one could understand but myself. The long, dark hours
seemed interminable. Mademoiselle sat knitting a pair of gray stockings
in the intervals of attendance upon our patients. The subdued glimmer
of the night-lamp, the ticking of the clock, the chimes every quarter of
an hour from the church-tower, all conspired to make me restless and
almost nervous.

"Mademoiselle," I said, at last, "talk to me. I cannot bear this
tranquillity. Tell me something."

"What can I tell you, madame?" she inquired, in a pleasant tone.

"Tell me about those people I saw this morning," I answered.

"It is a long history," she said, her face kindling, as if this were a
topic that excited her; and she rolled up her knitting, as though she
could not trust herself to continue that while she was talking; "all the
world knows it here, and we never talk of it now. Bat you are a
stranger; shall I tell it you?"

I had hit upon the only subject that could unlock her lips. It was the
night-time too. At night one is naturally more communicative than in the
broad light of day.

"Madame," she said, in an agitated voice, "you have observed already
that my brother is not like other cures. He has his own ideas, his own
sentiments. Everybody knows him at this moment as the good Cure of
Ville-en-bois; but when he came here first, thirty years ago, all the
world called him infidel, heretic, atheist. It was because he would make
many changes in the church and parish. The church had been famous for
miracles; but Francis did not believe in them, and he would not
encourage them. There used to be pilgrimages to it from all the country
round; and crowds of pilgrims, who spend much money. There was a great
number of crutches left at the shrine of the Virgin by cripples who had
come here by their help, but walked away without them. He cleared them
all away, and called them rubbish. So every one said he was an
infidel--you understand?"

"I understand it very well," I said.

"Bien! At that time there was one family richer than all the others.
They were the proprietors of the factory down yonder, and everybody
submitted to them. There was a daughter not married, but very devote. I
have been devote, myself. I was coquette till I was thirty-five, then I
became devote. It is easier than being a simple Christian, like my
brother the cure. Mademoiselle Pineau was accustomed to have visions,
ecstasies. Sometimes the angels lifted her from the ground into the air
when