live in this place. But I shall pray daily
to the good God to open your eyes, and make you see that you are living
in heinous sin each day that you live away from your husband;" and
Father Antoine rose with the involuntary habit of the priest of
dismissing a parishioner when there was no more needful to be said.
Hetty took her leave with a feeling of meek gratitude, hitherto unknown
in her bosom. Spite of Father Antoine's disapproval, spite of his
arbitrary Romanism, she trusted and liked him.

"It is no matter if he does think me wrong," she said to herself. "That
needn't disturb me if I know I am right. I think he is wrong to pray to
the Virgin and the saints."

Hetty had brought with her a sum of money more than sufficient to buy a
little cottage, and fit it up with all needful comforts. She had no
sentimental dispositions towards deprivation and wretchedness. All her
plannings looked toward a useful, cheery, comfortable life. Among her
purchases were gardening utensils, which she could use herself, and
seeds and shrubs suited to the soil of St. Mary's. Strangely enough,
the only cottage which she could find at all adapted to her purpose was
one very near Father Antoine's, and almost precisely like it. It stood
in the edge of the forest, and had still left in its enclosure many of
the stumps of recently felled trees. All Hetty's farmer's instincts
revived in full force; and, only a few days after Father Antoine's
conversation with her, he found her one morning superintending the
uprooting of these stumps, and making preparations for grading the land.
As he watched her active movements, energetic tones, and fresh open
face, he fell into a maze of wondering thought. This was no morbid
sentimentalist; no pining, heart-broken woman. Except that truthfulness
was stamped on every lineament of Hetty's countenance, Father Antoine
would have doubted her story; and, except that her every act showed such
vigorous common sense, he would have doubted her sanity. As it was, his
perplexity deepened; so also did his interest in her. It was impossible
not to admire this brisk, kindly, outspoken woman, who already moved
about in the village with a certain air of motherly interest in every
thing and everybody; had already begun to "help" in her own sturdy
fashion, and had already won the good-will of old and young.

"The good God will surely open her eyes in his own time," thought Father
Antoine, and in his heart he pondered much wha