The first time, however, that she ever entered a church, when she was little more than nine years old, was an experience in her life, and this was the occasion of it.  It was in a French provincial town, where M. Linders had stopped for a day on business—­only for one day, but that Madelon was to spend for the most part alone; for her father, occupied with his affairs, was obliged to go out very early, and leave her to her own devices; and very dull she found them, after the first hour or two.  She was a child of many resources, it is true, but these will come to an end when a little girl of nine years old, with books and dolls all packed up, has to amuse herself for ever so many hours in a dull country hotel, an hotel, too, which was quite strange to her, and where she could not, therefore, fall back upon the society and conversation of a friendly landlady.  Madelon wandered upstairs and downstairs, looked out of all the windows she could get at, and at last stood leaning against the hall-door, which opened on to the front courtyard.  It was very quiet and very dull, nothing moving anywhere; no one crossed the square, sunny space, paved with little stones, and adorned with the usual round-topped trees, in green boxes.  Inside the house there was an occasional clatter of plates and dishes, or the resonant nasal cry of “Auguste,” or “Henri,” from one or other of the servants, but that was all.  Madelon found it too tiresome; the porte-cochere stood half open, she crossed the courtyard and peeped out.  She saw a quiet, sunny street, with not much more life or movement than there was within, but still a little better.  Over the high walls surrounding the houses opposite green trees were waving; at one end of the street there was the gleam of a river, a bridge, and a row of poplars; the other end she could not see, for the street made a bend, and a fountain with dribbling water filled up the angle.  Presently a little boy in a blue blouse, and a little girl with a tight round white cap, came up to the stone basin, each with a pitcher to fill; they were a long time about it, for what would be pleasanter, on this hot summer morning, than to stand dabbling one’s fingers in the cool water?  Madelon watched them till she became possessed with an irresistible desire to do the same.  It was only a few steps off, and though she was strictly forbidden by her father ever to go out alone, still—­ she had so seldom an opportunity of being naughty, that her present consciousness of disobedience rather added, perhaps, to the zest of the adventure.  She would go just for this once—­ and in another moment she was out in the street.  The little boy and girl fled with full pitchers as she came up to the fountain, suddenly awakened to a sense of the waste of time in which they had been indulging; but that made no difference to Madelon; she stood gazing with mute admiration at the open-mouthed monsters, from whose wide jaws the water trickled into the basin below; and then she held her hands to catch the drops