“’The miserable ones,’ I think.”
“I don’t like to read about miserable people.”
“Oh, they’re not all miserable,” he protested, taking the book eagerly, and opening it. “The old bishop, for instance, Bishop Welcome—may I read you something?”
She nodded, her eyes on his glowing face.
“The old bishop, you know, gave all his money to help others, went to live in the little old hospital and made them move the beds to the building which had always been the bishop’s palace. He said it was all a mistake—that there should be twenty-six people crowded together in that little building, while the big one next door had only him and his sister and his housekeeper in it. He never locked his door, and came to be so loved by the people that they called him Bishop Welcome. Let me read you this chapter,” and he turned to the seventh of the first book. “I don’t pronounce the French names very well, but you mustn’t mind.”
“I won’t,” she promised, and settled herself more comfortably in her chair. He interested her strangely—he was somehow different from the other boys she knew. They never talked to her in this way.
And he began to read her the account of the bishop’s meeting with that redoubtable brigand, Cravatte, a bold wretch who had organized a band of outlaws, and even robbed the cathedral at Embrun of all its gold-embroidered vestments. In the midst of the excitement, the bishop arrived, on the way to visit his parishioners in the mountains. His friends attempted to persuade him to turn back.
“‘There exists, yonder in the mountains,’ said the bishop, ’a tiny community no bigger than that, which I have not seen for three years. They need to be told of the good God now and then. What would they say to a bishop who was afraid? What would they say if I did not go?’
“‘But the brigands, monseigneur?’
“‘Hold,’ said the bishop, ’I must think of that. You are right. I may meet them. They, too, need to be told of the good God.’