“Something like it,” answered M. Linders, rather grimly; then, with a momentary compunction, added, “Not precisely.  They do it also, I suppose, because they think it right.”

“And do you not think it right, papa?  Why should they?  I have seen people coming out of church before, but I never knew what it was like inside.  I may go again some day?”

“When you are older, my child, I will take you again, perhaps.”

“But that little girl Nanette, papa, was only five years old when she went first, her mother said, and I have never been at all,” said Madelon, feeling rather aggrieved.

“Well, when we go to Florence next winter, Madelon, you shall visit all the churches.  They are much more splendid than these, and have the most beautiful pictures, which I should like you to see.”

“And will there be music, and lights, and flowers there, the same as here, papa?”

“Oh! for that, it is much the same everywhere,” replied M. Linders.  “People are much alike all the world over, as you will find, Madelon.  Priests, and mummery, and a gaping crowd, to stare and say, ‘How wonderful! how beautiful!’ as you do now, ma petite; but you shall know better some day.”

He spoke with a certain bitterness that Madelon did not understand, any more than she did his little speech; but it silenced her for a moment, and then she said more timidly,

“But, papa——­”

“Well, Madelon!”

“But, papa, he said—­ce Monsieur—­he said that people go to church pour prier le bon Dieu.  What did he mean?  We often say ‘Mon Dieu,’ and I have heard them talk of le bon Dieu; is that the same?  Who is He then—­le bon Dieu?”

M. Linders did not at once reply.  Madelon was looking up into his face with wide-open perplexed eyes, frowning a little with an unusual effort of thought, with the endeavour to penetrate a momentary mystery, which she instinctively felt lay somewhere, and which she looked to him to explain; and he could not give her a careless, mocking answer; he sat staring blankly at her for a few seconds, and then said slowly,

“I cannot tell you.”

“Do you not know, papa?”

“Yes, yes, certainly I know,” he answered hastily, and with some annoyance; “but—­in short, Madelon, you are too young to trouble your head about these things; you cannot understand them possibly; when you are older you shall have them explained to you.”

“When, papa?”

“Oh, I don’t know—­one of these days, when you are a great girl, grown up.”

“And you can’t tell me now?” said Madelon, a little wistfully; “but you will let me go to the church again before that?  Oh, indeed it was beautiful, with the lights, and the singing, and the music.  Do you know, papa, it made me cry,” she added, in a half whisper.

“Vraiment!” said M. Linders, with some contempt in his voice, and a slight, involuntary shrug of the shoulders.