hero, this wandering Ulysses. He has come back at last; the tapestry
will not be quite as long as Penelope's? Speak to me of him. Has he
beautiful black eyes, and hair that curls like a grape-vine? Tell me,
_ma belle_!"

"I only saw him a little while," said Mary, "and I felt a great deal
more than I saw. He could not have been any clearer to me than he
always has been in my mind."

"But I think," said Madame de Frontignac, seating Mary, as was her
wont, and sitting down at her feet, "I think you are a little _triste_
about this. Very likely you pity the good priest. It is sad for him;
but a good priest has the Church for his bride, you know."

"You do not think," said Mary, speaking seriously, "that I shall break
my promise given before God to this good man?"

"_Mon Dieu, mon enfant!_ you do not mean to marry the priest, after
all? _Quelle idee!_"

"But I _promised_ him," said Mary.

Madame de Frontignac threw up her hands, with an expression of
vexation.

"What a pity, my little one, you are not in the True Church! Any good
priest could dispense you from that."

"I do not believe," said Mary, "in any earthly power that can dispense
us from solemn obligations which we have assumed before God, and on