ry of the Church, golden tabernacles
where the Paschal Lamb reposed in a flaming triangle, censers with
quadruple chains, stoles and chasubles, heavy with embroidery, enormous
candelabra, ostensories and drinking-cups incrusted with enamel and false
precious stones-before all these splendors the child, who had read the
Arabian Nights, believed that he had entered Aladdin's cave, or
Aboul-Cassem's pit. From this glittering array one passed, without
transition, into the sombre depot of ecclesiastical vestments. Here all
was black. One saw only piles of cassocks and pyramids of black hats. Two
manikins, one clothed in a cardinal's purple robe, the other in
episcopalian violet, threw a little color over the gloomy show.

But the large hall with painted statues amazed Amedee. They were all
there, statues of all the saints in little chapels placed promiscuously
upon the shelves in rows.

No more hierarchy. The Evangelist had, for a neighbor a little Jesuit
saint--an upstart of yesterday. The unfortunate Fourier had at his side
the Virgin Mary. The Saviour of men elbowed St. Labre. They were of
plaster run into moulds, or roughly carved in wood, and were colored with
paint as glaring as the red and blue of a barber's pole, and covered with
vulgar gildings. Chins in the air, ecstatic eyes shining with varnish,
horribly ugly and all new, they were drawn up in line like recruits at
the roll-call, the mitred bishop, the martyr carrying his palm, St. Agnes
embracing her lamb, St. Roch with his dog and shells, St. John the
Baptist in his sheepskin, and, most ridiculous of all, poor Vincent de
Paul carrying three naked children in his arms, like a midwife's
advertisement.

This frightful exhibition, which was of the nature of the Tussaud Museum
or a masquerade, positively frightened Amedee. He had recently been to
his first communion, and was still burning with the mystical fever, but
so much ugliness offended his already fastidious taste and threw him into
his first doubt.

One day, about five o'clock, M. Violette and his son arrived at the "Bon
Marche des Paroisses," and found Uncle Isidore in the room where the
painted statues were kept, superintending--the packing of a St. Michel.
The last customer of the day was just leaving, the Bishop 'in partibus'
of Trebizonde, blessing M. Gaufre. The little apoplectic man, the giver
of holy water, left alone with his clerks, felt under restraint no
longer.

"Pay attention, you confoun