"And Monseigneur, the Cardinal Bonpre,—has he also been served?"
Madame Patoux opened her round eyes wide at him.
"But certainly! Dost thou think, my little cabbage, thou wouldst get thy food before Monseigneur? That would be strange indeed!"
Papa Patoux swallowed his ladleful of soup in abashed silence.
"It was a beautiful day in the fields," he presently observed—"There was a good smell in the earth, as if violets were growing,—and late in the autumn though it is, there was a skylark yet singing. It was a very blue heaven, too, as blue as the robe of the Virgin, with clouds as white as little angels clinging to it."
Madame nodded. Some people might have thought Papa Patoux inclined to be poetical,—she did not. Henri and Babette listened.
"The robe of Our Lady is always blue," said Babette.
"And the angels' clothes are always white," added Henri.
Madame Patoux said nothing, but passed a second helping of soup all round. Papa Patoux smiled blandly on his offspring.
"Just so," he averred—"Blue and white are the colours of the sky, my little ones,—and Our Lady and the angels live in the sky!"