Henwick, the Catholic priest of Dullerton, she went the length of shaking her head, and observing that people who were in exile had their purgatory in this world, and went straight to heaven when they died. Father Henwick had been brought up at S. Sulpice, and spoke French like a native, and was as good as a born Frenchman. She could pour her half-uttered pinings into his ear without fear or scruple; her dreams of returning _dans mon pays_ at some future day, when M. le Comte would have married mademoiselle. She could even confide to this trusty ear her anxieties on the latter head, her fear that M. le Comte, being a philosopher, would not know how to go about finding a husband for Franceline. She could indulge freely in motherful praises of Franceline’s perfections, and tell over and over again the same stories of her nurseling’s babyhood and childhood; how certain traits had frightened her that the _petite_ was going to turn out a very Jezabel for wickedness, but how she had lived to find out her mistake. She loved notably to recall one instance of these juvenile indications of character; when one day, after bellowing for a whole hour without ceasing, the child suddenly stopped, and Mme. la Comtesse called out from her pillows under the palm-tree: “At last! Thank goodness it’s over!” and how Franceline stamped her small foot, and sobbed out: “No-o-o, it’s not over! I repose myself!” and began again louder than ever. And how another day, when a powerful Arab who was leading her mule over the hills suddenly lashed his whip across the shoulders of a little boy fast asleep on the pathway, waking him up with a howl of pain, Franceline clutched her little fist and struck the savage a box on the ear, screaming at him in French: “O you wicked! I wish you were a thief, and I’d lock you up! I wish you were a murderer, and I’d cut your head off! I wish you were a candle, and I’d blow you out!” Father Henwick would listen to the same stories, and delight Angélique by assuring her for the twentieth time that they were certain pledges of future strength and decision in the woman. And when Angélique would wind up with the usual remark, “Ah! our little one is born for something great; she would make a famous queen, Monsieur le Curé,” he would cordially agree with her, revolving, nevertheless, in his own mind the theory that there are many kinds of greatness, and many queens who go through life without the coronation ceremony that crowns them with the outward symbols of royalty.