led him to contribute by his persuasive words to the resignation of the
victim.

When the time came to sit down to table three guests were missing,--two
Minards, father and son, and the notary Dupuis. The latter had written a
note to Thuillier in the morning, excusing himself from the dinner, but
saying that at nine o'clock precisely he would bring the contract and
place himself at the orders of Mademoiselle Thuillier. As for Julien
Minard, his mother excused him as being confined to his room with a
sore-throat. The absence of Minard senior remained unexplained, but
Madame Minard insisted that they should sit down to table without him;
which was done, Brigitte ordering that the soup be kept hot for him,
because in the bourgeois code of manners and customs a dinner without
soup is no dinner at all.

The repast was far from gay, and though the fare was better, the
vivacity and the warmth of the conversation was far, indeed, from that
of the famous improvised banquet at the time of the election to the
Council-general. The gaps occasioned by the absence of three guests may
have been one reason; then Flavie was glum; she had had an interview
with la Peyrade in the afternoon which ended in tears; Celeste, even if
she had been content with the choice imposed on her, would scarcely, as
a matter of propriety, have seemed joyful; in fact, she made no effort
to brighten a sad face, and dared not look at her godmother, whose own
countenance gave the impression, if we may so express it, of the long
bleating of a sheep. The poor girl seeing this feared to exchange a look
with her lest she might drive her to tears. Thuillier now felt himself,
on all sides, of such importance that he was pompous and consequential;
while Brigitte, uneasy out of her own world, where she could lord it
over every one without competition, seemed constrained and embarrassed.

Colleville tried by a few jovialities to raise the temperature of the
assemblage; but the coarse salt of his witticisms had an effect, in the
atmosphere in which he produced them, of a loud laugh in a sick