nced the unctions on the five parts
of the body where dwell the senses: the five windows by which evil
enters into the soul.

First upon the eyes, upon the closed eyelids, the right and then the
left; and slowly, lightly, he traced with his thumb the sign of the
Cross.

"_Per istam sanctam unctionem, et suam piissimam misericordiam,
indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid per visum deliquisti_." ("By this holy
anointing and His gracious mercy, the Lord forgive whatever sins thou
hast committed through _seeing_.")[*]

[*] This formula is repeated with reference to the other
senses--hearing, smell, taste, and touch.

And the sins of the sight were redeemed; lascivious looks, immodest
curiosity, the pride of spectacles, unwholesome readings, tears shed for
guilty troubles.

And she, dear child, knew no other book than the "Golden Legend," no
other horizon than the apse of the Cathedral, which hid from view all
the rest of the world. She had wept only in the struggle of obedience
and the renunciation of passion.

The Abbe Cornille wiped both her eyes with a bit of cotton, which he
afterwards put into one of the little cornets of paper.

Then Monseigneur anointed the ears, with their lobes as delicate and
transparent as pearl, first the right ear, afterwards the left, scarcely
moistened with the sign of the cross.

"_Per istam sanctam unctionem, et suam piissimam misericordiam,
indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid per auditum deliquisti_."

So all the abominations of hearing were atoned for: all the words and
music which corrupt, the slanders, the calumnies, the blasphemies, the
sinful propositions listened to with complacency, the falsehoods of love
which aided the forgetfulness of duty, the profane songs which excited
the senses, the violins of the orchestra which, as it were, wept
voluptuously under the brilliant lights.

She in her isolated life, like that of a cloistered nun--she had never
even heard the free gossip of the neighbours, or the oath of a carman as
he whips his horses. The only music that had ever entered her ears was
that of the sacred hymns, the rumblings of the organs, the confused
murmurings of prayers, with which at times vibrated all this fresh
little house, so close to the side of the great church.

The Abbe, after having dried the ears with cotton, put that bit also
into one of the white cornets.

Monseigneur now passed to the nostrils, the right and then the left,
like two petals of a