“Marie-Louise says your papa must have been a very bad man.”

“What!” cries Madelon, jumping off the high stool on which she had been seated.  This little scene took place during the hour of recreation, when the children ate their luncheon of bread and fruit.

“Ah, yes,” says Marie-Louise, a broad-faced, flaxen-haired damsel, half a head taller than Madelon, and nodding her head knowingly.  “Those are very fine stories that you tell us there, Mademoiselle, but when I related them at home they said it was clear your papa must have been a very wicked man.”

Madelon turned quite white and walked up to the girl, her teeth set, her small fists clenched.  “You are wicked!” she stammered out; “how dare you say such things?  I—­I will never speak to you again!” and then she turned, and walked off without another word.

The matter did not end here, however, for the children talked of it among themselves, the nuns heard of it, and, finally, it reached the ears of Madame la Superieure herself.  Madelon, summoned into the awful presence of her aunt, received the strictest orders never again to refer to these past experiences in any way.  “You are my child now,” says Madame, overwhelming the poor little culprit before her with her severest demeanour, “and must learn to forget all these follies.”  If Madelon feared any one, it was her aunt, who had never cared to win her little niece’s love by any show of affection; the child came before her trembling, and escaped from her gladly.  She had no inclination to draw down further reprimands by disobedience in this particular, so far as words went, nor indeed had she any temptation to do so.  From this time she kept more apart from the rest of the children, rarely joining in their games, and preferring even Soeur Lucie’s society to that of her small companions.  So, altogether, Madelon’s first attempts at a convent life were not a success, and time only brought other sad deficiencies to light.

Whatever the nuns may have thought or said, concerning her ignorance of history, geography, and arithmetic, it was a far more serious matter when there came to be a question of her religious knowledge.  The good sisters were really horrified at the complete blank they found, and lost no time in putting her through a course of the most orthodox instruction.  Before she had been a month in the convent, she knew almost as much as Nanette, had learnt why people go to church and what they do there, had studied her catechism, could find her places in her prayer-book, could repeat Ave Marias and Paternosters, and tell her beads like every one else.  And so Madelon’s questions are answered at last, her perplexities solved, her yearnings satisfied!  She apprehended quickly all that she was taught, so far as in her lay, and vaguely perceived something still beyond her powers of apprehension, something that still confusedly connected itself with the great church, with the violinist’s