of St. Alacoque, a rag which had wiped
something or other off St. Anastasius or St. Cunegunda. My wife clasped her
hands, was in ecstasy and transported with joy, and I went and brought up
my dinner. I foresaw the time when he would bring us extraordinary things;
a louse of St. Labre, a testicle of St. Origen, the coccyx of St. Antony,
the parts of St. Gudule or the prepuce of Jesus Christ.

The Cure rose again.

--I see that my presence is _de trop_ here, Captain; pardon my having
disturbed you.

--Not at all. Good Lord. Not at all. Sit down. It gives me extraordinary
pleasure to talk to you. Besides, I have not finished the story of my
cousin. Sit down, I pray you; I resume.

He had given a very pretty engraving, a reproduction of a picture by
somebody, _Jesus and the woman taken in adultery_. My wife had had it
framed very carefully, and had hung it up in our bedroom: a bad sign. That
seemed to say to me, "See, my friend, imitate Jesus." One day returning
home very quietly, I surprised both of them, squeezed one against the
other, holding each others hand, looking at the picture with emotion. I
took the little cousin by the shoulders, and I threw him out of doors. I
never saw him again. Do you understand the moral?

--Yes, Captain, I understand, said Marcel rising again, and this time fully
decided to go away. But the door opened, and Suzanne showed herself on the
threshold.

XX.

KICKS.

"I should have wished, mischievously,
to put him in the wrong, and that a
thoughtless or insulting word on his
part, should serve as a justification for
the insult which I meditated."

A. DE VIGNY (_Servitude et Grandeur militaires_).

She had on her school-girl dress of black, which made the whiteness of her
complexion more dazzling, and imparted something grave and serious to her
beauty.

She was hardly eighteen, and already by the harmonious outlines of her
bust, by the undulating movements of her hips and above all by the flash of
her great dark eyes, one foresaw in this young girl, still a child to-day,
the woman of to-morrow: a daughter of Eve of our modern civilization;
forward, precocious, charming.

She was one of those the sight alone of whom is the most radiant and the
most dangerous of spectacles, and who, like others, distilling holiness and
blessings from heaven, shed around them a perfume of love.

The bright fire of their heart shines out in their look; it reveals itself
in the