Euphrasie shook her head. "They are too minute," she said. "You might even think them childish." But Annie had not yet relaxed her grasp, and appeared determined to be satisfied; so Euphrasie continued: "Nevertheless, if you will promise to let me go immediately after, I will give you one of their rules of action." "One, only one?" "One will be enough at a time. When you have solved one rule, it will be the time to ask for more." "Solved one rule? What do you mean by that?" "There is a body and a soul to every religious rule--the letter and the spirit. Observance must be yielded to both. I can only give you the body. God only can teach you to understand the spirit of it." {42} "Well; proceed with your enigma." "You promise to let me go, whether you understand it or not." "Yes, provided the rule is practical," said Annie. "Well, then," said Euphrasie, "one reason that my friends were so happy together--that though there were fifty of them, there was no quarrelling, no ill will, no envy--was, that they constantly endeavored, each one of them, to choose for herself the poorest things; in her diet, the poorest fare; in her clothes, the coarsest habit; in her employment, the most humbling functions." "Impossible!" said Annie. "Stay, cousin!" But Euphrasie had already made her escape, and her reluctance to dwell on these subjects in that presence was so evident that Annie did not choose to pursue her, and she was left to conjecture whether the young French girl had been playing on her credulity or not. The mere fact that fifty ladies had been guided practically by such a principle as that given, was clearly beyond her belief. Not so, however, did Eugene decide. His interest in their young and mysterious inmate was ever on the increase. Each word she uttered was gathered up as food for thought. The ideas were new to him, and, not only so, they were contrary to those in which he had been educated, and he had but a faint glimmering of their meaning. Yet they worked strangely within him, and fain would he have sought explanation from that pale sybil, but that for to-day she had forbidden it. When Annie also had left the apartment, he walked up and down in deep thought repeating to himself: "Man has lost the empire over himself and over inferior nature." "Man has lost the power of high spiritual communion." "_But these may be regained._" "If this be true, any privation or sacrifice may be undergone for their repossession; too small the price, whatever the cost. But then, how can contentment with the meanest things, or filling the humblest offices, assist this conclusion? And this is but one rule; are the others of a like fashion?" The young man was fairly mystified; that the oracle had emitted truth, he doubted not; but a clue to the meaning of that truth was wanting, and where should he find that clue? CHAPTER III. THE "MARIAGE DE CONVENANCE."