‘Per omnia soecula soeculorum,’ he said.

‘Amen,’ answered Vincent.

The Pater ended, the priest, holding the host over the chalice, broke it in the centre.  Detaching a particle from one of the halves, he dropped it into the precious blood, to symbolise the intimate union into which he was about to enter with God.  He said the Agnus Dei aloud, softly recited the three prescribed prayers, and made his act of unworthiness, and then with his elbows resting on the altar, and with the paten beneath his chin, he partook of both portions of the host at once.  After a fervent meditation, with his hands clasped before his face, he took the paten and gathered from the corporal the sacred particles of the host that had fallen, and dropped them into the chalice.  One particle which had adhered to his thumb he removed with his forefinger.  And, crossing himself, chalice in hand, with the paten once again below his chin, he drank all the precious blood in three draughts, never taking his lips from the cup’s rim, but imbibing the divine Sacrifice to the last drop.

Vincent had risen to fetch the cruets from the credence table.  But suddenly the door of the passage leading to the parsonage flew open and swung back against the wall, to admit a handsome child-like girl of twenty-two, who carried something hidden in her apron.

‘Thirteen of them,’ she called out.  ‘All the eggs were good.’  And she opened out her apron and revealed a brood of little shivering chicks, with sprouting down and beady black eyes.  ‘Do just look,’ said she; ’aren’t they sweet little pets, the darlings!  Oh, look at the little white one climbing on the others’ backs! and the spotted one already flapping his tiny wings!  The eggs were a splendid lot; not one of them unfertile.’

La Teuse, who was helping to serve the mass in spite of all prohibitions, and was at that very moment handing the cruets to Vincent for the ablutions, thereupon turned round and loudly exclaimed:  ’Do be quiet, Mademoiselle Desiree!  Don’t you see we haven’t finished yet?’

Through the open doorway now came the strong smell of a farmyard, blowing like some generative ferment into the church amidst the warm sunlight that was creeping over the altar.  Desiree stood there for a moment delighted with the little ones she carried, watching Vincent pour, and her brother drink, the purifying wine, in order that nought of the sacred elements should be left within his mouth.  And she stood there still when he came back to the side of the altar, holding the chalice in both hands, so that Vincent might pour over his forefingers and thumbs the wine and water of ablution, which he likewise drank.  But when the mother hen ran up clucking with alarm to seek her little ones, and threatened to force her way into the church, Desiree went off, talking maternally to her chicks, while the priest, after pressing the purificator to his lips, wiped first the rim and next the interior of the chalice.