white--innocence--of the abécédaires. Exhibition after exhibition, the
same green sash and green ribbons appeared on Pupasse's white muslin,
the white muslin getting longer and longer every year, trying to keep
up with her phenomenal growth; and always, from all over the room,
buzzed the audience's suppressed merriment at Pupasse's appearance
in the ranks of the little ones of nine and ten. It was that very
merriment that brought about the greatest change in the Institute
St. Denis. The sitting order of the classes was reversed. The first
class--the graduates--went up to the top step of the _estrade_; and
the little ones put on the lowest, behind the pianos. The graduates
grumbled that it was not _comme il faut_ to have young ladies of their
position stepping like camels up and down those great steps; and the
little girls said it was a shame to hide them behind the pianos after
their mamas had taken so much pains to make them look pretty. But
madame said--going also to natural history for her comparison--that
one must be a rhinoceros to continue the former routine.

Religion cannot be kept waiting forever on the intelligence. It was
always in the fourth class that the first communion was made; that is,
when the girls stayed one year in each class. But Pupasse had spent
three years in the sixth class, and had already been four in
the fifth, and Madame Joubert felt that longer delay would be
disrespectful to the good Lord. It was true that Pupasse could not
yet distinguish the ten commandments from the seven capital sins, and
still would answer that Jeanne d'Arc was the foundress of the "Little
Sisters of the Poor." But, as Madame Joubert always said in the little
address she made to the catechism class every year before handing it
over to Father Dolomier, God judged from the heart, and not from the
mind.