er fevered cheeks; then a deep sigh escaped between her
lips. The sudden joy of finding the father's spirit in the son, who had
grown all at once to be a man, almost killed her.

"Angel of heaven," she cried, weeping, "by one word you have effaced all
my sorrows. Ah! I can bear them.--This is my son," she said, "I bore, I
reared this man," and she raised her hands above her, and clasped them
as if in ecstasy, then she lay back on the pillow.

"Mother, your face is growing pale!" cried the lad.

"Some one must go for a priest," she answered, with a dying voice.

Louis wakened Annette, and the terrified old woman hurried to the
parsonage at Saint-Cyr.

When morning came, Mme. Willemsens received the sacrament amid the most
touching surroundings. Her children were kneeling in the room, with
Annette and the vinedresser's family, simple folk, who had already
become part of the household. The silver crucifix, carried by a
chorister, a peasant child from the village, was lifted up, and the
dying mother received the Viaticum from an aged priest. The Viaticum!
sublime word, containing an idea yet more sublime, an idea only
possessed by the apostolic religion of the Roman church.

"This woman has suffered greatly!" the old cure said in his simple way.

Marie Willemsens heard no voices now, but her eyes were still fixed upon
her children. Those about her listened in terror to her breathing in the
deep silence; already it came more slowly, though at intervals a deep
sigh told them that she still lived, and of a struggle within her; then
at last it ceased. Every one burst into tears except Marie. He, poor
child, was still too young to know what death meant.

Annette and the vinedresser's wife closed the eyes of the adorable
woman, whose beauty shone out in all its radiance after death. Then the
women took possession of the chamber of death, removed the furniture,
wrapped the dead in her winding-sheet, and laid her upon the couch. They
lit tapers about her, and arranged everything--the crucifix, the sprigs
of box, and the holy-water stoup--after the custom of the countryside,
bolting the shutters and drawing the curtains. Later the curate came to
pass the night in prayer with Louis, who refused to leave his mother. On
Tuesday morning an old woman and two children and a vinedresser's wife
followed the dead to her grave. These were the only mourners. Yet
this was a woman whose wit and beauty and charm had won a European
reputat