I do not, I would have you remark, deny his admirable virtues; but say what you like, you will never get a woman of fashion to confide her “little affairs” to a farmer’s son, and address him as “Father.”  Matters must not be carried the length of absurdity; besides, this Abbe Brice always smells detestably of snuff.

He confesses all sorts of people, and you will agree that it is not pleasant to have one’s maid or one’s cook for one’s visa-vis at the confessional.

There is not a woman who understands Christian humility better than yourself, dear Madame; but all the same you are not accustomed to travel in an omnibus.  You may be told that in heaven you will only be too happy to call your coachman “Brother,” and to say to Sarah Jane, “Sister,” but these worthy folk shall have first passed through purgatory, and fire purifies everything.  Again, what is there to assure us that Sarah Jane will go to heaven, since you yourself, dear Madame, are not so sure of entering there?

It is hence quite well understood why the Abbe Gelon’s chapel is crowded.  If a little whispering goes on, it is because they have been waiting three long hours, and because everybody knows one another.

All the ladies, you may be sure, are there.

“Make a little room for me, dear,” whispers a newcomer, edging her way through trains, kneeling-stools, and chairs.

“Ah! is that you, dear?  Come here.  Clementine and Madame de B. are there in the corner at the cannon’s mouth.  You will have to wait two good hours.”

“If Madame de B. is there, it does not surprise me.  She is inexhaustible, and there is no other woman who is so long in telling a thing.  Have all these people not had their turn yet?  Ah! there is Ernestine.” (She waves her hand to her quietly.) “That child is an angel.  She acknowledged to me the other day that her conscience troubled her because, on reading the ‘Passion,’ she could not make up her mind to kiss the mat.”

“Ah! charming; but, tell me, do you kiss the mat yourself?”

“I! no, never in my life; it is so nasty, dear.”

“You confess to the omission, at least?”

“Oh!  I confess all those little trifles in a lump.  I say, ’Father, I have erred out of human self-respect.’  I give the total at once.”

“That is just what I do, and that dear Abbe Gelon discharges the bill.”

“Seriously, time would fail him if he acted otherwise.  But it seems to me that we are whispering a little too much, dear; let me think over my little bill.”

Madame leans upon her praying-stool.  Gracefully she removes, without taking her eyes off the altar, the glove from her right hand, and with her thumb turns the ring of Ste-Genevieve that serves her as a rosary, moving her lips the while.  Then, with downcast eyes and set lips, she loosens the fleur-de-lys-engraved clasp of her Book of Hours, and seeks out the prayers appropriate to her condition.