r each has helped the
other to sin. Oh, where is there any room, in this world of common
disgrace, for pride? Even if we had no common hope, a common despair
ought to bind us together and forever silence the voice of scorn!"

And again, this:

"Even in the promise to Noe, not again to destroy the race with a flood,
there is a whisper of solemn warning. The moral account of the
antediluvians was closed off and the balance brought down in the year of
the deluge; but the account of those who come after runs on and on, and
the blessed bow of promise itself warns us that God will not stop it
till the Judgment Day! O God, I thank thee that that day must come at
last, when thou wilt destroy the world, and stop the interest on my
account!"

It was about at this point that Pere Jerome noticed, more particularly
than he had done before, sitting among the worshippers near him, a
small, sad-faced woman, of pleasing features, but dark and faded, who
gave him profound attention. With her was another in better dress,
seemingly a girl still in her teens, though her face and neck were
scrupulously concealed by a heavy veil, and her hands, which were small,
by gloves.

"Quadroones," thought he, with a stir of deep pity.

Once, as he uttered some stirring word, he saw the mother and daughter
(if such they were), while they still bent their gaze upon him, clasp
each other's hand fervently in the daughter's lap. It was at these
words:

"My friends, there are thousands of people in this city of New Orleans
to whom society gives the ten commandments of God with all the _nots_
rubbed out! Ah! good gentlemen! if God sends the poor weakling to
purgatory for leaving the right path, where ought some of you to go who
strew it with thorns and briers!"

The movement of the pair was only seen because he watched for it. He
glanced that way again as he said:

"O God, be very gentle with those children who would be nearer heaven
this day had they never had a father and mother, but had got their
religious training from such a sky and earth as we have in Louisiana
this holy morning! Ah! my friends, nature is a big-print catechism!"

The mother and daughter leaned a little farther forward, and exchanged
the same spasmodic hand-pressure as before. The mother's eyes were full
of tears.

"I once knew a man," continued the little priest, glancing to a side
aisle where he had noticed Evariste and Jean sitting against each other,
"who was carefully