Their mother watched
their little plump figures disappear with a feeling of mingled
amazement and gratitude,--miracles were surely beginning, she
thought, if a few words from the Cardinal could impress Babette and
Henri with an idea of the necessity of prayer!
They were not long gone, however;--they came walking back together,
still demurely hand in hand, and settled themselves quietly in a
corner to study their tasks for the next day. Babette's doll, once
attired as a fashionable Parisienne, and now degenerated into a one-
eyed laundress with a rather soiled cap and apron, stuck out its
composite arms in vain from the bench where it sat all askew,
drooping its head forlornly over a dustpan,--and Henri's drum,
wherewith he was wont to wake alarming echoes out of the dreamy and
historical streets of Rouen, lay on its side neglected and
ingloriously silent. And, as before said, peace reigned in the
Patoux household,--even the entrance of Papa Patoux himself, fresh
from his celery beds, and smelling of the earth earthy, created no
particular diversion. He was a very little, very cheery, round man,
was Papa Patoux; he had no ideas at all in his bullet head save that
he judged everything to be very well managed in the Universe, and
that he, considered simply as Patoux, was lucky in his life and
labours,--also that it was an easy thing to grow celery, provided
God's blessing was on the soil.
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