"Yes, I know very well. But is the Virgin all that you love like this?"

"No; there is the garden, and there is Antoine--he is dead, I know. But I
think that we should love the dead all the better, not the less, because
they cannot speak or say that they are angry; and perhaps one pains them
very much when one neglects them, and if they are ever so sad, they
cannot rise and rebuke one--that is why I would rather forget the flowers
for the Church than I would the flowers for his grave, because God can
punish me, of course, if he like, but Antoine never can--any more--now."

"You are logical in your sentiment, my dear," said Flamen, who was more
moved than he cared to feel. "The union is a rare one in your sex. Who
taught you to reason?"

"No one. And I do not know what to be logical means. Is it that you laugh
at me?"

"No. I do not laugh. And your pilgrims--they are gone for all day?"

"Yes. They are gone to the Sacred Heart at St. Marie en Bois. It is on
the way to Liége. They will come back at nightfall. And some of them will
be sure to have drunk too much, and the children will get so cross.
Prosper Bar, who is a Calvinist, always says, 'Do not mix up prayer and
play; you would not cut a gherkin in your honey'; but I do not know why
he called prayer a gherkin, because it is sweet enough--sweeter than
anything, I think. When I pray to the Virgin to let me see you next day,
I go to bed quite happy, because she will do it, I know, if it will be
good for me."