“But that is at our very doors!” cried Mother Meraut.  “It is absurd, that rumor.  Chicken hearts!  They listen to nothing but their fears.  As for me, I will not believe it until I must.  I will trust in the Army as I do in my God and the holy Saints.”

“Amen,” responded the Verger devoutly.

At this moment the great western portal swung on its hinges, a patch of light showed itself against the gloom of the interior of the Cathedral, and the sound of footsteps and of fresh young voices mingled with the tones of the organ.

“It’s the children, bless their innocent hearts,” said Mother Meraut.  “I hear the voices of my Pierre and Pierrette.”

“And I of my Jean,” said the Verger, starting hastily down the aisle.  “The little magpies forget they must be quiet in the House of God!” He shook his finger at them and laid it warningly upon his lips.  The noise instantly subsided, and it was a silent and demure little company that tiptoed up the aisle, bent the knee before the altar, and then filed past Mother Meraut into the chapel which she had made so clean.

Pierre and Pierrette led the procession, and Mother Meraut beamed with pride as they blew her a kiss in passing.  They were children that any mother might be proud of.  Pierrette had black, curling hair and blue eyes with long black lashes, and Pierre was a straight, tall, and manly-looking boy.  The Twins were nine years old.

Mother Meraut knew many of the children in the Confirmation Class, for they were all schoolmates and companions of Pierre and Pierrette.  There was Paul, the sore of the inn-keeper, with Marie, his sister.  There was Victor, whose father rang the Cathedral chimes.  There were David and Genevieve, and Madeleine and Virginie and Etienne, and last of all there was jean, the Verger’s son—­little Jean, the youngest in the class.  Mother Meraut nodded to them all as they passed.

Promptly on the first stroke of the hour the Abbe appeared in the north transept of the Cathedral and made his way with quick, decided steps toward the chapel.  He was a young man with thick dark hair almost concealed beneath his black three-cornered cap, and as he walked, his long black soutane swung about him in vigorous folds.  When he appeared in the door of the chapel the class rose politely to greet him.  “Bonjour, my children,” said the Abbe, and then, turning his back upon them, bowed before the crucifix upon the chapel altar.

Mother Meraut and the Verger slipped quietly away to their work in other portions of the church, and the examination began.  First the Abby asked the children to recite the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments in unison, and when they had done this without a mistake, he said “Bravo!  Now I wonder if you can each do as well alone?  Let me see, I will call upon—­” He paused and looked about as if he were searching for the child who was most likely to do it well.