little right to blame you! But come! Providence may have arranged all
for the best, though one of us may have to suffer. Pray for that some
one. Good-by--'au revoir!"

She kissed Jacqueline's forehead and was gone, before her cousin had
seized the meaning of her last words. But joy and peace came back to
Jacqueline. She had recovered her best friend, and had convinced her of
her innocence.

CHAPTER XIX. GENTLE CONSPIRATORS

Before Giselle went home to her own house she called on the Abbe Bardin,
whom a rather surly servant was not disposed to disturb, as he was just
eating his breakfast. The Abbe Bardin was Jacqueline's confessor, and he
held the same relation to a number of other young girls who were among
her particular friends. He was thoroughly acquainted with all that
concerned their delicate and generally childish little souls. He kept
them in the right way, had often a share in their marriages, and in
general kept an eye upon them all their lives. Even when they escaped
from him, as had happened in the case of Jacqueline, he did not give
them up. He commended them to God, and looked forward to the time of
their repentance with the patience of a father. The Abbe Bardin had
never been willing to exercise any function but that of catechist; he
had grown old in the humble rank of third assistant in a great parish,
when, with a little ambition, he might have been its rector. "Suffer
little children to come unto me," had been his motto. These words of
his Divine Master seemed more often than any others on his lips-lips
so expressive of loving kindness, though sometimes a shrewd smile would
pass over them and seem to say: "I know, I can divine." But when this
smile, the result of long experience, did not light up his features, the
good Abbe Bardin looked like an elderly child; he was short, his
walk was a trot, his face was round and ruddy, his eyes, which were
short-sighted, were large, wide-open, and blue, and his heavy crop of
white hair, which curled and crinkled above his forehead, made him look
like a sixty-year-old angel, crowned with a silvery aureole.

Rubbing his hands affably, he came into the little parlor where Madame
de Talbrun was waiting for him. There was probably no ecclesiastic in
all Paris who had a salon so full of worked cushions, each of which was
a keepsake--a souvenir of some first communion. The Abbe did not know
his visitor, but the name Talbrun seemed to him connected with an
honor