"Ah pardon, I _am_ late, but the night is heavenly, and the spring comes on divinely. I have been just now towards Briois, and I could have walked, I think, on to La Ferté without fatigue. My legs do improve in these pleasant days, and the warmth stirs my blood. I am glad, father, you will have a church. Are you sure it is best to build it in St. Choiseul?" I answered.
"Well there are not so many here who would need it and _pas d'abeilles pas de miel;_" I said laughing.
"But, Alfred, we are to have a new visitor to live with us in St. Choiseul, a rich man from Bordeaux, who is a leader of our congregations there. He is too what the English call, an exhorter, _un homme qui exhorte_; very eloquent, a great preacher in his way. If the church is built in our village he will help us, and then it might be that he will be willing to be our pastor too. He is a relative of _le Capitaine_, and now he has suffered a great sorrow. His daughter--the apple of his eye--died on the same day that Blanchette left us, _nous laissait_. The captain begged him to come to St. Choiseul, and he consented. It will be good for the captain, good for St. Choiseul--good for all of us. Is it not so?"
"Yes, mother," said Gabrielle, and she leaned towards her with her gentle smile of reassurance--there had been growing between sister and myself, and our parents, since Blanchette's death, a severer feeling of religious estrangement--"It _will_ be good. I have heard Père Grandin. I heard him in the wards of the hospital, and he is a good man, _parlant le plus beau? français avec une voix délicieuse_."
Mother and father were delighted; it was a great surprise, and during our evening meal we talked of nothing else than the coming of Père Grandin. They asked Gabrielle about him with an increasing pleasure, as they saw how really admiring sister was of the excellent man's skill and sweetness. It was a pleasant time, and in the domestic glow of confidence, that the Père Grandin would become an instrument of propitiation, rather than of discord, while Julie placed before us one of Hortense's masterpieces--_chefs d'oeuvres_--_le ragout de mouton_, with garnishments of peppers and haricots, with her hot cakes--_pains de seigle_--and the melting _chou-fleur_ and the inspiriting Burgundy, we bloomed, so to say, into a renewed affection. It was admirable. I recall it--shall I ever forget that wondrous night?--almost as if it had been a moment ago. I was soothed and quieted, and the rising frenzy of my blood subsided, and a most ingratiating blissfulness invaded me, and we lingered long at the table. Gabrielle was so gay and reminiscent it seemed as if she loved the hospital, now she was well free of it, and, as I listened in astonishment, I slowly realized that Gabrielle was responding to some hidden elation, and that--Was it her ecstacy to show me her strange power? Ah, yes, there was, too, her gladness that mother and father were to be away that night, and so--_Voila, la diablerie sans bornes!_ Bah, I will confess I was displeased, and felt a little disgusted amazement at Gabrielle.