Father Dolomier--from his face he would have been an able contestant
of _bonnets d'âne_ with Pupasse, if subjected to Madame Joubert's
discipline--evidently had the same method of judging as God, although
the catechism class said they could dance a waltz on the end of his
long nose without his perceiving it.

There is always a little air of mystery about the first communion: not
that there is any in reality, but the little ones assume it to render
themselves important. The going to early mass, the holding their
dog-eared catechisms as if they were relics, the instruction from the
priest, even if he were only old Father Dolomier--it all put such a
little air of devotion into their faces that it imposed (as it did
every year) upon their companions, which was a vastly gratifying
effect. No matter how young and innocent she may be, a woman's
devotion always seems to have two aims--God and her own sex.

The week of retreat came. Oh, the week of retreat! That was the _bonne
bouche_ of it all, for themselves and for the others. It was the same
every year. By the time the week of retreat arrived, interest and
mystery had been frothed to the point of indiscretion; so that the
little girls would stand on tiptoe to peep through the shutters at the
postulants inside, and even the larger girls, to whom first communion
was a thing of an infantile past, would condescend to listen to their
reports with ill-feigned indifference.

As the day of the first communion neared, the day of the general
confession naturally neared too, leading it. And then the little
girls, peeping through the shutters, and holding their breath to see
better, saw what they beheld every year; but it was always new and
awesome--mysterious scribbling in corners with lead-pencils on scraps