Man, why not? Mademoiselle was pleasant: she was young or youngish; her
own clergy were celibates, and--no, he could not argue the matter with a
young or youngish person of her sex. Could it be a reasonable woman--
a woman!--who, disapproved the holy nuptials of the pastors of the
flocks? But we are forbidden to imagine the conducting of an argument
thereon with a lady.

Luther . . . but we are not in Luther's time:--Nature . . . no,
nor can there possibly be allusions to Nature. Mr. Barmby wondered at
Protestant parents taking a Papistical governess for their young flower
of English womanhood. However, she venerated St. Louis; he cordially
also; there they met; and he admitted, that she had, for a Frenchwoman,
a handsome face, and besides an agreeably artificial ingenuousness in
the looks which could be so politely dubious as to appear only dubiously
adverse.

The spell upon Nesta was not blown away on English ground; and when her
father and mother were comparing their impressions, she could not but
keep guard over the deeper among her own. At the Chateau de Gisors,
leftward off Vernon on Seine, it had been one of romance and wonderment,
with inquisitive historic soundings of her knowledge and mademoiselle's,
a reverence for the prisoner's patient holy work, and picturings of his
watchful waiting daily, Nail in hand, for the heaven-sent sunlight on the
circular dungeon-wall through the slits of the meurtrieres. But the
Mausoleum at Dreux spake religiously; it enfolded Mr. Barmby, his voice
re-edified it. The fact that he had discoursed there, though not a word
of the discourse was remembered, allied him to the spirit of a day rather
increasing in sacredness as it receded and left her less the possessor of
it, more the worshipper.