leness and
appearance. Nor was that all, for Madame Rizan cried out that she was
cured and felt hungry, and wanted bread and meat--she who had eaten none
for four-and-twenty years! And she got out of bed and dressed herself,
whilst her daughter, who was so overpowered that the neighbours thought
she had become an orphan, replied to them: 'No, no, mamma isn't dead, she
has come to life again!'"

This narrative had brought tears to Madame Vincent's eyes. Ah! if she had
only been able to see her little Rose recover like that, eat with a good
appetite, and run about again! At the same time, another case, which she
had been told of in Paris and which had greatly influenced her in
deciding to take her ailing child to Lourdes, returned to her memory.

"And I, too," said she, "know the story of a girl who was paralysed. Her
name was Lucie Druon, and she was an inmate of an orphan asylum. She was
quite young and could not even kneel down. Her limbs were bent like
hoops. Her right leg, the shorter of the two, had ended by becoming
twisted round the left one; and when any of the other girls carried her
about you saw her feet hanging down quite limp, like dead ones. Please
notice that she did not even go to Lourdes. She simply performed a
novena; but she fasted during the nine days, and her desire to be cured
was so great that she spent her nights in prayer. At last, on the ninth
day, whilst she was drinking a little Lourdes water, she felt a violent
commotion in her legs. She picked herself up, fell down, picked herself
up again and walked. All her little companions, who were astonished,
almost frightened at the sight, began to cry out 'Lucie can walk! Lucie
can walk!' It was quite true. In a few seconds her legs had become
straight and strong and healthy. She crossed the courtyard and was able
to climb up the steps of the chapel, where the whole sisterhood,
transported with gratitude, chanted the _Magnificat_. Ah! the dear child,
how happy, how happy she must have been!"

As Madame Vincent finished, two tears fell from her cheeks on to the pale
face of her little girl, whom she kissed distractedly.

The general interest was still increasing, becoming quite impassioned.
The rapturous joy born of these beautiful stories, in which Heaven
invariably triumphed over human reality, transported these childlike
souls to such a point that those who were suffering the most grievously
sat up in their turn, and recovered the power of speec