“No, madame; but that does not matter, as monsieur can.”
“Did your parents ever take you to church? Have you been to your first Communion? Do you know your Catechism?”
“Madame, papa wanted to make me do something of the kind you speak of, but mamma would not have it—”
“Your mother?” exclaimed the Baroness. “Is she bad to you, then?”
“She was always beating me. I don’t know why, but I was always being quarreled over by my father and mother—”
“Did you ever hear of God?” cried the Baroness.
The girl looked up wide-eyed.
“Oh, yes, papa and mamma often said ‘Good God,’ and ‘In God’s name,’ and ‘God’s thunder,’” said she, with perfect simplicity.
“Then you never saw a church? Did you never think of going into one?”
“A church?—Notre-Dame, the Pantheon?—I have seen them from a distance, when papa took me into town; but that was not very often. There are no churches like those in the Faubourg.”