seeing, too, how rigorously the same principle was applied to all the
details of the house, Godefroid understood the value of the reproach so
courteously made to him.

"Madame," he said, "the persons whom you obliged this morning are
scoundrels; I overheard, without intending it, what they said to each
other when they left the house; it was full of the basest ingratitude."

"They were the two locksmiths of the rue Mouffetard," said Madame de la
Chanterie to Monsieur Nicolas; "that is your affair."

"The fish gets away more than once before it is caught," said Monsieur
Alain, laughing.

The perfect indifference of Madame de la Chanterie on hearing of the
immediate ingratitude of persons to whom she had, no doubt, given money,
surprised Godefroid, who became thoughtful.

The dinner was enlivened by Monsieur Alain and Monsieur Joseph; but
Monsieur Nicolas remained quiet, sad, and cold; he bore on his features
the ineffaceable imprint of some bitter grief, some eternal sorrow.
Madame de la Chanterie paid equal attentions to all. Godefroid felt
himself observed by these persons, whose prudence equalled their piety;
his vanity led him to imitate their reserve, and he measured his words.

This first day was much more interesting than those which succeeded it.
Godefroid, who found himself set aside from all the serious conferences,
was obliged, during several hours in mornings and evenings when he was
left wholly to himself, to have recourse to the "Imitation of Jesus
Christ;" and he ended by studying that book as a man studies a book when
he has but one, or is a prisoner. A book is then like a woman with whom
we live in solitude; we must either hate or adore that woman, and, in
like manner, we must either enter into the soul of the author or not
read ten lines of his book.

Now, it is impossible not to be impressed by the "Imitation of Jesus
Christ," which is to dogma what action is to thought. Catholicism
vibrates in it, pulses, breathes, and lives, body to body, with
human life. The book is a sure friend. It speaks to all passions, all
difficulties, even worldly ones; it solves all problems; it is more
eloquent than any preacher, for its voice is your own, it is the voice
within your soul, you hear it with your spirit. It is, in short, the
Gospel translated, adapted to all ages, the summit and crest of
all human situations. It is extraordinary that the Church has never
canonized John Gersen, for the Divine Spirit ev