The old priest continued his walk, musing over all this; then he thought,
too--the greatest saints have their little weaknesses--he thought, too,
of the beloved habits of thirty years thus rudely interrupted. Every
Thursday and every Sunday he had dined at the castle. How he had been
petted, coaxed, indulged! Little Camille--she was eight years old--would
come and sit on his knee and say to him:

"You know, Monsieur le Cure, it is in your church that I mean to be
married, and grandmamma will send such heaps of flowers to fill, quite
fill the church--more than for the month of Mary. It will be like a
large garden--all white, all white, all white!"

The month of Mary! It was then the month of Mary. Formerly, at this
season, the altar disappeared under the flowers brought from the
conservatories of Longueval. None this year were on the altar, except a
few bouquets of lily-of-the-valley and white lilac in gilded china vases.
Formerly, every Sunday at high mass, and every evening during the month
of Mary, Mademoiselle Hebert, the reader to Madame de Longueval, played
the little harmonium given by the Marquise. Now the poor harmonium,
reduced to silence, no longer accompanied the voices of the choir or the
children's hymns. Mademoiselle Marbeau, the postmistress, would, with
all her heart, have taken the place of Mademoiselle Hebert, but she dared
not, though she was a little musical! She was afraid of being remarked
as of the clerical party, and denounced by the Mayor, who was a
Freethinker. That might have been injurious to her interests, and
prevented her promotion.

He had nearly reached the end of the wall of the park--that park of which
every corner was known to the old priest. The road now followed the