irgin."

"It is now ten o'clock; I must bid you good-night," said the abbe,
lighting the wick of his lantern, the glass of which was clear and the
metal shining, which testified to the care his housekeeper bestowed on
the household property. "Who could ever have told me, madame," he added,
"that a young man brought up by you, trained by me to Christian ideas,
a fervent Catholic, a child who has lived as a lamb without spot, would
plunge into such mire?"

"But is it certain?" said the mother. "How could any woman help loving
Calyste?"

"What other proof is needed than her staying on at Les Touches. In all
the twenty-four years since she came of age she has never stayed there
so long as now; her visits to these parts, happily for us, were few and
short."

"A woman over forty years old!" exclaimed the baroness. "I have heard
say in Ireland that a woman of this description is the most dangerous
mistress a young man can have."

"As to that, I have no knowledge," replied the rector, "and I shall die
in my ignorance."

"And I, too, alas!" said the baroness, naively. "I wish now that I had
loved with love, so as to understand and counsel and comfort Calyste."

The rector did not cross the clean little court-yard alone; the baroness
accompanied him to the gate, hoping to hear Calyste's step coming
through the town. But she heard nothing except the heavy tread of the
rector's cautious feet, which grew fainter in the distance, and finally
ceased when the closing of the door of the parsonage echoed behind him.

V. CALYSTE

The poor mother returned to the salon deeply distressed at finding that
the whole town was aware of what she had thought was known to her alone.
She sat down, trimmed the wick of the lamp by cutting it with a pair
of old scissors, took up once more the worsted-work she was doing, and
awaited Calyste. The baroness fondly hoped to induce her son by this
means to come home earlier and spend less time with Mademoiselle des
Touches. Such calculations of maternal jealousy were wasted. Day after
day, Calyste's visits to Les Touches became more frequent, and every
night he came in later. The night before the day of which we speak it
was midnight when he returned.

The baroness, lost in maternal meditation, was setting her stitches with
the rapidity of one absorbed in thought while engaged in manual labor.
Whoever had seen her bending to the light of the lamp beneath the
quadruply centennial hangings of