“Are you a pagan, madame?” inquired Pierre, at last, with eager solemnity of face and voice.  His blue eyes were fastened upon me pityingly.

“No, Pierre,” I replied.

“But you are a heretic,” he pursued.

“I suppose so,” I said.

“Pagans and heretics are the same,” he rejoined, dogmatically; “you are a heretic, therefore you are a pagan, madame.”

“I am not a pagan,” I persisted; “I am a Christian like you.”

“Does Monsieur le Cure say you are a Christian?” he inquired.

“You can ask him, Pierre,” I replied.

“He will know,” he said, in a confident tone; “he knows every thing.  There is no cure like monsieur between Ville-en-bois and Paris.  All the world must acknowledge that.  He is our priest, our doctor, our juge de paix, our school-master.  Did you ever know a cure like him before, madame?”

“I never knew any cure before,” I replied.

“Never knew any cure!” he repeated slowly; “then, madame, you must be a pagan.  Did you never confess?  Were you never prepared for your first communion?  Oh! it is certain, madame, you are a true pagan.”

We had not any more time to discuss my religion, for we were drawing near the end of our expedition.  Above the tops of the trees appeared a tall chimney, and a sudden turn in the by-road we had taken brought us full in sight of a small cotton-mill, built on the banks of the noisy stream.  It was an ugly, formal building, as all factories are, with straight rows of window-frames; but both walls and roof were mouldering into ruin, and looked as though they must before long sink into the brawling waters that were sapping the foundations.  A more mournfully-dilapidated place I had never seen.  A blight seemed to have fallen upon it; some solemn curse might be brooding over it, and slowly working out its total destruction.

In the yard adjoining this deserted factory stood a miserable cottage, with a thatched roof, and eaves projecting some feet from the walls, and reaching nearly to the ground, except where the door was.  The small casements of the upper story, if there were any, were completely hidden.  A row of fleur-de-lis was springing up, green and glossy, along the peak of the brown thatch; this and the picturesque eaves forming its only beauty.  The thatch looked old and rotten, and was beginning to steam in the warm sunshine.  The unpaved yard about it was a slough of mire and mud.  There were mould and mildew upon all the wood-work.  The place bore the aspect of a pest-house, shunned by all the inmates of the neighboring village.  Pierre led me to a large flat stone, which had once been a horse-block, standing at a safe distance from this hovel, and I laid down my basket upon it.  Then he rang his hand-bell noisily, and the next instant was scampering back along the road.

But I could not run away.  The desolate, plague-stricken place had a dismal fascination for me.  I wondered what manner of persons could dwell in it; and, as I lingered, I saw the low door opened, and a thin, spectral figure standing in the gloom within, but delaying to cross the mouldering door-sill as long as I remained in sight.  In another minute Pierre had rushed back for me, and dragged me away with all his boyish strength and energy.