Pere Jerome stepped forward and opened the door.
The shadow of some one approaching it from without fell upon the threshold, and a man entered, dressed in dark blue cottonade, lifting from his head a fine Panama hat, and from a broad, smooth brow, fair where the hat had covered it and dark below, gently stroking back his very soft, brown locks.

Madame Delphine slightly started aside, while Pere Jerome reached silently, but eagerly, forward, grasped a larger hand than his own, and motioned its owner to a seat.

Madame Delphine's eyes ventured no higher than to discover that the shoes of the visitor were of white duck.
"Well, Pere Jerome," she said, in a hurried under-tone, "I am just going to say Hail Marys all the time till you find that out for me!" "Well, I hope that will be soon, Madame Carraze.

Good-day, Madame Carraze." And as she departed, the priest turned to the new-comer and extended both hands, saying, in the same familiar dialect in which he had been addressing the quadroone: "Well-a-day, old playmate! After so many years!" They sat down side by side, like husband and wife, the priest playing with the other's hand, and talked of times and seasons past, often mentioning Evariste and often Jean.
Madame Delphine stopped short half-way home and returned to Pere Jerome's.

His entry door was wide open and the parlor door ajar.