This consoled me for the time being: but he was wrong as to the question of facts. Bread had no effect upon that blot. It remained an island, or, to speak more correctly, a coast-line, on the white chip, to the end of that chapeau d'uniforme's existence. But one dusted the stain over with white powder before putting on one's Bonnet, and hoped no one noticed it? So far as I know, no one did. But let it not be supposed that I escaped moral punishment: I, who had once boasted in my pride that nothing was less indifferent to me than my Sunday Bonnet, wore this one uneasily to the end of the term, always conscious that the tell-tale stain was there, and might suggest questions as to its origin.

Nor did I escape scot-free from M. Heger's hands, although he did behave with a certain generosity, for he kept the secret. But he used his own method of punishment.

Happy in the confidence given me by my brother's assurance that I should easily get rid of the rain-blot, I went back to the Rue d'Isabelle, in some anxiety about M. Heger, but nearly persuaded that, after all, perhaps, with his umbrella to think of and grasp, and the hurry he was in, he very likely hadn't seen us. But when the pupil's door was opened in answer to my ring, and I was hoping to hurry through the corridor to the staircase leading to the dormitories, I found M. Heger waiting for me. He barred my path and looked down at me with his penetrating, mocking eyes,—that, although I do not like to contradict Charlotte, I still think had more green and steel, than violet-blue, colour in them.

'A-ah,' he said with his long-drawn sigh, 'you are attentive at my lessons, Mees; do you now listen with the same attention to the sermon of the Minister at your Temple?'

Here was my opportunity; of course I ought to have said, 'No, Monsieur, I don't listen to any one with so much attention as I do to you: no one interests me so much.' When I had got upstairs and had taken off the chapeau d'uniforme, I realised that this was what any rational being would have said. But it was too late then—all I did say was, 'Je ne sais pas, Monsieur' (a bad French accent too).

'A-ah,' he repeated, tightening his mouth, 'now I should like to see whether you profit by the instructions of your Minister: Thus I shall be glad if you will write me a résumé in French of the sermon you heard to-day at the Temple. It will be a good exercise for you in the French language. And also I shall enjoy the happiness of knowing this wise Minister's advice. It is understood, you will give me the résumé of this sermon to-morrow.'

'Oui, Monsieur.'

All through the evening recreation hours, and at night when I fought against sleepiness in my bed, I worked over the composition of that sermon. It is true that I did fall asleep in the middle of it myself; but that does not prove it was a dull sermon, for I took it up again in the morning with renewed zest. I gave up my whole recreation hour after déjeuner to writing it out. And I believed it to be as good a sermon as was ever preached. And there was no vanity in this belief: because it was not my own sermon, but one I had originally heard preached in my childhood in an old village church, and the arguments in favour of being good and simple had taken hold of my imagination, partly on account of the associations with the place where I heard it. Well, but now, can my readers deny that when I say M. Heger was a more irritating than lovable man, I have sound reasons for my statement? After ordering me to write that sermon, and when I had stolen several hours from my sleep, and given up two recreations to obey him, he never asked for it! And when I told him I had written the sermon and that it was ready for him, he merely looked down upon me with a strange twinkle in his eyes, and said, 'A-ah, c'est bien. Vous l'avez donc bien retenu, ce fameux sermon? tant mieux, tant mieux.'

[1] Villette, chapter viii.