“I did—a picture painted on a panel.”

“The portrait of a nun?”

“Yes.”

“You heard her history?”

“Yes.”

“You remember what we saw that night in the berceau?”

“I shall never forget it.”

“You did not connect the two ideas? That would be folly.”

“I thought of the apparition when I saw the portrait,” said I, which was true enough.

“You did not, nor will you fancy,” pursued he, “that a saint in heaven perturbs herself with rivalries of earth? Protestants are rarely superstitious; these morbid fancies will not beset you?”

“I know not what to think of this matter, but I believe a perfectly natural solution of this seeming mystery will one day be arrived at.”

“Doubtless, doubtless. Besides, no good living woman—much less a pure, happy spirit—would trouble amity like ours. N’est-il pas vrai?”

Ere I could answer, Fifine Beck burst in, rosy and abrupt, calling out that I was wanted. Her mother was going into town to call on some English family, who had applied for a prospectus. My services were needed as interpreter. The interruption was not unseasonable. Sufficient for the day is always the evil; for this hour, its good sufficed. Yet I should have liked to ask M. Paul whether the “morbid fancies” against which he warned me wrought in his own brain.