Ernest remained in the porch throughout the service without seeing any woman who realized his hopes. Modeste, on her part, could not control the trembling of her limbs until Mass was nearly over. She was in the grasp of a joy that none but she herself could depict. At last she heard the foot-fall of a gentleman on the pavement of the aisle. The service over, La Briere was making a circuit of the church, where no one now remained but the punctiliously pious, whom he proceeded to subject to a shrewd and keen analysis. Ernest noticed that a prayer-book shook violently in the hands of a veiled woman as he passed her; as she alone kept her face hidden his suspicions were aroused, and then confirmed by Modeste’s dress, which the lover’s eye now scanned and noted. He left the church with the Latournelles and followed them at a distance to the rue Royale, where he saw them enter a house accompanied by Modeste, whose custom it was to stay with her friends till the hour of vespers. After examining the little house, which was ornamented with scutcheons, he asked the name of the owner, and was told that he was Monsieur Latournelle, the chief notary in Havre. As Ernest lounged along the rue Royale hoping for a glimpse into the house, Modeste caught sight of him, and thereupon declared herself too ill to go to vespers. Poor Ernest thus had his trouble for his pains. He dared not wander about Ingouville; moreover, he made it a point of honor to obey orders, and he therefore went back to Paris, previously writing a letter which Francoise Cochet duly delivered on the morrow with the Havre postmark. It was the custom of Monsieur and Madame Latournelle to dine at the Chalet every Sunday when they brought back Modeste after vespers. So, as soon as the invalid felt a little better, they started for Ingouville, accompanied by Butscha. Once at home, the happy Modeste forgot her pretended illness and her disguise, and dressed herself charmingly, humming as she came down to dinner,-- “Nought is sleeping--Heart! awaking, Lift thine incense to the skies.” Butscha shuddered slightly when he caught sight of her, so changed did she seem to him. The wings of love were fastened to her shoulders; she had the air of a nymph, a Psyche; her cheeks glowed with the divine color of happiness. “Who wrote the words to which you have put that pretty music?” asked her mother. “Canalis, mamma,” she answered, flushing rosy red from her throat to her forehead. “Canalis!” cried the dwarf, to whom the inflections of the girl’s voice and her blush told the only thing of which he was still ignorant. “He, that great poet, does he write songs?” “They are only simple verses,” she said, “which I have ventured to set to German airs.” “No, no,” interrupted Madame Mignon, “the music is your own, my daughter.” Modeste, feeling that she grew more and more crimson, went off into the garden, calling Butscha after her.