"Is dad possib', Madame Delphine?"
"Yass," she replied, at first without lifting her eyes; and then again, "Yass," looking full upon him through her tears, "yass, 'tis tru'."
He rose and walked once across the room, returned, and said, in the Creole dialect:
"Is he a good man—without doubt?"
"De bez in God's world!" replied Madame Delphine, with a rapturous smile.
"My poor, dear friend," said the priest, "I am afraid you are being deceived by somebody."
There was the pride of an unswerving faith in the triumphant tone and smile with which she replied, raising and slowly shaking her head:
"Ah-h, no-o-o, Miché! Ah-h, no, no! Not by Ursin Lemaitre-Vignevielle!"
Père Jerome was confounded. He turned again, and, with his hands at his back and his eyes cast down, slowly paced the floor.
"He is a good man," he said, by and by, as if he thought aloud. At length he halted before the woman.