you must go alone, well!
Jean, on that day, I promise you to be brave, and not take your courage
from you.

"And now, Monsieur le Cure, it is not to him, it is to you that I am
speaking; I want you to answer me, not him. Tell me, if he loves me,
and feels me worthy of his love, would it be just to make me expiate so
severely the fortune that I possess? Tell me, should he not agree to be
my husband?"

"Jean," said the old priest, gravely, "marry her. It is your duty, and
it will be your happiness!"

Jean approached Bettina, took her in his arms, and pressed upon her brow
the first kiss.

Bettina gently freed herself, and addressing the Abbe, said:

"And now, Monsieur l'Abbe, I have still one thing to ask you. I wish--I
wish--"

"You wish?"

"Pray, Monsieur le Cure, embrace me, too."

The old priest kissed her paternally on both cheeks, and then Bettina
continued:

"You have often told me, Monsieur le Cure, that Jean was almost like
your own son, and I shall be almost like your own daughter, shall I not?
So you will have two children, that is all."

...........................

A month after, on the 12th of September, at mid-day, Bettina, in the
simplest of wedding-gowns, entered the church of Longueval, while,
placed behind the altar, the trumpets of the 9th Artillery rang joyously
through the arches of the old church.

Nancy Turner had begged for the honor of playing the organ on this
solemn occasion, for the poor little harmonium had disappeared; an
organ, with resplendent pipes, rose in the gallery of the church--it was
Miss Percival's wedding present to the Abbe Constantin.

The old Cure said mass, Jean and Bettina knelt before him, he pronounced
the benediction, and then remained for some moments in prayer, his arms
extended, calling down, with his whole soul, the blessings of Heaven on
his two children.

Then floated from the organ the same reverie of Chopin's which Bettina
had played the first time that she had entered that little village
church, where was to be consecrated the happiness of her life.

And this time it was Bettina who wept.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Ancient pillars of stone, embrowned and gnawed by time
And they are shoulders which ought to be seen
Believing themselves irresistible
But she will give me nothing but money
Duty, simply accepted and simply discharged
Frenchman has only one real luxury--his revolutions
God may