He would presently have passed on, but the one who had spoken before said: "I thought you lived in the Rue des Ursulines." "Yes; I am going this way to see a sick person." The woman looked up at him with an expression of mingled confidence and timidity.
"It must be a blessed thing to be so useful as to be needed by the good God," she said.
Pere Jerome smiled: "God does not need me to look after his sick; but he allows me to do it, just as you let your little boy in frocks carry in chips." He might have added that he loved to do it, quite as much.
It was plain the woman had somewhat to ask, and was trying to get courage to ask it.
"You have a little boy ?" asked the priest.
"No, I have only my daughter;" she indicated the girl at her side.

Then she began to say something else, stopped, and with much nervousness asked: "Pere Jerome, what was the name of that man ?" "His name ?" said the priest.

"You wish to know his name ?" "Yes, Monsieur" (or _Miche_, as she spoke it); "it was such a beautiful story." The speaker's companion looked another way.
"His name," said Father Jerome,--"some say one name and some another.
Some think it was Jean Lafitte, the famous; you have heard of him?
And do you go to my church, Madame---- ?" "No, Miche; not in the past; but from this time, yes.

My name"-- she choked a little, and yet it evidently gave her pleasure to offer this mark of confidence--"is Madame Delphine--Delphine Carraze.".