"Then, mademoiselle, you will cease wearying yourself with—with—"
"With unwomanly exertions against him," said Bidiane, with a quivering lip and a laughing eye.
"Hardly that,—but you are vexing yourself unnecessarily."
"Don't you think that my good cousin here ought to go to Parliament?" she asked, wistfully.
Father Duvair laughed outright, refused to commit himself, and went slowly away.
"I like him," said Bidiane, as she watched him out of sight, "he is so even-tempered, and he never scolds his flock as some clergymen do. Just to think of his going down into that cellar and letting all that liquor run out. His boots were quite wet, and did you notice the splashes on his nice black cassock?"
"Yes; who will get the fifty dollars?"
"Dear me, I forgot all about it. I have known a good deal of money to go into my aunt's big pocket, but very little comes out. Just excuse me for a minute,—I may get it if I pounce upon her at once."
Bidiane ran to the house, from whence issued immediately after a lively sound of squealing. In a few minutes she appeared in the doorway, cramming something in her pocket and looking over her shoulder at her aunt, who stood slapping her sides and vowing that she had been robbed.