t sent to her with so
many signs of tenderness.

And then she tried on the shoes. Of all the things she needed these
were the most necessary. At her first glance she thought that they were
new; but she perceived that they had been worn, and she liked them the
better on that account. She put her feet into them and found that they
were in truth a little too large for her. And this, even this, tended
in some sort to gratify her feelings and soothe the asperity of her
grief. "It is only a quarter of a size," she said to herself, as she
held up her dress that she might look at her feet. And thus she
resolved that she would accept her rival's kindness.

On the following morning the priest came--that Father Jerome whom she
had known as a child, and from whom she had been unable to obtain
ghostly comfort since she had come in contact with the Jew. Her aunt
and her father, Souchey and Lotta Luxa, had all threatened her with
Father Jerome; and when it had become manifest to her that it would be
necessary that the priest should visit her father in his extremity, she
had at first thought that it would be well for her to hide herself.
But the cowardice of this had appeared to her to be mean, and she had
resolved that she would meet her old friend at her father's bedside.
After all, what would his bitterest words be to her after such words
as she had endured from her lover?

Father Jerome came, and she received him in the parlour. She received
him with downcast eyes and a demeanour of humility, though she was
resolved to flare up against him if he should attack her too cruelly.
But the man was as mild to her and as kind as ever he had been in her
childhood, when he would kiss her, and call her his little nun, and
tell her that if she would be a good girl she should always have a
white dress and roses at the festival of St Nicholas. He put his hand
on her head and blessed her, and did not seem to have any abhorrence of
her because she was going to marry a Jew. And yet he knew it.

He asked a few words as to her father, who was indeed better on this
morning than he had been for the last few days, and then he passed on
into the sick man's room. And there, after a few faintest words of
confession from the sick man, Nina knelt by her father's bedside, while
the priest prayed for them both, and forgave the sinner his sins, and
prepared him for his further journey with such preparation as the
extreme unction of his Church would afford.