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250 "It is not a question of the little Claire; it is a question of you.

He took me in his arms, as he did the other evening.

"Will you come with me to the little café?'

Shuddering and trembling, I found strength to answer:

"I am afraid; I am afraid of you, Joseph. Why am I afraid of you?"

He held me cradled in his arms. And, disdaining to justify himself, happy perhaps at increasing my terrors, he said to me, in a paternal tone:

"Well, well, since that is the case, I will talk with you again about it to-morrow."

A Rouen newspaper is circulating in town, in which there is an article that is creating a scandal among the pious. It is a true story, very droll, and somewhat risqué, which happened lately at Port- Lançon, a pretty place situated three leagues from here. And it gains in piquancy from the fact that everybody knows the personages. Here again is something for people to talk about, for a few days. The newspaper was brought to Marianne yesterday, and at night, after dinner, I read the famous article aloud. At the first phrases Joseph rose, with much dignity, very severe and even a little angry. He declared that he does not like dirty stories, and that he cannot sit and listen to attacks on religion.