Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/32

 “Have I not always told you so?” she resumed, “when Doctor Minoret has lost his mind, this demure little chit will make him take to religion; and as whoever holds the mind holds the purse-strings, she will have our inheritance.”

“But, Madame Massin—!” said the postmaster, stupefied.

“Ah! you too,” replied Madame Massin, interrupting her cousin, “you are going to tell me like Massin: ‘Can a little girl of fifteen invent such plans and execute them? shake the opinions of a man of eighty-three years of age, who has never set foot in a church but to be married, who holds the priests in such horror that he did not even accompany this child to the parish church the day of her first Communion?’ Well then, why, if Doctor Minoret detests the priests, has he for fifteen years spent nearly every evening in the week with the Abbé Chaperon? The old hypocrite has never failed to give Ursule twenty francs for candles when she gives back the consecrated bread. Then you have forgotten the gift Ursule gave the church as thanks to the curé for having prepared her for her first Communion? She spent all her money on it, and her godfather gave it back to her, but doubled. You men notice nothing! When I heard these particulars, I said, ‘Good-bye our hopes! all is over!’ An uncle with an inheritance does not act like this purposelessly, toward a little sniveller picked out of the street.”

“Bah! cousin,” replied the postmaster, “perhaps