"I, Monsieur l'Abbe! Oh! I am no great help. Since last year, when I came
home cured, I have not been left quiet a single day, for, as you can
understand, so many people have come to see me, and then too I have been
taken to Monseigneur's,* and to the convents and all manner of other
places. And before all that I was a long time ill. I could not walk
without a stick, and each step I took made me cry out, so dreadfully did
my foot hurt me."

* The Bishop's residence.

"So it was of some injury to the foot that the Blessed Virgin cured you?"

Sophie did not have time to reply, for Sister Hyacinthe, who was
listening, intervened: "Of caries of the bones of the left heel, which
had been going on for three years," said she. "The foot was swollen and
quite deformed, and there were fistulas giving egress to continual
suppuration."

On hearing this, all the sufferers in the carriage became intensely
interested. They no longer took their eyes off this little girl on whom a
miracle had been performed, but scanned her from head to foot as though
seeking for some sign of the prodigy. Those who were able to stand rose
up in order that they might the better see her, and the others, the
infirm ones, stretched on their mattresses, strove to raise themselves
and turn their heads. Amidst the suffering which had again come upon them
on leaving Poitiers, the terror which filled them at the thought that
they must continue rolling onward for another fifteen hours, the sudden
advent of this child, favoured by Heaven, was like a divine relief, a ray
of hope whence they would derive sufficient strength to accomplish the
remainder of their terrible journey. The moaning had abated somewhat
already, and every face was turned towards the girl with an ardent desire
to believe.

This was especially the case with Marie, who, already reviving, joined
her trembling hands, and in a gentle supplicating voice said to Pierre,
"Question her, pray question her, ask her to tell us everything--cured, O
God! cured of such a terrible complaint!"

Madame de Jonquiere, who was quite affected, had leant over the partition
to kiss the girl. "Certainly," said she, "our little friend will tell you
all about it. Won't you, my darling? You will tell us what the Blessed
Virgin did for you?"

"Oh, certainly! madame-as much as you like," answered Sophie with her
smiling, modest air, her eyes gleaming with intelligence. Indeed, she
wished to begin at once, and