She reads with fervency:  “’My God, crushed beneath the burden of my sins I cast myself at thy feet’—­how annoying that it should be so cold to the feet.  With my sore throat, I am sure to have influenza,—­’that I cast myself at thy feet’—­tell me, dear, do you know if the chapel-keeper has a footwarmer?  Nothing is worse than cold feet, and that Madame de P. sticks there for hours.  I am sure she confesses her friends’ sins along with her own.  It is intolerable; I no longer have any feeling in my right foot; I would pay that woman for her foot-warmer—­’I bow my head in the dust under the weight of repentance, and of........’”

“Ah!  Madame de P. has finished; she is as red as the comb of a turkey-cock.”

Four ladies rush forward with pious ardor to take her place.

“Ah!  Madame, do not push so, I beg of you.”

“But I was here before you, Madame.”

“I beg a thousand pardons, Madame.”

“You surely have a very strange idea of the respect which is due to this hallowed spot.”

“Hush, hush!  Profit by the opportunity, Madame; slip through and take the vacant place. (Whispering.) Do not forget the big one last night, and the two little ones of this morning.”

CHAPTER V

MADAME AND HER FRIEND CHAT BY THE FIRESIDE

Madam—­(moving her slender fingers)—­It is ruched, ruched, ruched, loves of ruches, edged all around with blond.

Her Friend—­That is good style, dear.

Madame—­Yes, I think it will be the style, and over this snowlike foam fall the skirts of blue silk like the bodice; but a lovely blue, something like—­a little less pronounced than skyblue, you know, like—­my husband calls it a subdued blue.

Her Friend—­Splendid.  He is very happy in his choice of terms.

Madame—­Is he not?  One understands at once—­a subdued blue.  It describes it exactly.

Her Friend—­But apropos of this, you know that Ernestine has not forgiven him his pleasantry of the other evening.

Madame—­How, of my husband?  What pleasantry?  The other evening when the Abbe Gelon and the Abbe Brice were there?

Her Friend—­And his son, who was there also.

Madame—­What! the Abbe’s son? (Both break into laughter.)

Her Friend—­But—­ha! ha! ha!—­what are you saying, ha! ha! you little goose?

Madame—­I said the Abbe Gelon and the Abbe Brice, and you add, ’And his son.’  It is your fault, dear.  He must be a choir-boy, that cherub. (More laughter.)

Her Friend—­(placing her hand over hey mouth)—­Be quiet, be quiet; it is too bad; and in Lent, too!

Madame—­Well, but of whose son are you speaking?

Her Friend—­Of Ernestine’s son, don’t you know, Albert, a picture of innocence.  He heard your husband’s pleasantry, and his mother was vexed.

Madame—­My dear, I really don’t know to what you refer.  Please tell me all about it.