forlorn from all the neighbourhood. This custom would,
no doubt, soon become known, and not only her poor pensioners, but the
general crowd would gather to gaze at the Maid as well as to join in
her prayers. It was her great pleasure to sing a hymn to the Virgin,
probably one of the litanies which the unlearned worshipper loves,
with its choruses and constant repetitions, in company with all those
untutored voices, in the dimness of the church, while the twilight
sank into night, and the twinkling stars of candles on the altar made
a radiance in the middle of the gloom. When she had money to give she
divided it, according to the liberal custom of her time, among her poor
fellow-worshippers. These evening services were her recreation. The
days were full of business, of enrolling soldiers, and regulating the
"lances," groups of retainers, headed by their lord, who came to perform
their feudal service.

The ladies of the town who had the advantage of knowing Madame
Marguerite did not fail to avail themselves of this privilege, and
thronged to visit her wonderful guest. They brought her their sacred
medals and rosaries to bless, and asked her a hundred questions. Was
she afraid of being wounded; or was she assured that she would not
be wounded? "No more than others," she said; and she put away their
religious ornaments with a smile, bidding Madame Marguerite touch them,
or the visitors themselves, which would be just as good as if she did
it. She would seem to have been always smiling, friendly, checking with
a laugh the adulation of her visitors, many of whom wore medals with
her own effigy (if only one had been saved for us!) as there were many
banners made after the pattern of hers. But cheerful as she was, a
prevailing tone of sadness now appears to run through her life. On
several occasions she spoke to her confessor and chaplain, who attended
her everywhere, of her death. "If it should be my fate to die soon, tell
the King our master on my part to build chapels where prayer may be made
to the Most High for the salvation of the souls of those who shall die
in the wars for the defence of the kingdom." This was the one thing she
seemed anxious for, and it returned again and again to her mind. Her
thoughts indeed were heavy enough. Her larger enterprises had been
cruelly put a stop to: her companions-in-arms had been dispersed: she
had been separated from her lieutenant Alencon, and from all the friends
between whom and h