thank the Blessed Virgin. There! there's no gainsaying it, that
was a real case of phthisis, completely cured as though by medicine!"

Thereupon Brother Isidore in his turn wished to speak; but he was unable
to do so at any length, and could only with difficulty manage to say to
his sister: "Marthe, tell them the story of Sister Dorothee which the
priest of Saint-Sauveur related to us."

"Sister Dorothee," began the peasant girl in an awkward way, "felt her
leg quite numbed when she got up one morning, and from that time she lost
the use of it, for it got as cold and as heavy as a stone. Besides which
she felt a great pain in the back. The doctors couldn't understand it.
She saw half a dozen of them, who pricked her with pins and burnt her
skin with a lot of drugs. But it was just as if they had sung to her.
Sister Dorothee had well understood that only the Blessed Virgin could
find the right remedy for her, and so she went off to Lourdes, and had
herself dipped in the piscina. She thought at first that the water was
going to kill her, for it was so bitterly cold. But by-and-by it became
so soft that she fancied it was warm, as nice as milk. She had never felt
so nice before, it seemed to her as if her veins were opening and the
water were flowing into them. As you will understand, life was returning
into her body since the Blessed Virgin was concerning herself in the
case. She no longer had anything the matter with her when she came out,
but walked about, ate the whole of a pigeon for her dinner, and slept all
night long like the happy woman she was. Glory to the Blessed Virgin,
eternal gratitude to the most Powerful Mother and her Divine Son!"

Elise Rouquet would also have liked to bring forward a miracle which she
was acquainted with. Only she spoke with so much difficulty owing to the
deformity of her mouth, that she had not yet been able to secure a turn.
Just then, however, there was a pause, and drawing the wrap, which
concealed the horror of her sore, slightly on one side, she profited by
the opportunity to begin.

"For my part, I wasn't told anything about a great illness, but it was a
very funny case at all events," she said. "It was about a woman,
Celestine Dubois, as she was called, who had run a needle right into her
hand while she was washing. It stopped there for seven years, for no
doctor was able to take it out. Her hand shrivelled up, and she could no
longer open it. Well, she got to Lourdes, and d