“They are not Frenchwomen, Monsieur le Cure,” observed the driver, after a short pause.  We were travelling slowly, for the cure would not allow the peasant to whip on the shaggy cart-horse.  We were, moreover, going up-hill, along roads as rough as any about my father’s sheep-walk, with large round stones deeply bedded in the soil.

“No, no, my good Jean,” was the cure’s answer; “by their tongue I should say they are English.  Englishwomen are extremely intrepid, and voyage about all the world quite alone, like this.  It is only a marvel to me that we have never encountered one of them before to-day.”

“But, Monsieur le Cure, are they Christian?” inquired Jean, with a backward glance at us.  Evidently he had not altogether recovered from the fright we had given him, when we appeared suddenly from out of the gloomy shadows of the cypresses.

“The English nation is Protestant,” replied the cure, with a sigh.

“But, monsieur,” exclaimed Jean, “if they are Protestants they cannot be Christians!  Is it not true that all the Protestants go to hell on the back of that bad king who had six wives all at one time?”

“Not all at one time, my good Jean,” the cure answered mildly; “no, no, surely they do not all go to perdition.  If they know any thing of the love of Christ, they must be Christians, however feeble and ignorant.  He does not quench the smoking flax, Jean.  Did you not hear madame say, ‘Help me, for the love of Christ?’ Good!  There is the smoking flax, which may burn into a flame brighter than yours or mine some day, my poor friend.  We must make her and the mignonne as welcome as if they were good Catholics.  She is very poor, cela saute aux yeux—­”

“Monsieur,” I interrupted, feeling almost guilty in having listened so far, “I understand French very well, though I speak it badly.”

“Pardon, madame!” he replied, “I hope you will not be grieved by the foolish words we have been speaking one to the other.”

After that all was still again for some time, except the tinkling of the bells, and the pad-pad of the horse’s feet upon the steep and rugged road.  Hills rose on each side of us, which were thickly planted with trees.  Even the figures of the cure and driver were no longer well defined in the denser darkness.  Minima had laid her head on my shoulder, and seemed to be asleep.  By-and-by a village clock striking echoed faintly down the valley; and the cure turned round and addressed me again.

“There is my village, madame,” he said, stretching forth his hand to point it out, though we could not see a yard beyond the char a bancs; “it is very small, and my parish contains but four hundred and twenty-two souls, some of them very little ones.  They all know me, and regard me as a father.  They love me, though I have some rebel sons.—­Is it not so, Jean?  Rebel sons, but not many rebel daughters.  Here we are!”

We entered a narrow and roughly-paved village-street.  The houses, as I saw afterward, were all huddled together, with a small church at the point farthest from the entrance; and the road ended at its porch, as if there were no other place in the world beyond it.