respect for the locality, softened as if by magic at the creaking of my
wicket. She knelt down, piously folded her two ungloved hands, plump,
perfumed, rosy, laden with rings--but let that pass. I seemed to
recognize the hands of the Countess de B., a chosen soul, whom I had the
honor to visit frequently, especially on Saturday, when there is always a
place laid for me at her table.

She raised her little lace veil and I saw that I was not mistaken. It
was the Countess. She smiled at me as at a person with whom she was
acquainted, but with perfect propriety; she seemed to be saying, "Good-
day, my dear Abbe, I do not ask how your rheumatism is, because at this
moment you are invested with a sacred character, but I am interested in
it all the same."

This little smile was irreproachable. I replied by a similar smile, and
I murmured in a very low tone, giving her, too, to understand by the
expression of my face that I was making a unique concession in her favor,
"Are you quite well, dear Madame?"

"Thanks, father, I am quite well." Her voice had resumed an angelic
tone. "But I have just been in a passion."

"And why? Perhaps you have taken for a passion what was really only a
passing moment of temper?"

It does not do to alarm penitents.

"Ah! not at all, it was really a passion, father. My dress had just
been torn from top to bottom; and really it is strange that one should be
exposed to such mishaps on approaching the tribunal of----"