me.  He always stood ready to give me his arm to take me to hear mass before we set out each day.  The perfect calm, and the quiet moving on, began to do me good.  I felt as if the journey had always been going on, and only wished it were endless, for when it was over I should feel my desolation, and have no more to do for my Philippe.  But I began to respond to my poor boy’s caresses and playfulness a little more; I was not so short and maussade with my women or with my good brother, and I tried to pray at mass.  My brother has since told me that he never felt more relieved in his life than once when he made little Gaspard bring me some blue corn-flowers and wheat, which reminded me of my English home, so that I began to weep so profusely, that he carried away the poor frightened child, and left me to Tryphena.

One afternoon at a little village there was a look of festival; the bells were ringing, everybody was hurrying to the church, and when we stopped at the door of the inn my brother came to the carriage-window and said he was afraid that we should not find it easy to proceed at once, for a mission priest was holding a station, and no one seemed able to attend to anything else.

‘He is a true saint! he is just about to preach,’ said the landlady, who had come out with her gayest apron, her whitest cap, and all her gold chains.  ’Ah! the poor lady, it would do her heart good to hear him preach; and by that time the roast would be ready—­an admirable piece of venison, sent for the occasion.  There he is, the blessed man!’

And as I had just alighted from the carriage, for our mules had made a double stage and could not go farther, I saw coming from the prebytere three or four priests, with the sexton and the serving boys.  One of them, a spare thin man, with a little bronze crucifix in his hand, paused as he saw the hearse drawn up, clasped his hands in prayer, and then lifted them in benediction of him who lay within.  I saw his face, and there was in it an indescribable heavenly sweetness and pity which made me say to my brother:  ’I must go and hear him.’

My brother was so glad to hear me express any wish, that I believe, if I had asked to go and dance on the village green, he would almost have permitted it; and leaving my little one to play in the garden under Tryphena’s care, he gave me his arm, and we went into the church, crowded—­crowded so that we could hardly find room; but my deep mourning made the good people respectfully make place for us and give us chairs.

Ah! that sermon!  I cannot tell you it in detail; I only know that it gave the strongest sense of healing balm to my sore heart, and seemed in a wonderful way to lift me up into the atmosphere where my Philippe was gone, making me feel that what kept me so far—­far from him was not death, nor his coffin, but my own thick husk of sin and worldliness.  Much more there was, which seems now to have grown into my very soul; and by the time it was over I was weeping tears no longer bitter, and feeling nothing so much as the need to speak to that priest.