it to my age, not to a want of interest in your welfare. A benefice will do to begin your career with; and I must take care it is not too far from—what call you the place?"

"Tergou, madam."

"A priest gives up much," continued the countess; "often, I fear, he learns too late how much:" and her woman's eye rested a moment on Gerard with mild pity and half surprise at his resigning her sex, and all the heaven they can bestow, and the great parental joys: "at least you shall be near your friends. Have you a mother?"

"Yes, madam; thanks be to God!"

"Good! You shall have a church near Tergou. She will thank me. And now, sir, we must not detain you too long from those who have a better claim on your society than we have. Duchess, oblige me by bidding one of the pages conduct him to the hall of banquet; the way is hard to find."[31]

[31]

Gerard bowed low to the countess and the princess, and backed towards the door.

"I hope it will be a nice benefice," said the princess to him, with a pretty smile, as he was going out; then, shaking her head with an air of solemn misgiving, "but you had better have been Bishop of Liége."

Gerard followed his new conductor, his heart warm with gratitude: but ere he reached the banquet-hall a chill came over him. The mind of one who has led a quiet, uneventful life is not apt to take in contradictory feelings at the same moment and balance them, but rather to be overpowered by each in turn. While Gerard was with the countess, the excitement of so new a situation, the unlooked for promise, the joy and pride it would cause at home, possessed him wholly: but now it was passion's turn to be heard again. What, give up Margaret, whose soft hand he still felt in his, and her deep eyes in his heart? resign her and all the world of love and joy she had opened on him to-day? The revulsion, when it did come, was so strong, that he hastily resolved to say nothing at home about the offered benefice. "The countess is so good," thought he, "she has a hundred ways of aiding a young man's fortune: she will not compel me to be a priest when she shall learn I love one of her sex: one would almost think she does know it, for she cast a strange look on me and said, 'A priest gives up much, too much.' I dare say she will give me a place about the palace." And with this hopeful reflection his mind was eased, and, being now at the entrance of the banqueting-hall, he thanked his conductor, and ran hastily with 

 Prev. P 32/687 next