“On the contrary, I shall apparently have to spend a great deal of money.”
“You will not calumniate, or—”
“Oh! oh!”
“—injure your neighbor?”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Come, tell me your plan,” said the abbe, now becoming curious.
“Suppose, instead of driving out one nail by another,—this is what I thought at my prie-Dieu after imploring the Blessed Virgin to enlighten me,—I were to free Calyste by persuading Monsieur de Rochefide to take back his wife? Instead of lending a hand to evil for the sake of doing good to my daughter, I should do one great good by another almost as great—”
The vicar looked at the Portuguese lady, and was pensive.
“That is evidently an idea that came to you from afar,” he said, “so far that—”
“I have thanked the Virgin for it,” replied the good and humble duchess; “and I have made a vow—not counting a novena—to give twelve hundred francs to some poor family if I succeed. But when I communicated my plan to Monsieur de Grandlieu he began to laugh, and said: ‘Upon my honor, at your time of life I think you women have a devil of your own.’”