uckles, exhibited above
his hands a plump visage, and a generally white skin though yellow in
spots. His hands were dimpled. His abbatial face had something of the
Dutch burgomaster in the placidity of its complexion and its flesh
tones, and of the Breton peasant in the straight black hair and the
vivacity of the brown eyes, which preserved, nevertheless, a priestly
decorum. His gaiety, that of a man whose conscience was calm and pure,
admitted a joke. His manner had nothing uneasy or dogged about it, like
that of many poor rectors whose existence or whose power is contested
by their parishioners, and who instead of being, as Napoleon sublimely
said, the moral leaders of the population and the natural justices of
peace, are treated as enemies. Observing Monsieur Grimont as he
marched through Guerande, the most irreligious of travellers would have
recognized the sovereign of that Catholic town; but this same sovereign
lowered his spiritual superiority before the feudal supremacy of the du
Guenics. In their salon he was as a chaplain in his seigneur's house.
In church, when he gave the benediction, his hand was always first
stretched out toward the chapel belonging to the Guenics, where their
mailed hand and their device were carved upon the key-stone of the arch.

"I thought that Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel had already arrived," said the
rector, sitting down, and taking the hand of the baroness to kiss it.
"She is getting unpunctual. Can it be that the fashion of dissipation
is contagious? I see that Monsieur le chevalier is again at Les Touches
this evening."

"Don't say anything about those visits before Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel,"
cried the old maid, eagerly.

"Ah! mademoiselle," remarked Mariotte, "you can't prevent the town from
gossiping."

"What do they say?" asked the baroness.

"The young girls and the old women all say that he is in love with
Mademoiselle des Touches."

"A lad of Calyste's make is playing his proper part in making the women
love him," said the baron.

"Here comes Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel," said Mariotte.

The gravel in the court-yard crackled under the discreet footsteps of
the coming lady, who was accompanied by a page supplied with a lantern.
Seeing this lad, Mariotte removed her stool to the great hall for the
purpose of talking with him by the gleam of his rush-light, which was
burned at the cost of his rich and miserly mistress, thus economizing
those of her own masters.

This elde