ning, lowered the fan to
her knee, and commenced smoothing its feathers.

"Pere Jerome"--She gnawed her lip and shook her head.

"Well?"

She burst into tears.

The priest rose and loosed the curtain of one of the windows. He did it
slowly--as slowly as he could, and, as he came back, she lifted her face
with sudden energy, and exclaimed:

"Oh, Pere Jerome, de law is brogue! de law is brogue! I brogue it! 'Twas
me! 'Twas me!"

The tears gushed out again, but she shut her lips very tight, and dumbly
turned away her face. Pere Jerome waited a little before replying; then
he said, very gently:

"I suppose dad muss 'ave been by accyden', Madame Delphine?"

The little father felt a wish--one which he often had when weeping women
were before him--that he were an angel instead of a man, long enough to
press the tearful cheek upon his breast, and assure the weeper God would
not let the lawyers and judges hurt her. He allowed a few moments more
to pass, and then asked:

"_N'est-ce-pas_, Madame Delphine? Daz ze way, ain't it?'

"No, Pere Jerome, no. My daughter--oh, Pere Jerome, I bethroath my lill'
girl--to a w'ite man!" And immediately Madame Delphine commenced
savagely drawing a thread in the fabric of her skirt with one trembling
hand, while she drove the fan with the other. "Dey goin' git marry."

On the priest's face came a look of pained surprise. He slowly said:

"Is dad possib', Madame Delphine?"

"Yass," she replied, at first without lifting her eyes; and then again,
"Yass," looking full upon him through her tears, "yaas, 'tis tru'."

He rose and walked once across the room, returned, and said, in the
Creole dialect:

"Is he a good man--without doubt?"

"De bez in God's world!" replied Madame Delphine, with a rapturous
smile.

"My poor, dear friend," said the priest, "I am afraid you are being
deceived by somebody."

There was the pride of an unswerving faith in the triumphant tone and
smile with which she replied, raising and slowly shaking her head:

"Ah-h, no-o-o, Miche! Ah-h, no, no! Not by Ursin Lemaitre-Vignevielle!"

Pere Jerome was confounded. He turned again, and, with his hands at his
back and his eyes cast down, slowly paced the floor.

"He _is_ a good man," he said, by and by, as if he thought aloud. At
length he halted before the woman "Madame Delphine"--

The distressed glance with which she had been following his steps was
lifted to his eyes.

"Suppose dad should be true w'at