one idea is not so much to avoid offending the Saviour as to disarm Him by mean subterfuges.  They speak ill of their neighbour, injuring him cruelly, refusing him all help and pity, and they make excuses for themselves as though these were mere venial faults; but as to eating meat on a Friday!  That is quite another thing; they are persuaded that this is the unpardonable sin.  To them their stomach is the Holy Ghost; consequently, the great point is to tack and veer round that particular sin, never to commit it, while only just avoiding it, and not depriving themselves in the least.  What eloquence they will pour out on me to convince me of the penitential quality of water-fowl.

“During Lent they are possessed with the idea of giving dinners, and rack their brains to provide a lenten meal in which there is no meat, though it would be supposed that there was; and then come interminable discussions as to teal, wild duck, and cold-blooded birds.  They should consult a naturalist and not a priest on such cases of conscience.

“As to Holy Week, that is another affair; the mania for water-birds gives way to a hankering for the Charlotte Russe.  May they, without offence to God, enjoy a Charlotte?  There are eggs in it, to be sure, but so whipped and scourged that the dish is almost ascetic; culinary explanations are poured into my ear, the confessional becomes a kitchen, and the priest might be a master-cook.

“But as to the general sin of greediness, they hardly admit that they are guilty of it.  Is it not so, my dear colleague?”

The Abbe Gevresin nodded assent.  “They are indeed hollow souls,” said he, “and what is more, impenetrable.  They are sealed against every generous idea, regarding the intercourse they hold with the Redeemer as beseeming their rank and in good style; but they never seek to know Him more nearly, and restrict themselves, of deliberate purpose, to calls of politeness.”

“Such visits as we pay to an aged parent on New Year’s Day,” said Durtal.

“No, at Easter,” corrected Madame Bavoil.

“And among these Fair Penitents,” the Abbe Plomb went on, “we have that terrible variety, the wife of the Depute who votes on the wrong side, and to his wife’s objurgations retorts:  ’Why, I am at heart a better Christian than you are!’

“Invariably and every time, she repeats the list of her husband’s private virtues, and deplores his conduct as a public man; and this history, which is never ending, always leads up to the praises she awards herself, almost to requiring us to apologize for all the annoyance the Church occasions her.”

The Abbe Gevresin smiled, and said,—­