t.

In the daytime, Mrs. Tiralla would rummage in her drawers and show Rosa
the things she had possessed as a child, precious relics which she
devoutly kissed. These were consecrated beads, a consecrated palm
branch, a little white china angel, a vessel for holy water and many
gaudy pictures of saints, which her priest had once given her. Then she
would relate something about each of these treasures as they lay on the
child's bed. She would speak in a low, monotonous whisper, as though
praying and with a dreamy smile on her face, and would gradually work
herself [Pg 84] up into such a state of eagerness and excitement that
her radiant eyes would become veiled, and, bursting into tears, she
would sink down on the child's bed. Then mother and daughter would weep
in each other's arms.

Rosa's tears were tears of ecstatic rapture and longing, of a great
longing for something she could not name--the dear Virgin, the dear
little Child Jesus, the dear guardian angel and all the dear saints.
She knew them all; she knew the history of every martyr that now wore a
halo. Her mother had read about them aloud to her again and again from
the book of holy legends that she had brought out of the gaily painted
chest in which she, as a girl, had kept her belongings.

How splendid it must be to live like those holy women. If you were like
St. Julia or St. Helena, or even St. Agnes, you would get leave to
nurse the Child Jesus in Paradise, and rock it and sing it to sleep
with hallelujah.

When Rosa was all alone she would try to sing the heavenly lullaby; she
would try to take the highest notes with her small, weak voice, and
make them sound soft and harmonious instead of shrill and piping.

Then the servants in the yard used to say, "St. Panusia is singing,"
and they would listen devoutly to the long-drawn song, sounding like a
chant, that came from Rosa's bedroom.

But Rosa never felt quite satisfied with her lullaby, and often burst
into tears. It must be because she didn't pray fervently enough,
because she was far from being good and pure enough. So she wrote down
all her sins on a piece of paper in her stiff, uneven handwriting, that
she might not forget any of them--there was a long row of them--and she
made up her mind to [Pg 85] confess them all and get forgiveness for
them as soon as the snow was so far melted that she could go to the
priest.

She did not attend school at present, not being strong enough to walk
all the