along the meadow-lands.

Joan had not the defect of so many excellent but tedious women, who
love talk for the mere sake of talking: she seems to have been
reserved; but, as she proved later on, she was never at a loss for a
word in season, and with a few words could speak volumes. From her
childhood she showed an intense and ever-increasing devotion to things
holy; her delight in prayer became almost a passion. She never wearied
of visiting the churches in and about her native village, and she
passed many an hour in a kind of rapt trance before the crucifixes and
saintly images in these churches. Every morning saw her at her
accustomed place at the early celebration of her Lord's Sacrifice; and
if in the afternoon the evening bells sounded across the fields, she
would kneel devoutly, and commune in her heart with her divine Master
and adored saints. She loved above all things these evening bells,
and, when it seemed to her the ringer grew negligent, would bribe him
with some little gift--the worked wool from one of her sheep or some
other trifle--to remind him in the future to be more instant in his
office. That this little trait in Joan is true, we have the testimony
of the bell-ringer himself to attest.

This devotion to her religious duties had not the effect of making
Joan less of a companion to her fellow-villagers. She could not have
been so much beloved by them as she was had she held herself aloof
from them: on the contrary, Joan enjoyed to play with the lads and
village lasses; and we hear of her swiftness of foot in the race, of
her gracefulness in the village dance, either by the stream or around
an old oak-tree in the forest, which was said to be the favourite
haunt of the fairies.

Often in the midst of these sports Joan would break away from her
companions, and enter some church or chapel, where she placed garlands
of flowers around statues of her beloved saints.

Thus passed away the early years of the maiden's gentle life, among
her native fields, with nothing especially to distinguish her from her
companions beyond her goodness and piety. A great change, however, was
near at hand. The first of those mysterious and supernatural events
which played so all-important a part in the life of our heroine
occurred in the summer of 1425, when Joan was in her thirteenth year.
In her trial at Rouen, on being asked by her judges what was the first
manifestation of these visions, she answered that the first indi