und her, that the bold idea of
escaping, on foot and without money, to Brittany and to her grandparents
took possession of her mind. Two events hindered her from attempting
it. Old Lorrain died, and Rogron was appointed guardian of his little
cousin. If the grandmother had died first, we may believe that Rogron,
advised by Vinet, would have claimed Pierrette's eight thousand francs
and reduced the old man to penury.

"You may, perhaps, inherit from Pierrette," said Vinet, with a horrid
smile. "Who knows who may live and who may die?"

Enlightened by that remark, Rogron gave old Madame Lorrain no peace
until she had secured to Pierrette the reversion of the eight thousand
francs at her death.

Pierrette was deeply shocked by these events. She was on the point of
making her first communion,--another reason for resigning the hope of
escape from Provins. This ceremony, simple and customary as it was, led
to great changes in the Rogron household. Sylvie learned that Monsieur
le cure Peroux was instructing the little Julliards, Lesourds,
Garcelands, and the rest. She therefore made it a point of honor that
Pierrette should be instructed by the vicar himself, Monsieur Habert, a
priest who was thought to belong to the _Congregation_, very zealous for
the interests of the Church, and much feared in Provins,--a man who hid
a vast ambition beneath the austerity of stern principles. The sister of
this priest, an unmarried woman about thirty years of age, kept a school
for young ladies. Brother and sister looked alike; both were thin,
yellow, black-haired, and bilious.

Like a true Breton girl, cradled in the practices and poetry of
Catholicism, Pierrette opened her heart and ears to the words of this
imposing priest. Sufferings predispose the mind to devotion, and nearly
all young girls, impelled by instinctive tenderness, are inclined to
mysticism, the deepest aspect of religion. The priest found good soil
in which to sow the seed of the Gospel and the dogmas of the Church. He
completely changed the current of the girl's thoughts. Pierrette loved
Jesus Christ in the light in which he is presented to young girls at the
time of their first communion, as a celestial bridegroom; her physical
and moral sufferings gained a meaning for her; she saw the finger of God
in all things. Her soul, so cruelly hurt although she could not accuse
her cousins of actual wrong, took refuge in that sphere to which all
sufferers fly on the wings of