monsieur" might admire the wriggling legs.

"Look, monsieur!" she was saying gravely in her half-intelligible
patois: "Look at Caroline's boots!"

Montanelli sat playing with the child, stroking her hair, admiring her
darling tortoise, and telling her wonderful stories. The woman of the
chalet, coming in to clear the table, stared in amazement at the sight
of Annette turning out the pockets of the grave gentleman in clerical
dress.

"God teaches the little ones to know a good man," she said. "Annette is
always afraid of strangers; and see, she is not shy with his reverence
at all. The wonderful thing! Kneel down, Annette, and ask the good
monsieur's blessing before he goes; it will bring thee luck."

"I didn't know you could play with children that way, Padre," Arthur
said an hour later, as they walked through the sunlit pasture-land.
"That child never took her eyes off you all the time. Do you know, I
think----"

"Yes?"

"I was only going to say--it seems to me almost a pity that the Church
should forbid priests to marry. I cannot quite understand why. You see,
the training of children is such a serious thing, and it means so much
to them to be surrounded from the very beginning with good influences,
that I should have thought the holier a man's vocation and the purer his
life, the more fit he is to be a father. I am sure, Padre, if you had
not been under a vow,--if you had married,--your children would have
been the very----"

"Hush!"

The word was uttered in a hasty whisper that seemed to deepen the
ensuing silence.

"Padre," Arthur began again, distressed by the other's sombre look, "do
you think there is anything wrong in what I said? Of course I may be
mistaken; but I must think as it comes natural to me to think."

"Perhaps," Montanelli answered gently, "you do not quite realize the
meaning of what you just said. You will see differently in a few years.
Meanwhile we had better talk about something else."

It was the first break in the perfect ease and harmony that reigned
between them on this ideal holiday.

From Chamonix they went on by the Tete-Noire to Martigny, where they
stopped to rest, as the weather was stiflingly hot. After dinner they
sat on the terrace of the hotel, which was sheltered from the sun and
commanded a good view of the mountains. Arthur brought out his specimen
box and plunged into an earnest botanical discussion in Italian.

Two English artists were sitting on the terrace;