Then stepping towards a small tap, he asked:  ’Is my sister up yet?  I have not seen her.’

‘Oh, Mademoiselle Desiree has been down a long time,’ answered the servant, who was kneeling before an old kitchen sideboard in which the sacred vestments were kept.  ’She is already with her fowls and rabbits.  She was expecting some chicks to be hatched yesterday, and it didn’t come off.  So you can guess her excitement.’  Then the worthy woman broke off to inquire:  ‘The gold chasuble, eh?’

The priest, who had washed his hands and stood reverently murmuring a prayer, nodded affirmatively.  The parish possessed only three chasubles:  a violet one, a black one, and one in cloth-of-gold.  The last had to be used on the days when white, red, or green was prescribed by the ritual, and it was therefore an all important garment.  La Teuse lifted it reverently from the shelf covered with blue paper, on which she laid it after each service; and having placed it on the sideboard, she cautiously removed the fine cloths which protected its embroidery.  A golden lamb slumbered on a golden cross, surrounded by broad rays of gold.  The gold tissue, frayed at the folds, broke out in little slender tufts; the embossed ornaments were getting tarnished and worn.  There was perpetual anxiety, fluttering concern, at seeing it thus go off spangle by spangle.  The priest had to wear it almost every day.  And how on earth could it be replaced—­how would they be able to buy the three chasubles whose place it took, when the last gold threads should be worn out?

Upon the chasuble La Teuse next laid out the stole, the maniple, the girdle, alb and amice.  But her tongue still wagged while she crossed the stole with the maniple, and wreathed the girdle so as to trace the venerated initial of Mary’s holy name.

‘That girdle is not up to much now,’ she muttered; ’you will have to make up your mind to get another, your reverence.  It wouldn’t be very hard; I could plait you one myself if I only had some hemp.’

Abbe Mouret made no answer.  He was dressing the chalice at a small table.  A large old silver-gilt chalice it was with a bronze base, which he had just taken from the bottom of a deal cupboard, in which the sacred vessels and linen, the Holy Oils, the Missals, candlesticks, and crosses were kept.  Across the cup he laid a clean purificator, and on this set the silver-gilt paten, with the host in it, which he covered with a small lawn pall.  As he was hiding the chalice by gathering together the folds in the veil of cloth of gold matching the chasuble, La Teuse exclaimed: 

’Stop, there’s no corporal in the burse.  Last night I took all the dirty purificators, palls, and corporals to wash them—­separately, of course —­not with the house-wash.  By-the-bye, your reverence, I didn’t tell you:  I have just started the house-wash.  A fine fat one it will be!  Better than the last.’

Then while the priest slipped a corporal into the burse and laid the latter on the veil, she went on quickly: