One day Monseigneur the Archbishop while making his pastoral visit saw a pretty little rosy girl with beautiful golden hair enter the class-room through which he was passing.
He inquired of another pupil, a charming brunette with rosy cheeks, who stood near him:--
"Who is that?"
"She is a spider, Monseigneur."
"Bah!
And that one yonder?"
"She is a cricket."
"And that one?"
"She is a caterpillar."
"Really! and yourself?"
"I am a wood-louse, Monseigneur."
Every house of this sort has its own peculiarities.
At the beginning of this century Ecouen was one of those strict and graceful places where young girls pass their childhood in a shadow that is almost august. At Ecouen, in order to take rank in the procession of the Holy Sacrament, a distinction was made between virgins and florists. There were also the "dais" and the "censors,"--the first who held the cords of the dais, and the others who carried incense before the Holy Sacrament.
The flowers belonged by right to the florists. Four "virgins" walked in advance.
On the morning of that great day it was no rare thing to hear the question put in the dormitory, "Who is a virgin?"
Madame Campan used to quote this saying of a "little one" of seven years, to a "big girl" of sixteen, who took the head of the procession, while she, the little one, remained at the rear, "You are a virgin, but I am not."