She put her feet into them and found that they
were in truth a little too large for her. And this, even this, tended
in some sort to gratify her feelings and soothe the asperity of her
grief. "It is only a quarter of a size," she said to herself, as she
held up her dress that she might look at her feet. And thus she
resolved that she would accept her rival's kindness.
On the following morning the priest came--that Father Jerome whom she
had known as a child, and from whom she had been unable to obtain
ghostly comfort since she had come in contact with the Jew. Her aunt
and her father, Souchey and Lotta Luxa, had all threatened her with
Father Jerome; and when it had become manifest to her that it would be
necessary that the priest should visit her father in his extremity, she
had at first thought that it would be well for her to hide herself.
But the cowardice of this had appeared to her to be mean, and she had
resolved that she would meet her old friend at her father's bedside.
After all, what would his bitterest words be to her after such words
as she had endured from her lover?
Father Jerome came, and she received him in the parlour.
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