Maitre Gardon did not know that his charge could be in such a passion, as, her eyes flashing through tears, she insisted on being taken away at once.  No, she would hear nothing.  She seemed to fell resentment due to the honour of all the Ribaumonts, and he was obliged peremptorily to refuse to quit Montauban till his business at the Synod should be completed, and then to leave her in a flood of angry tears and reproaches for exposing her child to such usage, and approving it.

Poor little thing, he found her meek and penitent for her unjust anger towards himself.  Whatever he desired she would do, she would stay or go with him anywhere except to a sermon at the Moustier, and she did not think that in her heart her good father desired little infants to be beaten—­least of all Berenger’s little one.  And with Rayonette already on his knee, stealing his spectacles, peace was made.

Peace with him, but not with the congregation!  Were people to stalk out of church in a rage, and make no reparation?  Was Maitre Isaac to talk of orphans, only children, and maternal love, as if weak human affection did not need chastisement?  Was this saucy Parisienne to play the offended, and say that if the child were not suffered at church she must stay at home with it?  The ladies agitated to have the obnoxious young widow reprimanded in open Synod, but, to their still greater disgust, not a pastor would consent to perform the office.  Some said that Maitre Gardon ought to rule his own household, others that they respected him too much to interfere, and there were others abandoned enough to assert that if any one needed a reprimand it was the serjeant.

Of these was the young candidate, Samuel Mace, who had been educated at the expense of the Dowager Duchess de Quinet, and hoped that her influence would obtain his election to the pastorate of a certain peaceful little village deep in the Cevennes.  She had intimated that what he wanted was a wife to teach and improve the wives of the peasant farmers, and where could a more eligible one be found than Esperance Gardon?  Her cookery he tasted, her industry he saw, her tenderness to her child, her attention to her father, were his daily admiration; and her soft velvet eyes and sweet smile went so deep in his heart that he would have bought her ells upon ells of pink ribbon, when once out of sight of the old ladies; would have given a father’s love to her little daughter, and a son’s duty and veneration to Isaac Gardon.

His patroness did not deny her approval.  The gossip had indeed reached her, but she had a high esteem for Isaac Gardon, believed in Samuel Mace’s good sense, and heeded Montauban scandal very little.  Her protege would be much better married to a spirited woman who had seen the world, than to a mere farmer’s daughter who had never looked beyond her cheese.  Old Gardon would be an admirable adviser, and if he were taken into the menage she would add to the endowment another arable field, and grass for two more cows.  If she liked the young woman on inspection, the marriage should take place in her own august presence.