pardons. I have tried to paint what I saw and not that of which I dreamed.
If my figures are not chaste, the fault is not mine, but of those who
passed before me and whose features I sketched as my pen ran on.

You are warned therefore, Madam, that when you open this book, you will not
find a "Treatise on Morality". Here are only the simple and pastoral loves
of a poor and obscure village priest. An idyll in the shade of the
parsonage limes and under the motionless eye of the weather-cock on the
belfry.

If then you come across any word which offends your chaste ears, any
picture which distresses your modest eye, blame only your own curiosity.

HECTOR FRANCE.




LIST OF CHAPTERS.


Unto the pure all things are pure:
but unto them that are Defiled and
Unbelieving is nothing pure: but even
their mind and conscience is Defiled.
They profess that they know God;
but in Works they Deny Him, being
Abominable and Disobedient, and unto
every good work Reprobate.