"_Ah! c'est ça oui_!--that is it."

"Does she look like you, Madame Delphine?"

"Oh, thank God", no! you would never believe she was my daughter, she is
white and beautiful!"

"You thank God for that which is your main difficulty, Madame Delphine."

"Alas! yes."

Père Jerome laid his palms tightly across his knees with his arms bowed
out, and fixed his eyes upon the ground, pondering.

"I suppose she is a sweet, good daughter?" said he, glancing at Madame
Delphine, without changing his attitude.

Her answer was to raise her eyes rapturously.

"Which gives us the dilemma in its fullest force," said the priest,
speaking as if to the floor. "She has no more place than if she had
dropped upon a strange planet." He suddenly looked up with a brightness
which almost as quickly passed away, and then he looked down again. His
happy thought was the cloister; but he instantly said to himself: "They
cannot have overlooked that choice, except intentionally--which they
have a right to do." He could do nothing but shake his head.

"And suppose you should suddenly die," he said; he wanted to get at once
to the worst.