In course of time the little girl grew into a big one. Nature completed
successfully, but faithfully, her task. The Chevalier's feelings towards
Camille had, unfortunately, undergone no change. Her mother still
watched over her tenderly, and never left her, observing anxiously her
slightest actions, her every sign of interest in life.
[Illustration: "SHE SANK UPON A SEAT."]
When Camille's young friends were of an age to receive the first
instructions of a governess, the poor child began to realise the
difference between herself and others. The child of a neighbour had a
severe governess. Camille, who was present one day at a spelling-lesson,
regarded her little comrade with surprise, following her efforts with
her eyes, seeking, as it were, to aid her, and crying when she was
scolded. Especially were the music-lessons puzzling to Camille.
The evening prayers, which the neighbour used regularly with her
children, were another enigma for the girl. She knelt with her friends,
and joined her hands without knowing wherefore. The Chevalier considered
this a profanation; not so his wife. As Camille advanced in age, she
became possessed of a passion--as it were by a holy instinct--for the
churches which she beheld. "When I was a child I saw not God, I saw only
the sky," is the saying of a deaf mute. A religious procession, a
coarse, gaudily bedizened image of the Virgin, a choir boy in a shabby
surplice, whose voice was all unheard by Camille--who knows what simple
means will serve to raise the eyes of a child? And what matters it, so
long as the eyes are raised?