forgiven. Do you forgive me?"

"I? Oh, you have done nothing to me, father; it is yourself that must
forgive yourself for wronging those poor things. Please get up, gather,
won't you?"

"But I am worse off now than I was before. I thought I was earning your
forgiveness, but if it is my own, I can't be lenient; it would not become
me. Now what can I do? Find me some way out of this with your wise little
head."

The Pere would not stir, for all Joan's pleadings. She was about to cry
again; then she had an idea, and seized the shovel and deluged her own
head with the ashes, stammering out through her chokings and
suffocations:

"There--now it is done. Oh, please get up, father."

The old man, both touched and amused, gathered her to his breast and
said:

"Oh, you incomparable child! It's a humble martyrdom, and not of a sort
presentable in a picture, but the right and true spirit is in it; that I
testify."

Then he brushed the ashes out of her hair, and helped her scour her face
and neck and properly tidy herself up. He was in fine spirits now, and
ready for further argument, so he took his seat and drew Joan to his side
again, and said:

"Joan, you were used to make wreaths there at the Fairy Tree with the
other children; is it not so?"

That was the way he always started out when he was going to corner me up
and catch me in something--just that gentle, indifferent way that fools a
person so, and leads him into the trap, he never noticing which way he is
traveling until he is in and the door shut on him. He enjoyed that. I
knew he was going to drop corn along in front of Joan now. Joan answered:

"Yes, father."

"Did you hang them on the tree?"

"No, father."

"Didn't hang them there?"

"No."

"Why didn't you?"

"I--well, I didn't wish to."

"Didn't wish to?"

"No, father."

"What did you do with them?"

"I hung them in the church."

"Why didn't you want to hang them in the tree?"

"Because it was said that the fairies were of kin to the Fiend, and that
it was sinful to show them honor."

"Did you believe it was wrong to honor them so?"

"Yes. I thought it must be wrong."

"Then if it was wrong to honor them in that way, and if they were of kin
to the Fiend, they could be dangerous company for you and the other
children, couldn't they?"

"I suppose so--yes, I think so."

He studied a minute, and I judged he was going to spring his trap, and he
did. He said:

"Then the matter stan