“Are you rich?” asked Atala, who was fingering the Baroness’ lace ruffles.

“Yes, and No,” replied Madame Hulot.  “I am rich for dear little girls like you when they are willing to be taught their duties as Christians by a priest, and to walk in the right way.”

“What way is that?” said Atala; “I walk on my two feet.”

“The way of virtue.”

Atala looked at the Baroness with a crafty smile.

“Look at madame,” said the Baroness, pointing to the stove-fitter’s wife, “she has been quite happy because she was received into the bosom of the Church.  You married like the beasts that perish.”

“I?” said Atala.  “Why, if you will give me as much as Daddy Vyder gives me, I shall be quite happy unmarried again.  It is a grind.—­Do you know what it is to—?”

“But when once you are united to a man as you are,” the Baroness put in, “virtue requires you to remain faithful to him.”

“Till he dies,” said Atala, with a knowing flash.  “I shall not have to wait long.  If you only knew how Daddy Vyder coughs and blows.—­Poof, poof,” and she imitated the old man.

“Virtue and morality require that the Church, representing God, and the Mayor, representing the law, should consecrate your marriage,” Madame Hulot went on.  “Look at madame; she is legally married—­”

“Will it make it more amusing?” asked the girl.

“You will be happier,” said the Baroness, “for no one could then blame you.  You would satisfy God!  Ask her if she was married without the sacrament of marriage!”

Atala looked at the Italian.

“How is she any better than I am?” she asked.  “I am prettier than she is.”

“Yes, but I am an honest woman,” said the wife, “and you may be called by a bad name.”

“How can you expect God to protect you if you trample every law, human and divine, under foot?” said the Baroness.  “Don’t you know that God has Paradise in store for those who obey the injunctions of His Church?”

“What is there in Paradise?  Are there playhouses?”

“Paradise!” said Adeline, “is every joy you can conceive of.  It is full of angels with white wings.  You see God in all His glory, you share His power, you are happy for every minute of eternity!”

Atala listened to the lady as she might have listened to music; but Adeline, seeing that she was incapable of understanding her, thought she had better take another line of action and speak to the old man.

“Go home, then, my child, and I will go to see Monsieur Vyder.  Is he a Frenchman?”

“He is an Alsatian, madame.  But he will be quite rich soon.  If you would pay what he owes to that vile Samanon, he would give you back your money, for in a few months he will be getting six thousand francs a year, he says, and we are to go to live in the country a long way off, in the Vosges.”

At the word Vosges the Baroness sat lost in reverie.  It called up the vision of her native village.  She was roused from her melancholy meditation by the entrance of the stove-fitter, who came to assure her of his prosperity.