ay or petty remonstrance, but enough reached him
at last to make him one day say mildly, 'My dear child, might not the
little one dispense with her ribbon while we are here?'

'Eh, father? At the bidding of those impertinents?'

'Take care, daughter; you were perfect with the tradesfolk and peasants,
but you cannot comport yourself as successfully with this _petite
noblesse_, or the pastors' wives.'

'They are insolent, father. I, in my own true person, would treat no
one as these petty dames treat me,' said Eustacie. 'I would not meddle
between a peasant woman and her child, nor ask questions that must needs
wring her heart.'

'Ah, child! humility is a bitter lesson; and even this world needs it
now from you. We shall have suspicions; and I heard to-day that the King
is in Dauphiny, and with him M. de Nid de Merle. Be not alarmed; he
has no force with him, and the peace still subsists; but we must avoid
suspicion. There is a _preche_ at the Moustier to-day, in French; it
would be well if you were to attend it.'

'I understand as little of French sermons as of Provencal,' murmured
Eustacie; but it was only a murmur.

Maitre Gardon had soon found out that his charge had not head enough to
be made a thorough-going controversial Calvinist. Clever, intelligent,
and full of resources as she was, she had no capacity for argument, and
could not enter into theoretical religion. Circumstances had driven her
from her original Church and alienated her from those who had practiced
such personal cruelties on her and hers, but the mould of her mind
remained what it had been previously; she clung to the Huguenots
because they protected her from those who would have forced an abhorrent
marriage on her and snatched her child from her; and, personally, she
loved and venerated Isaac Gardon with ardent, self-sacrificing filial
love and gratitude, accepted as truth all that came from his lips, read
the Scriptures, sang and prayed with him, and obeyed him as dutifully as
ever the true Esperance could have done; but, except the merest external
objections against the grossest and most palpable popular corruptions
and fallacies, she really never entered into the matter. She had been
left too ignorant of her own system to perceive its true clams upon
her; and though she could not help preferring High Mass to a Calvinist
assembly, and shrinking with instinctive pain and horror at the many
profanations she witnessed, the really spiritual lea