"Well-a-day, old playmate! After so many years!"

They sat down side by side, like husband and wife, the priest playing
with the other's hand, and talked of times and seasons past, often
mentioning Evariste and often Jean.

Madame Delphine stopped short half-way home and returned to Père
Jerome's. His entry door was wide open and the parlor door ajar. She
passed through the one and with downcast eyes was standing at the other,
her hand lifted to knock, when the door was drawn open and the white
duck shoes passed out. She saw, besides, this time the blue cottonade
suit.

"Yes," the voice of Père Jerome was saying, as his face appeared in the
door--"Ah! Madame"--

"I lef' my para_sol_," said Madame Delphine, in English.

There was this quiet evidence of a defiant spirit hidden somewhere down
under her general timidity, that, against a fierce conventional
prohibition, she wore a bonnet instead of the turban of her caste, and
carried a parasol.

Père Jerome turned and brought it.

He made a motion in the direction in which the late visitor had
disappeared.

"Madame Delphine, you saw dat man?"