Père Antoines Date-Palm | Page 2

speaker, her eyes grew luminous for an
instant. Then she passed on, her face as immobile as before in its
setting of wavy gold hair.
"Entre or et roux Dieu fit ses longs cheveux."
One night Emile and Anglice were missing. They had flown--but
whither, nobody knew, and nobody, save Antoine, cared. It was a

heavy blow to Antoine--for he had himself half resolved to confess his
love to Anglice and urge her to fly with him.
A strip of paper slipped from a volume on Antoine's prie-dieu, and
fluttered to his feet.
"Do not be angry," said the bit of paper, piteously; "forgive us, for we
love." (Par-donnez-nous, car nous aimons.)
Three years went by wearily enough. Antoine had entered the Church,
and was already looked upon as a rising man; but his face was pale and
his heart leaden, for there was no sweetness in life for him.
Four years had elapsed, when a letter, covered with outlandish
postmarks, was brought to the young priest--a letter from Anglice. She
was dying;--would he forgive her? Emile, the year previous, had fallen
a victim to the fever that raged on the island; and their child, Anglice,
was likely to follow him. In pitiful terms she begged Antoine to take
charge of the child until she was old enough to enter the convent of the
Sacré-Cour. The epistle was finished hastily by another hand,
informing Antoine of Madame Jardin's death; it also told him that
Anglice had been placed on board a vessel shortly to leave the island
for some Western port.
The letter, delayed by storm and shipwreck, was hardly read and wept
over when little Anglice arrived.
On beholding her, Antoine uttered a cry of joy and surprise--she was so
like the woman he had worshipped.
The passion that had been crowded down in his heart broke out and
lavished its rich-ness on this child, who was to him not only the
Anglice of years ago, but his friend Emile Jardin also.
Anglice possessed the wild, strange beauty of her mother--the bending,
willowy form, the rich tint of skin, the large tropical eyes, that had
almost made Antoine's sacred robes a mockery to him.

For a month or two Anglice was wildly unhappy in her new home. She
talked continually of the bright country where she was born, the fruits
and flowers and blue skies, the tall, fan-like trees, and the streams that
went murmuring through them to the sea. Antoine could not pacify her.
By and by she ceased to weep, and went about the cottage in a weary,
disconsolate way that cut Antoine to the heart. A long-tailed paroquet,
which she had brought with her in the ship, walked solemnly behind
her from room to room, mutely pining, it seemed, for those heavy
orient airs that used to ruffle its brilliant plumage.
Before the year ended, he noticed that the ruddy tinge had faded from
her cheek, that her eyes had grown languid, and her slight figure more
willowy than ever.
A physician was consulted. He could discover nothing wrong with the
child, except this fading and drooping. He failed to account for that. It
was some vague disease of the mind, he said, beyond his skill.
So Anglice faded day after day. She seldom left the room now. At last
Antoine could not shut out the fact that the child was passing away. He
had learned to love her so!
"Dear heart," he said once, "what is't ails thee?"
"Nothing, mon père," for so she called him.
The winter passed, the balmy spring had come with its magnolia
blooms and orange blossoms, and Anglice seemed to revive. In her
small bamboo chair, on the porch, she swayed to and fro in the fragrant
breeze, with a peculiar undulating motion, like a graceful tree.
At times something seemed to weigh upon her mind. Antoine observed
it, and waited. Finally she spoke.
"Near our house," said little Anglice--"near our house, on the island,
the palm-trees are waving under the blue sky. Oh, how beautiful! I
seem to lie beneath them all day long. I am very, very happy. I yearned

for them so much that I grew ill--don't you think it was so, mon père?"
"Hélas, yes!" exclaimed Antoine, suddenly. "Let us hasten to those
pleasant islands where the palms are waving."
Anglice smiled.
"I am going there, mon père."
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. Death, like another
Emile, had stolen his new Anglice. 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 tranquil spring evenings,