" continued the Countess; "often, I fear, he
learns too late how much;" and her woman's eye rested a moment on Gerard
with mild pity and half surprise at his resigning her sex and all the
heaven they can bestow, and the great parental joys: "at least you shall
be near your friends. Have you a mother?"

"Yes, madam, thanks be to God!"

"Good! You shall have a church near Tergou. She will thank me. And now,
sir, we must not detain you too long from those who have a better claim
on your society than we have. Duchess, oblige me by bidding one of the
pages conduct him to the hall of banquet; the way is hard to find."

Gerard bowed low to the Countess and the Princess, and backed towards
the door.

"I hope it will be a nice benefice," said the Princess to him, with a
pretty smile, as he was going out; then, shaking her head with an air of
solemn misgiving, "but you had better have been Bishop of Liege."

Gerard followed his new conductor, his heart warm with gratitude; but
ere he reached the banquet-hall a chill came over him. The mind of one
who has led a quiet, uneventful life is not apt to take in contradictory
feelings at the same moment and balance them, but rather to be
overpowered by each in turn. While Gerard was with the Countess, the
excitement of so new a situation, the unlooked-for promise the joy
and pride it would cause at home, possessed him wholly; but now it was
passion's turn to be heard again. What! give up Margaret, whose soft
hand he still felt in his, and her deep eyes in his heart? resign her
and all the world of love and joy she had opened on him to-day? The
revulsion, when it did come, was so strong that he hastily resolved
to say nothing at home about the offered benefice. "The Countess is
so good," thought he, "she has a hundred ways of aiding a young man's
fortune: she will not compel me to be a priest when she shall learn I
love one of her sex: one would almost think she does know it, for she
cast a strange look on me, and said, 'A priest gives up much, too much.'
I dare say she will give me a place about the palace." And with this
hopeful reflection his mind was eased, and, being now at the entrance
of the banqueting hall, he thanked his conductor, and ran hastily with
joyful eyes to Margaret. He came in sight of the table--she was gone.
Peter was gone too. Nobody was at the table at all; only a citizen in
sober garments had just tumbled under it dead drunk, and several persons
were raising