pply of
oil necessary for the lamp in the sanctuary. Soon the sacred flame
sputtered, palpitated, flapped miserably over the crusted wick: the
cure, responsible before Heaven for the life of his lamp, tottered
away from the altar with groans of anguish. Arrived in the garden, he
threw himself on his knees, crying _Mea culpa_, and beating his bosom.
The garden contained only medicinal plants, shaded by a linden and an
elder: completely desperate, the unhappy priest fixed his moist eyes
on the latter, when lo! the bark opened, the trunk parted, and a jet
of clear aromatic liquid spouted forth, quite different from any sap
yielded by elder before. It was oil. A miracle!

The report spread. The grocer came and humbly visited the priest in
his garden, his haughty hat, crammed with bills enough to have spread
agony through all the cottages of Romainville, humbly carried between
his legs. He came proposing a little speculation. In exchange for a
single spigot to be inserted in the tree, and the hydraulic rights
going with the same, he offered all the bounties dearest to the
priestly heart--unlimited milk and honey, livers of fat geese and pies
lined with rabbit. The priest, though hungry--hungry with the demoniac
hunger of a fat and paunchy man--turned his back on the tempter.

[Illustration: STORY OF AN OLD MAN AND AN ELDER.]

One day a salad, the abstemious relish yielded by his garden herbs,
was set on the table by Jeanneton. At the first mouthful the good cure
made a terrible face--the salad tasted of lamp-oil. The unhappy girl
had filled a cruet with the sacred fluid. From that day the bark
closed and the flow ceased.

There is one of the best oil-stories you ever heard, and one of the
most recent of attested miracles. For my part, I am half sorry it is
so well attested, and that I have the authority of that beadle in the
blouse, who took my little two-franc piece with an expression of much
intelligence. I love the Legend.

[Illustration: MERCHANDISE IN THE TEMPLE.]

The environs of Paris are but chary of Legend. I treasure this
specimen, then, as if it had been a rare flower for my botany-box.

But the botany-box indeed, how heavy it was growing! The umbrella, how
awkward! The sun, how vigorous and ardent! Who ever supposed it could
become so hot by half-past eight in the morning?

[Illustration: FATHER JOLIET.]

Certainly the ruthless box, which seemed to have taken root on my
back, was heavier than it used t