GOOD COUNSEL.

“Ah, my friend, have not all young people ridiculous passions?  My son is enamoured of virtue!...  The customs of the word, the need of pleasure, and the facilities of satisfying himself will bring him insensibly to a moderate state of feeling, and at thirty he will be just like any other man; he will enjoy life, and shut his eyes to many things which shock him to-day.”

  PIGAULT-LEBRUN (Le Blanc et le Noir).

At that moment Veronica came in to serve coffee.

In honour of her master’s guest, she had put on her black dress of Associate and her silver medal; and on her head she wore coquettishly an embroidered cap, trimmed with tulle of dazzling whiteness.

The old Cure threw himself into his arm-chair with his head back, in order to contemplate her with admiration.  She went and came, clearing the table, and he followed her movements with the eye of a connoisseur, estimating the value of an article.

He smiled sanctimoniously, and the smile and attention, which the bashful Veronica noticed, made her blush and cast her eyes modestly down.

-Eh!  Eh! he seemed to say, here is a girl who is still fit to adorn a bed.

When the servant had left the room, he rose, drew the screen between the table and the door, and then came and sat down again facing Marcel.

—­I don’t understand, he said, why a man should go and search away from home, amid perils and obstacles, for a pleasure which he can obtain comfortably, quietly, with no fear or disquietude, at his own fire-side.

—­To what are you pleased to allude?

—­There is a girl, Ridoux continued, who certainly has merit, and I am convinced that many younger ones are not worth as much as she.  She is there, in your hands, at your door, in your home; ready, I am sure, to satisfy all your requirements.  Avail yourself of her willingness?  No?  Make use of this blessing which you possess?  Again, no.  You throw it aside to run after phantoms.  Alas, all the men of your age are the same:  like the dog in the fable, they let go their prey to seize the shadow.  You are like the fool, who spends his life in vainly following fortune to the four quarters of the world, and who, when he returns to his hearth wearied, worn-out and aged, finds it sitting at his door.  But he is too late to be able to enjoy it.

That girl is really very well:  handsome, fresh, very well-preserved, with a decent and respectable appearance.  Why then do you disdain her?  Why?  Tell me.  Because she is a few years older than you?  But that is just what you young priests require.  You require women of that age:  matrons with more sense than yourselves.  She is staid, she is ripe, she is experienced, a mistress of love’s science, and above all, she has a great quality, an inestimable quality, she is cautious and will never compromise you.

—­Uncle, I implore you.