Whether they guessed this or not, Ange was received by his school fellows with that sweet spirit of brotherhood born among children and perpetuated among "the grown ups," in other words with hooting and teasing. But when three or four of the budding tyrants made the acquaintance of Pitou's enormous fist and were trodden under his even more enormous foot, respect began to be diffused. He would have had a life a shade less worried than when under Angelique's wing; but Father Fortier in soliciting little children to come unto him, forgot to warn them that the hands he held out were armed with the Latin Rudiments and birch rods. Little did the aunt care whether the information was flogged or insinuated mentally into her nephew. She basked in the golden ray from dreamland that in three years Ange would pass the examination and be sent to college with the Orleans Purse. Then would he become a priest, when he would, of course, make his aunt his housekeeper. One day a rough awakening came to this delusion. Ange crawled into the house as if shod in lead. "What is the matter?" cried Aunt 'Gelique, who had never seen a more piteous mien. "Are you hungry?" "No," replied Pitou dolefully. The hearer was uneasy, for illness is a cause of alarm to good mothers and bad godmothers, as it forces expenses. "It is a great misfortune," Pitou blubbered: "Father Fortier sends me home from school--so no more studies, no examination, no purse, no college----" His sobs changed into howls while the woman stared at him to try to read in his soul the reason for this expulsion. "I suppose you have been playing truant again," she said. "I hear that you are always roaming round Farmer Billet's place to catch a sight of his daughter Catherine. Fie, fie! very pretty conduct in a future priest!" Ange shook his head. "You lie," shrieked the old maid, with her anger rising with the growing certainty that it was a serious scrape. "Last Sunday you were again seen rambling in Lovers-Walk with Kate Billet." It was she who fibbed but she was one who believed the end justified the means, and a whale-truth might be caught by throwing out a tub-lie. "Oh, no, they could not have seen me there," cried Ange; "for we were out by the Orange-gardens." "There, you wretch, you see you were with her." "But this is not a matter that Miss Billet is concerned in," ventured Ange, blushing like the overgrown boy of sixteen that he was. "Yes, call her 'Miss' to pretend you have any respect for her, the flirt, the jilt, the mincing minx! I will tell her father confessor how she is carrying on." "But I take my Bible oath that she is not a flirt." "You defend her, when you need all the excuses you can rake up for yourself. This is going on fine. What is the world coming to, when children of sixteen are walking arm in arm under the shade trees." "But, aunt, you are away out--Catherine will not let me 'arm' her--she keeps me off at arms-length."