“Necessary! How was it necessary? I was well enough, he supposed? Change necessary! He would recommend me to look at the Catholic religieuses , and study their lives. They asked no change.”

I am no judge of what expression crossed my face when he thus spoke, but it was one which provoked him: he accused me of being reckless, worldly, and epicurean; ambitious of greatness, and feverishly athirst for the pomps and vanities of life. It seems I had no dévouement , no récueillement 140 in my character; no spirit of grace, faith, sacrifice, or self-abasement. Feeling the inutility of answering these charges, I mutely continued the correction of a pile of English exercises.

“He could see in me nothing Christian: like many other Protestants, I revelled in the pride and self-will of paganism.”

I slightly turned from him, nestling still closer under the wing of silence.

A vague sound grumbled between his teeth; it could not surely be a juron : he was too religious for that; but I am certain I heard the word sacré . Grievous to relate, the same word was repeated, with the unequivocal addition of mille something, when I passed him about two hours afterwards in the corridor, prepared to go and take my German lesson in the Rue Crécy . Never was a better little man, in some points, than M. Paul: never, in others, a more waspish little despot.