"Well, I suppose I shall be all right," said I, jumping into bed. "Monseigneur pays my Church dues, and I hear the holy mass sung every day. I say my prayers night and morning, and in all my life I never was so wicked as to touch meat on a fast-day. I think, on the whole, I am a very good girl."
"Will my Damoiselle be angry if I ask her whether the good Lord thinks the same?"
"O Marguerite! how can I know?"
"Because, if Father Eudes read it right, we do know. 'There is none that doeth good, no, not one.'"
"Margot, how thou must listen to Father Eudes! I hear him mumbling away, but I never bother my head with what he is saying. He has got to say it; and I have got to sit there till he has done; that is all. I amuse myself in all sorts of ways—count the bits of glass in the window, or watch the effect of the crimson and blue light creeping over the stalls and pillars, or think how Saint Agatha would look in a green robe instead of a purple one. What makes thee listen to all the stuff he says?"
"My Damoiselle sees that—saving her presence—I am a little like her. I want to know."
"But Father Eudes never tells us anything worth knowing, surely!"
"Ha! Pardon me, my Damoiselle. He reads the true words of the good God from the holy Evangels. Commonly they are in the holy Latin tongue, and then I can only stand and listen reverently to the strange sounds: the good God understands, not I. But now and then I suppose the blessed Lord whispers to Father Eudes to put it into French for a moment: and that is what I am listening for all the time. Then I treasure the words up like some costly gem; and say them to myself a hundred times over, so that I may never forget them any more. Oh, it is a glad day for me when Father Eudes says those dear words in French!"
"But how thou dost care about it, Margot! I suppose thou hast so few things to think of, and delight in—I have more to occupy me."
"Ah, my Damoiselle! The blessed Lord said that His good word was choked up and brought no fruit when the cares of other things entered into the heart. No, I have not much to think of but my work, and—three graves in a village churchyard, and one——And I have not much to delight in save the words of the blessed Lord. Yet—let my Damoiselle bear with me!—I am better off than she."