It seemed to Papa Labesse but the week following her first plunge among his shavings when Marcelle came in, all in white, and with a veil like a little bride's, to parade her splendor under his delighted eyes, before going to her first communion. But when he put into her hand the small white prayerbook he had bought for this great occasion, she had forgotten all else, and thrown her arms about his neck, entirely regardless of her finery. "After maman, thou knowest, Papa Labesse, I love thee best of all the world!" And Papa Labesse was properly shocked at this recklessness and said, bon Dieu! that was a fine veil, then, made to be crushed against an odious apron covered with chips and sawdust--what? And, as Marcelle ran off to join Madame Clapot, who was waiting, consumed with mingled pride and impatience, across the way, the old man wiped his spectacles vigorously, shook his head several times, and then, suddenly abandoning his work, three hours before the accustomed time, betook himself to the Butte, and smoked three pipefuls of tobacco, looking off across the city. It was at this time that two radical changes came into the life of Papa Labesse. First, on the very summit of the Butte they began to lay the foundations for the great church of Sacré-Coeur; and, second, Marcelle took it into her pretty little head to accompany him on his daily climb. At first he was disturbed by both these innovations. This curious afternoon communion of his with the wonderful wide city, which lay spread out before him like a great gray map, was akin to a religion. He loved Paris with a love so great that perhaps he himself was barely able to comprehend its proportions. He was never tired of standing there and watching her breathing at his feet, of picking out, in the gathering twilight, the faint white speck to the west that was the arc de l'Etoile, the domes of the Invalides and the Panthéon, Notre Dame, to the eastward, and the towers and spires of half a hundred minor temples and public buildings. He passed from one to the other in a kind of visual pilgrimage, saying the names over slowly to himself, and occasionally affecting an air of surprise, as if some one of the familiar piles had suddenly and unaccountably appeared in a new locality. "La Trinité; Notre Dame de Lorette; La Bourse. Tiens! _St. Eustache!_"