Ay, indeed. A week from that evening the wax candles burned at her feet and forehead, lighting her on the journey.
All was over. Now was Antoine's heart empty. He had nothing to do but to lay the blighted flower away.
Père Antoine made a shallow grave in his garden, and heaped the fresh brown mould over his idol.
In the genial spring evenings the priest was seen sitting by the mound, his finger closed in the unread prayer-book.
The summer broke on that sunny land; and in the cool morning twilight, and after nightfall, Antoine lingered by the grave. He could never be with it enough.
One morning he observed a delicate stem, with two curiously shaped emerald leaves, springing up from the centre of the mound. At first he merely noticed it casually; but at length the plant grew so tall, and was so strangely unlike anything he had ever seen before, that he examined it with care.
How straight and graceful and exquisite it was! When it swung to and fro with the summer wind, in the twilight, it seemed to Antoine as if little Anglice were standing there in the garden!
The days stole by, and Antoine tended the fragile shoot, wondering what sort of blossom it would unfold, white, or scarlet, or golden. One Sunday, a stranger, with a bronzed, weather-beaten face like a sailor's, leaned over the garden-rail, and said to him,—
"What a fine young date-palm you have there, Sir!"
"Mon Dieu!" cried Père Antoine, "and is it a palm?"