There were times, in the convent, when the smiles of the little girls reflected the painted faces of the angels in the stained glass windows. Their hands demurely clasped just so, their eyes wide with innocence, and their posture ramrod straight... it was all a sign to the deputy-prioress that someone had snuck fruit into the dormitory again.

Today was such a day. The sixteen-year-olds, for once, were silent during lessons, and even the youngest children did not fidget during morning prayers. The chapel mothers were all highly suspicious of such perfect behavior, and they all applied, in half- heard whispers to the prioress, Mère Innocente, for an explanation. Mère Innocente only told several of her beads, and then murmured, "Praise be to God."

Mère Cineres, the deputy prioress, was not so content. She observed the girls shrewdly, and then was later found visiting the gardener and his new assistant. Both Père Fauvent, and his brother, Père Ultime, appeared confused when questioned if any of the girls had snuck off with fruit during their free hour.

Père Fauvent inserted in finger into his left ear and twisted it in confusion. Père Ultime put a hand to his very white hair and blinked. Mère Cineres got the distinct impression that they couldn't understand her. She then asked, in a louder tone, "Did any of the girls take fruit?"

"Of... the Holy Spirit?" asked Père Fauchelevent in confusion, having only heard the word "fruit". He was hard of hearing, and Mère Cineres's Spanish accent often bewildered him. Père Ultime, whose hearing was better, shook his head somberly.

Being half-blind, Mère Cineres squinted at him. "Did they?"

"Do what?" Père Fauvent replied, with utmost mystification. He usually did not speak with the deputy-prioress.

"Take fruit!" Mère Cineres all but shouted. Père Ultime discreetly prodded his brother in the back, stooped, and murmured something in his ear.

A look of comprehension dawned on the old gardener's face. "Oh! No, Reverend Mother."

Mère Cineres grunted and muttered a blessing in Latin. Père Fauchelevent was put at ease, and was very happy to have his doubts set at rest, as they always were by the sound of Latin. He said "Amen!" with great enthusiasm. Père Ultime's lips moved, or so Mère Cineres thought, but she heard nothing. She merely rubbed her eyes and concluded that her eyesight was worse than she had thought before.

Yes... the girls were hiding something, though she could not figure out what. During choir practice, the girls sat as quietly as statues, doing their best to make the nuns believe they, the girls, were no more substantial or sentient than the dust motes that were making Soeur Sainte- Michel sneeze. Mère Cineres narrowed her beady eyes at the girls. They did not laugh when Mère Innocente sang (the kinder nuns declared she sounded like a cracked pot), or when Mère Sainte-Mechtilde began hiccupping very loudly and had to stop conducting. They did not seem to notice at all when Soeur Sainte-Marthe, who had entered into her dotage, shouted, "Aren't we going to sing?" moments after they had finished going through all the songs for Mass the next day, or when she began to sing 'Ça Ira!' as a descant to the 'Kyrie'.

The deputy-prioress was very suspicious, and wondered just how many people would be performing 'la coulpe' during Thursday Mass, for unspecified sins. Soeur Sainte- Marthe would not be one of them, as it was well known that not all the candles in Soeur Sainte- Marthe's candelabra were lit, and she was usually excused from punishment by virtue of this, as well as her advanced age. The girls had no such excuse, and suffered punishment as severe as the nuns. The threat of such punishments normally did not serve to curb their high spirits, however, and Mère Cineres questioned the reason for their sudden reticence.

And then, they all heard a faint, "Ma Zétalbé, viens régner sur mon âme!" The girls all shrieked in delight, and, once more regaining use of their limbs, rushed as one blue wave (their white coifs falling, abandoned, to the floor as sea foam) to the windows.

Mère Sainte-Mechtilde was so shocked she stopped hiccupping. Mère Innocente stared in stunned amazement. Soeur Sainte-Marthe politely inquired, "When is choir practice to start?" and scratched at her hair shirt.

"Ah... I had forgotten that," Mère Cineres grumbled at her hymnal. "They heard him yesterday, during history lessons, too, didn't they? 'Young man with the flute' -- humph. Forgot Charlemagne for this... Zétalbé. Humph."

"I had not known," the hymnal seemed to reply in a startled tone. Mère Cineres was quite distressed by her hymnal's sudden loquacity, and thought she was fast entering into her dotage. She rubbed her eyes tiredly and said, "Well!"

Mère Innocente tapped her on the shoulder and softly asked, in the same startled tone as the hymnal, "How many times did this happen yesterday?"

Deciding that she had mistakenly thought Mère Innocente's voice to have belonged to her hymnal, Mère Cineres replied, "Sabe Dios por cuántos, -- as."

As none of the other nuns spoke Spanish, they were understandably confused. They looked at each other from behind their veils and shrugged at each other eloquently.

The bell rang the hour, and they each murmured, "At this hour of three and at all hours praised and worshipped be the Holy Sacrament of the altar." Everyone murmured this save the girls, who were clustered about the window sighing over the young man who sang and played so beautifully.

The deputy-prioress was more shocked than she had been when Mademoiselle Sainte-Aulaire had asked that her three-year-old sister be allowed to put her hand through the bars in the parlor. And that had been unthinkable! She seized her rosary with alacrity and began mumbling 'Hail Mary's to atone for the faithlessness of her young charges, and was determined to perform 'la coulpe', the act of prostrating herself before the prioress during service, to atone for her sin in not enforcing the strictness of the holy orders during the girls' lessons.

Even three weeks of coulpes failed to help. The only result was an attack of rheumatism, and Mère Cineres was forced to hobble about with the aid of a stick kindly supplied by Père Ultime. As was his wont, he did not speak, but merely handed her the stick, and then scooped up his granddaughter, Cosette, who squealed with laughter. Mère Cineres liked Cosette best of all the girls, for despite her curiosity, Cosette was too frightened to get out of her seat or pay attention to the young man's singing.

When asked why she alone of all the girls, did not run to the windows, Cosette managed a terrified squeak and a whispered, "Madame might be at the windows" before anxiously wringing her hands and sliding down in her seat, trembling. After this, she was unfit for any activity other than hiding under her desk, and was sent to visit her grandfather the gardener.

As Mère Cineres had a very poor memory, this happened at least every other day, and Père Ultime and Cosette were exceedingly happy. The girls were so absorbed in listening for the singer that they did not sneak fruit into the dormitory, pay attention to any of their lessons, or listen to the priest during Mass. Punishments, however severe, were not observed, and failed to produce any result. In desperation, the prioress wrote a letter to the Archbishop of Paris, and the grand-vicar, Monsieur de Rohan was engaged to officiate at the services for two months.

Though he had always been fascinating to the sixteen-year-olds, the girls failed to pay attention, and listened only for the young man who sang so prettily. In the middle of Communion, the song was heard, and Madame Albertine sang along from her solitary stall. The girls were all delighted and giggled behind their veils, M. de Rohan was extremely amused and unsuccessfully stifled his laughter, and the nuns were mortified and prostrated themselves in front of the altar for two days straight.

Mère Cineres was furious. She lectured the girls in heavily accented French for two hours, waving her walking stick at them energetically, (the girls did not understand her at all) and then had them fast for two days. This only made them focus on the young man even more.

She, herself, spent four hours at prayer, and then wore two hair shirts, to better atone for the sins of her... dear... girls. This caused a fever, and she was forced to spend the next two weeks in her cell. Unfortunately, the young man had a very powerful voice, and she could hear him even when she hid under her bed.

Mère Cineres was a very devout woman, who lived very strictly by the rules of the convent. She knew nothing of the outside world, and assumed that it was full of the devils and temptations she read about so often. Surely this singer was one such devil that God allowed to torment them, like Job! Mère Cineres was very well pleased with this Biblical precedent, as she had always wanted to undergo torment for God.

As a result of having hid herself under her bed for several days, her rheumatism was terrible, and as chagrined as she was to have a 'possession' she applied to the prioress and was allowed to hobble around the convent with her gnarled stick for an even longer period of time than she had expected.

She was very cheerful after that, even though the song got stuck in her head and once she hummed a bar of it when watching the girls during their free hour. She spent the entire service on the floor in front of the prioress that day and was exceedingly happy.

The girls began to become yet more creative in their attempts to see their young man. They loitered in the garden, and, when the gardeners and sisters were distracted by a convenient temper tantrum from several of the younger girls, they stood on each others' shoulders in a vain attempt to see above the wall.

They were unsuccessful, but the nuns were distraught. The girls' free time was eradicated, everyone fasted for three days straight, and the girls cleaned the entire convent, from top to bottom, but it was to no avail. They shirked their punishments, refused to prostrate themselves during service, and abandoned everything when the young man began to sing again.

Mère Cineres even found several girls on the third floor during a rest period, whispering excitedly about 'the young man with the flute'. Mère Cineres was dumbfounded by this flagrant breech in the convent's rules and code of conduct.

She was so shocked by this that she began to yell at them in Spanish and wave her cane about in a threatening manner. The girls did not understand her, but the meekly lowered their eyes and folded their hands in front of them, except for Mademoiselle de Montmorency, who had stuck her hand between the bars of the windows, in order to wave her handkerchief at the young man, and got her arm stuck there. Mère Cineres had to get Père Ultime to bend the bars on the window (he didn't seem to need the crowbar he brought), as the nuns had given up butter as penance for the girls' sins and could not grease Mademoiselle de Montmorency's hand in order for it to slide it out.

Those girls were placed in deepest seclusion and forced to perform 'la couple' for a week straight. The nuns spent a month in deepest penance, for not only allowing a man into the convent (even if it was only Père Ultime, who never spoke) but for letting the girls become so absorbed in 'secular affairs'.

It was the beginning of the fourth month that the girls' interest began to wane. Mère Cineres and Mère Innocente were floored by this. They could think of no reason behind such behavior. Even the gardeners could not cast light upon the subject.

"There's been music?" Père Fauvent asked, looking dumbfounded.

"Yes," Mère Cineres replied loudly, squinting at them both. "And the girls have lost interest. Why?"

His brother meditatively paused in pruning an apple tree and then shrugged.

Madame Choiseul, when she came to visit and was informed of the goings on, was able to explain.

"Where has this singing been coming from?" she inquired coolly, folding her black-gloved hands in her lap and looking at several girls speculatively. The girls bowed their heads, terrified, and scurried off.

"The Rue Droit-Mer," Mère Cineres replied eagerly, leaning forward on her cane.

"Oh," the great lady said. "That explains it, then."

Mère Innocente told several of her beads before softly inquiring, "How?"

"There is no 'young man with a flute' there," Madame Choiseul replied crisply. "That is simply Père de Tourney, an old émigré, now blind and destitute, who plays songs in his attic to while away the time."

"And... the girls... found this out?" Mère Cineres thought aloud.

Madame Choiseul tugged on her gloves and gave the two nuns in front of her a stern and reproving look. "My sources say, and my sources are never wrong, that two girls were seen on the roof of the convent last Wednesday evening."

Mère Cineres nearly fainted and spent the next three days prostrate in front of the altar. Mère Innocente did not speak to anyone or anything save her beads for two months.

The nuns fasted for a week, and the girls, heartily disappointed that their 'young man' was, in fact, around the age of Mère Cineres, were further upset by the lack of meat at mealtimes and their newly restricted and heavily supervised free time.

The only person happy in the convent was probably Père Fauvent. "Now that you mention the singing, I hear it. Lovely song -- reminds me of my youth."

Mère Cineres squinted at him, and then narrowed her eyes even further at some of the girls, who, she was sure, were stuffing cherries under their veils.

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