“Well, my dear uncle,” said the post master, addressing the doctor and pointing to the whole population drawn up in parallel hedges to let the doctor pass, “everybody wants to see you.”

“Was it the Abbe Chaperon or Mademoiselle Ursula who converted you, uncle,” said Massin, bowing to the doctor and his protegee, with Jesuitical humility.

“Ursula,” replied the doctor, laconically, continuing to walk on as if annoyed.

The night before, as the old man finished his game of whist with Ursula, the Nemours doctor, and Bongrand, he remarked, “I intend to go to church to-morrow.”

“Then,” said Bongrand, “your heirs won’t get another night’s rest.”

The speech was superfluous, however, for a single glance sufficed the sagacious and clear-sighted doctor to read the minds of his heirs by the expression of their faces.  Zelie’s irruption into the church, her glance, which the doctor intercepted, this meeting of all the expectant ones in the public square, and the expression in their eyes as they turned them on Ursula, all proved to him their hatred, now freshly awakened, and their sordid fears.

“It is a feather in your cap, Mademoiselle,” said Madame Cremiere, putting in her word with a humble bow,—­“a miracle which will not cost you much.”

“It is God’s doing, madame,” replied Ursula.

“God!” exclaimed Minoret-Levrault; “my father-in-law used to say he served to blanket many horses.”

“Your father-in-law had the mind of a jockey,” said the doctor severely.

“Come,” said Minoret to his wife and son, “why don’t you bow to my uncle?”

“I shouldn’t be mistress of myself before that little hypocrite,” cried Zelie, carrying off her son.

“I advise you, uncle, not to go to mass without a velvet cap,” said Madame Massin; “the church is very damp.”

“Pooh, niece,” said the doctor, looking round on the assembly, “the sooner I’m put to bed the sooner you’ll flourish.”

He walked on quickly, drawing Ursula with him, and seemed in such a hurry that the others dropped behind.

“Why do you say such harsh things to them? it isn’t right,” said Ursula, shaking his arm in a coaxing way.

“I shall always hate hypocrites, as much after as before I became religious.  I have done good to them all, and I asked no gratitude; but not one of my relatives sent you a flower on your birthday, which they know is the only day I celebrate.”

At some distance behind the doctor and Ursula came Madame de Portenduere, dragging herself along as if overcome with trouble.  She belonged to the class of old women whose dress recalls the style of the last century.  They wear puce-colored gowns with flat sleeves, the cut of which can be seen in the portraits of Madame Lebrun; they all have black lace mantles and bonnets of a shape gone by, in keeping with their slow and dignified deportment; one might almost fancy that they still wore paniers under their