stamped his
foot in anger. The grown-up girls and the young fellows cast side-long
glances at each other across the aisle; and the old peasants, who liked
to joke about such matters, expressed their disapproval of the little
cure's intolerance as they walked back to their farms after service with
their wives and sons.

The whole country was in an uproar. The priest's severity and the harsh
penances he inflicted at confession were rumored about, and, as he
obstinately refused to grant absolution to the girls whose chastity was
not immaculate, smiles accompanied the whispers. When, at the holy
festivals, several of the youths and girls stayed in their seats instead
of going to communicate with the others, most of the congregation
laughed outright as they looked at them. He began to watch for lovers
like a keeper on the look-out for poachers, and on moonlight nights he
hunted up the couples along the ditches, behind the barns and among the
long grass on the hill-sides. One night he came upon two who did not
cease their love-making even before him; they were strolling along a
ditch filled with stones, with their arms round one another, kissing
each other as they walked.

"Will you stop that, you vagabonds?" cried the abbe.

"You mind yer own bus'ness, M'sieu l'cure," replied the lad, turning
round. "This ain't nothin' to do with you."

The abbe picked up some stones and threw them at the couple as he might
have done at stray dogs, and they both ran off, laughing. The next
Sunday the priest mentioned them by name before the whole congregation.
All the young fellows soon ceased to attend mass.

The cure dined at the chateau every Thursday, but he very often went
there on other days to talk to his _penitente_. Jeanne became as ardent
and as enthusiastic as he as she discussed the mysteries of a future
existence, and grew familiar with all the old and complicated arguments
employed in religious controversy. They would both walk along the
baroness's avenue talking of Christ and the Apostles, of the Virgin Mary
and of the Fathers of the Church as if they had really known them.
Sometimes they stopped their walk to ask each other profound questions,
and then Jeanne would wander off into sentimental arguments, and the
cure would reason like a lawyer possessed with the mania of proving the
possibility of squaring the circle.

Julien treated the new cure with great respect. "That's the sort of a
priest I like," he was continua