"Well, father--but I really dare not."

There are many of these timid little hearts that require to be
encouraged. I said, "Go on, my child, go on."

"My husband," she murmured confusedly, "will not abstain during Lent.
Ought I to compel him, father?"

"Yes, by persuasion."

"But he says that he will go and dine at the restaurant if I do not let
him have any meat. Oh! I suffer terribly from that. Am I not assuming
the responsibility of all that meat, father?"

This young wife really interested me; she had in the midst of one cheek,
toward the corner of the mouth, a small hollow, a kind of little dimple,
charming in the profane sense of the word, and giving a special
expression to her face. Her tiny white teeth glittered like pearls when
she opened her mouth to relate her pious inquietudes; she shed around,
besides, a perfume almost as sweet as that of our altars, although of a
different kind, and I breathed this perfume with an uneasiness full of
scruples, which for all that inclined me to indulgence. I was so close
to her that none of the details of her face escaped me; I could
distinguish, almost in spite of myself, even a little quiver of her left
eyebrow, tickled every now and again by a stray tress of her fair hair.

"Your situation," I said, "is a delicate one; on one hand, your domestic
happiness, and on the other your duty as a Christian." She gave a sigh
from her very heart. "Well, my dear child, my age warrants my speaking