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, "yass, '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 doze peop' say 'bout Ursin."

"_Qui ci ca?_ What is that?" asked the quadroone, stopping her fan.

"Some peop' say Ursin is crezzie."

"Ah, Pere Jerome!" She leaped to her feet as if he had smitten her, and
putting his words away with an outstretched arm and wide-open palm,
suddenly lifted hands and eyes to heaven, and cried: "I wizh to God--_I
wizh to God_--de whole worl' was crezzie dad same way!" She sank,
trembling, into her chair. "Oh, no, no," she continued, shaking her
head, "'tis not Miche Vignevielle w'at's crezzie." Her eyes lighted with
sudden fierceness. "'Tis dad _law_! Dad _law_ is crezzie! Dad law is a
fool!"

A priest of less heart-wisdom might have replied that the law is--the
law; but Pere Jerome saw that Madame Delphine was expecting this very
response. Wherefore he said, with gentleness:

"Madame Delphine, a priest is not a bailiff, but a physician. How can I
help you?"

A grateful light shone a moment in her eyes, yet there remained a
piteous hostility in the tone in which she demanded:

"_Mais, pou'quoi ye fe cette mechanique la?_"--What