Towards the end of September the Abbe Picot came to the chateau, in a new cassock which had only one week's stains upon it, to introduce his successor, the Abbe Tolbiac. The latter was small, thin, and very young, with hollow, black-encircled eyes which betokened the depth and violence of his feelings, and a decisive way of speaking as if there could be no appeal from his opinion. The Abbe Picot had been appointed _doyen_ of Goderville. Jeanne felt very sad at the thought of his departure; he was connected, in her thoughts, with all the chief events of her life, for he had married her, christened Paul, and buried the baroness. She liked him because he was always good-tempered and unaffected, and she could not imagine Etouvent without the Abbe Picot's fat figure trotting past the farms. He himself did not seem very rejoiced at his advancement. "I have been here eighteen years, Madame la Comtesse," he said, "and it grieves me to go to another place. Oh! this living is not worth much, I know, and as for the people--well, the men have no more religion than they ought to have, the women are not so moral as they might be, and the girls never dream of being married until it is too late for them to wear a wreath of orange blossoms; still, I love the place." The new cure had been fidgeting impatiently during this speech, and his face had turned very red. "I shall soon have all that changed," he said, abruptly, as soon as the other priest had finished speaking; and he looked like an angry child in his worn but spotless cassock, so thin and small was he. The Abbe Picot looked at him sideways, as he always did when anything amused him. "Listen, l'abbe," he said. "You will have to chain up your parishioners if you want to prevent that sort of thing; and I don't believe even that would be any good." "We shall see," answered the little priest in a cutting tone. The old cure smiled and slowly took a pinch of snuff. "Age and experience will alter your views, l'abbe; if they don't you will only estrange the few good Churchmen you have. When I see a girl come to mass with a waist bigger than it ought to be, I say to myself--'Well, she is going to give me another soul to look after;'--and I try to marry her. You can't prevent them going wrong, but you can find out the father of the child and prevent him forsaking the mother. Marry them, l'abbe, marry them, and don't trouble yourself about anything else." "We will not argue on this point, for we should never agree," answered the new cure, a little roughly; and the Abbe Picot again began to express his regret at leaving the village, and the sea which he could see from the vicarage windows, and the little funnel-shaped valleys, where he went to read his breviary and where he could see the boats in the distance. Then the two priests rose to go, and the Abbe Picot kissed Jeanne, who nearly cried when she said good-bye.