ubject to fits of rage, and Sulpice frequently
and obstinately expressed false ideas in very important matters.
However, they were but mere children who went bird's-nesting, stole the
garden fruit, tied cooking-pots to dogs' tails, put ink the holy water
font, and cow-itch in Modernus' bed.

At night, wrapped in white sheets and walking on stilts, they would go
into the gardens, and frighten into a swoon the serving-maids belated
in their lovers' arms. They would cover the seat which Madame Basine
was wont to use with bristling spikes, and when she sat down they would
delight in her sufferings, observing the confusion with which she openly
applied a heedful and comforting hand to the damaged spot, for she would
not for all the world have been lacking in modesty.

In spite of her age and virtues, this lady inspired them with neither
love nor fear. Robin called her an old goat, Maxime an old she-ass, and
Sulpice, the ass of Balaam. They teased little Mirande in all sorts
of ways; they would dirty her pretty clothes by making her fall face
downward on the stones. Once they pushed her head right up to the neck
into a barrel of treacle. They taught her to sit astride railings, and
to climb trees, contrary to the decorum of her sex; they taught her
words and manners that smacked of the inn and the salting-tub. Following
their example, she called Madame Bassne "an old goat," and even, taking
the part for the whole, "old goat's rump." But she remained completely
innocent. The purity of her soul was unchangeable.

"I am fortunate," said the holy Bishop Nicolas, "in that I rescued these
children from the salting-tub, to make them good Christians. They will
become faithful servants of God, and their merits will be accounted to
me."

Now, by the third year after their resurrection, when they were already
tall and well-made, on a day of spring, as they were all playing in the
field beside the river, Maxime in a moment of facetiousness and natural
high spirits, threw the Deacon Modernus into the water. Hanging on to
the branch of a willow-tree, Modernus called for help. Robin ran up,
made as though to draw him out by the hand, took off his ring, and fled.

Meanwhile, Sulpice, sitting motionless on the bank with his arms
crossed, said:

"Modernus is making a bad end. I can see six devils, in the form of
flittermice, ready to seize his soul as it comes out of his mouth."

When this serious affair was reported to him by Madame Ba