The Pasteur looked at him alarmed, and exclaimed: "Surely you will not be a fish caught in the net which already I have observed that cunning and plausible curé trying to throw about you! Oh! what then should I answer to your father?"
"Do not be frightened, Monsieur. I shall never become a Roman Catholic. But all the same I think the Roman Catholics very good people, and that their faith is as well as another, at any rate for those who believe it."
Then he made an excuse to slip away, leaving the Pasteur puzzled.
"He is wrong," he said to himself, "most wrong, but all the same, let it be admitted that the boy has a big mind, and intelligent--yes, intelligent."
It is certain that those who search with sufficient earnestness end in finding something, though the discovered path may run in the wrong direction, or prove impassable, or wind through caverns, or along the edge of precipices, down which sooner or later the traveller falls, or lead at length to some cul-de-sac. The axiom was not varied in Godfrey's case, and the path he found was named--Miss Ogilvy.
On the first Sunday after his arrival at Kleindorf a fine carriage and pair drew up at the shrubbery gate, just as the family were returning from the morning service in the little church where the Pasteur ministered. Madame sighed when she saw it, for she would have loved dearly to possess such an equipage, as indeed, she had done at one period in her career, before an obscure series of circumstances led to her strange union with Monsieur Boiset.
"What beautiful horses," exclaimed Juliette, her hazel eyes sparkling. "Oh! that tenth Commandment, who can keep it? And why should some people have fine horses and others not even a pony? Ma mère, why were you not able to keep that carriage of which you have spoken to me so often?"
Madame bit her lip, and with a whispered "hold your tongue," plunged into conversation about Miss Ogilvy. Then Godfrey entered the carriage and was whirled away in style, looking like the prince in a fairy book, as Juliette remarked, while the Pasteur tried to explain to her how much happier she was without the temptation of such earthly vanities.
Miss Ogilvy's house was a beautiful dwelling of its sort, standing in gardens of its own that ran down to the lake, and commanding fine views of all the glorious scenery which surrounds Lucerne. The rooms were large and lofty, with parquet floors, and in some of them were really good pictures that their owner had inherited, also collections of beautiful old French furniture. In short, it was a stately and refined abode, such as is sometimes to be found abroad in the possession of Americans or English people of wealth, who for their health's sake or other reasons, make their homes upon the Continent.