Far from making them impatient her petulances charmed them; and they gratified all her wishes, making each the ground of some little training.
The child grew up surrounded by old men, who smiled at her and made themselves mothers for her sake, all three equally attentive and provident.

Thanks to this wise education, Ursula's soul developed in a sphere that suited it.

This rare plant found its special soil; it breathed the elements of its true life and assimilated the sun rays that belonged to it.
"In what faith do you intend to bring up the little one ?" asked the abbe of the doctor, when Ursula was six years old.
"In yours," answered Minoret.
An atheist after the manner of Monsieur Wolmar in the "Nouvelle Heloise" he did not claim the right to deprive Ursula of the benefits offered by the Catholic religion.

The doctor, sitting at the moment on a bench outside the Chinese pagoda, felt the pressure of the abbe's hand on his.
"Yes, abbe, every time she talks to me of God I shall send her to her friend 'Shapron,'" he said, imitating Ursula's infant speech, "I wish to see whether religious sentiment is inborn or not.

Therefore I shall do nothing either for or against the tendencies of that young soul; but in my heart I have appointed you her spiritual guardian." "God will reward you, I hope," replied the abbe, gently joining his hands and raising them towards heaven as if he were making a brief mental prayer.
So, from the time she was six years old the little orphan lived under the religious influence of the abbe, just as she had already come under the educational training of her friend Jordy.
The captain, formerly a professor in a military academy, having a taste for grammar and for the differences among European languages, had studied the problem of a universal tongue.