nswered hastily, and with
some annoyance; "but--in short, Madelon, you are too young to
trouble your head about these things; you cannot understand
them possibly; when you are older you shall have them
explained to you."

"When, papa?"

"Oh, I don't know--one of these days, when you are a great
girl, grown up."

"And you can't tell me now?" said Madelon, a little wistfully;
"but you will let me go to the church again before that? Oh,
indeed it was beautiful, with the lights, and the singing, and
the music. Do you know, papa, it made me cry," she added, in a
half whisper.

"_Vraiment!_" said M. Linders, with some contempt in his voice,
and a slight, involuntary shrug of the shoulders.

The contempt was for a class of emotion with which he had no
sympathy, and for that which he imagined had called it forth;
not for his little Madelon, nor for her expression of it. But
the child shrank back, blushing scarlet. He saw his mistake,
perhaps, for he drew her towards him again, and with a tender
caress and word tried to turn her thoughts in another
direction; but it was too late; the impression had been made,
and could never again be effaced. All unconsciously, with that
one inadvertent word, M. Linders had raised the first slight
barrier between himself and his child, had given the first
shock to that confidence which he had fondly hoped was ever to
exist undisturbed between them. In the most sacred hour her
short life had yet known, Madeleine had appealed to him for
help and sympathy, and she had been repulsed without finding
either. She did not indeed view it in that light, nor believe
in and love him the less; she only thought she must have been
foolish; but she took well to heart the lesson that she should
henceforth keep such folly to herself--as far as he was
concerned, at any rate.

As for M. Linders, this little conversation left him alarmed,
perplexed, uneasy. What if, after all, this small being whom
he had proposed to identify, as it were, with himself, by
teaching her to see with his eyes, to apprehend with his
understanding, what if she were beginning to develop an
independent soul, to have thoughts, notions, ideas of her own,
perhaps, to look out into life with eager eyes that would
penetrate beyond the narrow horizon it had pleased him to fix
as her range of vision, to ask questions whose answers might
lead to awkward conclusions? For the moment it seemed to him
that his whole system of education, wh