in ever returning and
gazing at her with her blue, living eyes, and looking as though she were
on the point of opening her vermilion lips in order to speak to her. For
some months Bernadette spent her evenings in this wise, half asleep in
front of that sumptuous, vaguely defined altar, in the incipiency of a
divine dream which she carried away with her, and finished in bed,
slumbering peacefully under the watchful care of her guardian angel.

And it was also in that old church, so humble yet so impregnated with
ardent faith, that Bernadette began to learn her catechism. She would
soon be fourteen now, and must think of her first communion. Her
foster-mother, who had the reputation of being avaricious, did not send
her to school, but employed her in or about the house from morning till
evening. M. Barbet, the schoolmaster, never saw her at his classes,
though one day, when he gave the catechism lesson, in the place of Abbe
Ader who was indisposed, he remarked her on account of her piety and
modesty. The village priest was very fond of Bernadette and often spoke
of her to the schoolmaster, saying that he could never look at her
without thinking of the children of La Salette, since they must have been
good, candid, and pious as she was, for the Blessed Virgin to have
appeared to them.* On another occasion whilst the two men were walking
one morning near the village, and saw Bernadette disappear with her
little flock under some spreading trees in the distance, the Abbe
repeatedly turned round to look for her, and again remarked "I cannot
account for it, but every time I meet that child it seems to me as if I
saw Melanie, the young shepherdess, little Maximin's companion." He was
certainly beset by this singular idea, which became, so to say, a
prediction. Moreover, had he not one day after catechism, or one evening,
when the villagers were gathered in the church, related that marvellous
story which was already twelve years old, that story of the Lady in the
dazzling robes who walked upon the grass without even making it bend, the
Blessed Virgin who showed herself to Melanie and Maximin on the banks of
a stream in the mountains, and confided to them a great secret and
announced the anger of her Son? Ever since that day a source had sprung
up from the tears which she had shed, a source which cured all ailments,
whilst the secret, inscribed on parchment fastened with three seals,
slumbered at Rome! And Bernadette, no doubt, wit