Then he set them down on the ground, and the little beings went off, the boy ahead, and the girls following.

“You are fond of children, M. le Cure,” said the comtesse.

“Very fond, madame.”

The old woman raised her bright eyes toward the priest.

“And—­has your solitude never weighed too heavily on you?”

“Yes, sometimes.”

He became silent, hesitated, and then added:  “But I was never made for ordinary life.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Oh!  I know very well.  I was made to be a priest; I followed my vocation.”

The comtesse kept staring at him: 

“Come now, M. le Cure, tell me this—­tell me how it was you resolved to renounce forever all that makes the rest of us love life—­all that consoles and sustains us?  What is it that drove you, impelled you, to separate yourself from the great natural path of marriage and the family?  You are neither an enthusiast nor a fanatic, neither a gloomy person nor a sad person.  Was it some incident, some sorrow, that led you to take life vows?”

The Abbe Mauduit rose and approached the fire, then, holding toward the flame his big shoes, such as country priests generally wear, he seemed still hesitating as to what reply he should make.

He was a tall old man with white hair, and for the last twenty years had been pastor of the parish of Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher.  The peasants said of him:  “There’s a good man for you!” And indeed he was a good man, benevolent, friendly to all, gentle, and, to crown all, generous.  Like Saint Martin, he would have cut his cloak in two.  He laughed readily, and wept also, on slight provocation, just like a woman—­which prejudiced him more or less in the hard minds of the country folk.

The old Comtesse de Saville, living in retirement in her chateau of Rocher, in order to bring up her grandchildren, after the successive deaths of her son and her daughter-in-law, was very much attached to her cure, and used to say of him:  “What a heart he has!”

He came every Thursday to spend the evening with the comtesse, and they were close friends, with the frank and honest friendship of old people.

She persisted: 

“Look here, M. le Cure! it is your turn now to make a confession!”

He repeated:  “I was not made for ordinary life.  I saw it fortunately in time, and I have had many proofs since that I made no mistake on the point: 

“My parents, who were mercers in Verdiers, and were quite well to do, had great ambitions for me.  They sent me to a boarding school while I was very young.  No one knows what a boy may suffer at school through the mere fact of separation, of isolation.  This monotonous life without affection is good for some, and detestable for others.  Young people are often more sensitive than one supposes, and by shutting them up thus too soon, far from those they love, we may develop to an exaggerated extent a sensitiveness which is overwrought and may become sickly and dangerous.