“You are here, Monsieur Godefroid,--for you know already that we shall call you by your baptized name,--you are here in the midst of ruins caused by a great tempest. We have each been struck and wounded in our hearts, our family interests, or our fortunes, by that whirlwind of forty years, which overthrew religion and royalty, and dispersed the elements of all that made old France. Words that seem quite harmless do sometimes wound us all, and that is why we are so silent. We speak rarely of ourselves; we forget ourselves, and we have found a way to substitute another life for our lives. It is because, after hearing your confidence at Monsieur Mongenod’s, I thought there seemed a likeness between your situation and ours, that I induced my four friends to receive you among us; besides, we wanted another monk in our convent. But what are you going to do? No one can face solitude without some moral resources.” “Madame, I should be very glad, after hearing what you have said, if you yourself would be the guide of my destiny.” “You speak like a man of the world,” she answered, “and are trying to flatter me,--a woman of sixty! My dear child,” she went on, “let me tell you that you are here among persons who believe strongly in God; who have all felt his hand, and have yielded themselves to him almost as though they were Trappists. Have you ever remarked the profound sense of safety in a true priest when he has given himself to the Lord, when he listens to his voice, and strives to make himself a docile instrument in the hand of Providence? He has no longer vanity or self-love,--nothing of all that which wounds continually the hearts of the world. His quietude is equal to that of the fatalist; his resignation does truly enable him to bear all. The true priest, such a one as the Abbe de Veze, lives like a child with its mother; for the Church, my dear Monsieur Godefroid, is a good mother. Well, a man can be a priest without the tonsure; all priests are not in orders. To vow one’s self to good, that is imitating a true priest; it is obedience to God. I am not preaching to you; I am not trying to convert you; I am explaining our lives to you.” “Instruct me, madame,” said Godefroid, deeply impressed, “so that I may not fail in any of your rules.” “That would be hard upon you; you will learn them by degrees. Never speak here of your misfortunes; they are slight compared to the catastrophes by which the lives of those you are now among were blasted.”