"I am sorry I was so cross," said she; "but I am so unhappy. There is so much that I cannot understand. Why should you be the heiress of d'Antin and I only a poor farmer's daughter? Why should you learn music and English and dress in silk, while I wear homespun and tend sheep, and come and go at everybody's call? Why should our enemies triumph and eat us up like bread, and live in all sorts of luxury, while we are poor and trodden down like the mire in the streets, and our Master never put forth a hand to help us? We give up everything for him, and he lets us be beaten on every side, and gives us nothing but promises—promises for another world, from which nobody has come back to tell us anything. No, I don't understand it." Lucille spoke with a fire and passion compared to which her former vehemence was nothing. I had never thought of these things—never dreamed of questioning anything that was taught me. Indeed, I believe I had been too full of dreams to think at all. I was stricken dumb before her at first, but as she gazed at me with her dark eyes like sombre flames, I felt I must say something, so I gave the only answer that occurred to me—the only one indeed that I have ever found. "It is the will of God, Lucille, and he must know best." Lucille muttered something which I did not quite hear. "And besides, he does help us," I added, gathering courage. "Just think how all the martyrs have been helped to stand firm, and what joys they have felt even at the galleys and in dark dungeons, where they had hardly room to breathe." "I know they say so," said Lucille; "but tell me, Vevette, have you experienced any of these wonderful joys. Because I know I never did." I did not know exactly what to answer to this question. In fact, in those days my conscience was in that uneasy state in which it always must be with any half-hearted person. No, I could not say that my religion was any comfort to me, and I hastened to change the conversation. "Anyhow, Lucille, I don't think you would be any happier if we were to change places. You would be lectured and ordered about, and sent out of the way a great deal more than you are now, and you would not have nearly as much time to yourself. I believe, after all, it is more in being contented than anything else. Look at Gran'mère Luchon. She has as little as any one I know—living down by the shore in that dark smoky little hut with her two little grandchildren, and supporting them and herself with her net-making and mending and her spinning. And yet she is happy. She is always singing over her work, and I never heard her make a complaint." "She is not there any more," said Lucille. "The new curé ordered her to go to mass, and because she would not, he has taken the children away and handed them over to the nuns, and nobody knows what, has become of the old woman." "The wretches!" I exclaimed.