m when
he died, which was soon after, and did not see my child for sixteen
years. But we wrote to each other all the time, and she loved me. And
then--at last--" Madame Delphine ceased speaking, but went on diligently
with her agitated fingers, turning down foolish hems lengthwise of her
lap.

"At last your mother-heart conquered," said Pere Jerome.

She nodded.

"The sisters married, the mother died; I saw that even where she was she
did not escape the reproach of her birth and blood, and when she asked
me to let her come--." The speaker's brimming eyes rose an instant. "I
know it was wicked, but--I said, come."

The tears dripped through her hands upon her dress.

"Was it she who was with you last Sunday?"

"Yes."

"And now you do not know what to do with her?"

"_Ah! c'est ca, oui!_--that is it."

"Does she look like you, Madame Delphine?"

"Oh, thank God, no! you would never believe she was my daughter; she is
white and beautiful!"

"You thank God for that which is your main difficulty, Madame Delphine."

"Alas! yes."

Pere Jerome laid his palms tightly across his knees with his arms bowed
out, and fixed his eyes upon the ground, pondering.

"I suppose she is a sweet, good daughter?" said he, glancing at Madame
Delphine without changing his attitude.

Her answer was to raise her eyes rapturously.

"Which gives us the dilemma in its fullest force," said the priest,
speaking as if to the floor. "She has no more place than if she had
dropped upon a strange planet." He suddenly looked up with a brightness
which almost as quickly passed away, and then he looked down again. His
happy thought was the cloister; but he instantly said to himself: "They
cannot have overlooked that choice, except intentionally--which they
have a right to do." He could do nothing but shake his head.

"And suppose you should suddenly die," he said; he wanted to get at once
to the worst.

The woman made a quick gesture, and buried her head in her handkerchief,
with the stifled cry:

"Oh, Olive, my daughter!"

"Well, Madame Delphine," said Pere Jerome, more buoyantly, "one thing is
sure: we _must_ find a way out of this trouble."

"Ah!" she exclaimed, looking heavenward, "if it might be!"

"But it must be!" said the priest.

"But how shall it be?" asked the desponding woman.

"Ah!" said Pere Jerome, with a shrug, "God knows."

"Yes," said the quadroone, with a quick sparkle in her gentle eye; "and
I know, if God wo