she was at her prayers. Francis did not like that. He was young,
and she came very often to the confessional, and told him of these
visions and ecstasies. He discouraged them, and enjoined penances upon
her. Bref! she grew to detest him, and she was quite like a female cure
in the parish. She set everybody against him. At last, when he removed
all the plaster images of the saints, and would have none but wood or
stone, she had him cited to answer for it to his bishop."

"But what did he do that for?" I asked, seeing no difference between
plaster images, and those of wood or stone.

"Madame, these Normans are ignorant and very superstitious," she
replied; "they thought a little powder from one of the saints would cure
any malady. Some of the images were half-worn away with having powder
scraped off them. My brother would not hold with such follies, and his
bishop told him he might fight the battle out, if he could. No one
thought he could; but they did not know Francis. It was a terrible
battle, madame. Nobody would come to the confessional, and every month
or so, he was compelled to have a vicaire from some other parish to
receive the confessions of his people. Mademoiselle Pineau fanned the
flame, and she had the reputation of a saint."

"But how did it end?" I inquired. Mademoiselle's face was all aglow, and
her voice rose and fell in her excitement; yet she lingered over the
story as if reluctant to lose the rare pleasure of telling it.

"In brief, madame," she resumed, "there was a terrible conflagration in
the village. You perceive that all our houses are covered with tiles? In
those days the roofs were of thatch, very old and very dry, and there
was much timber in the walls. How the fire began, the good God alone
knows. It was a sultry day in July; the river was almost dry, and there
was no hope of extinguishing the flames. They ran like lightning from
roof to roof. All that could be done was to save life, and a little
property. My brother threw off his cassock, and worked like Hercules.

"The Pineaux lived then close by the presbytery, in a house half of
wood, which blazed like tinder; there was nothing comparable to it in
all the village. A domestic suddenly cried out that mademoiselle was in
her oratory, probably in a trance. Not a soul dares venture through the
flames to save her, though she is a saint. Monsieur le Cure hears the
rumor of it; he steps in through the doorway through which the smoke is
rolli