den in her white
dress, and she began to cry.

First of all she wept silently, and the tears dropped slowly from her
eyes, but her emotion in creased with her recollections, and she began to
sob. She took out her pocket handkerchief, wiped her eyes and held it to
her mouth, so as not to scream, but it was in vain. A sort of rattle
escaped her throat, and she was answered by two other profound,
heartbreaking sobs, for her two neighbors, Louise and Flora, who were
kneeling near her, overcome by similar recollections, were sobbing by her
side, amid a flood of tears; and as tears are contagious, Madame Tellier
soon in turn found that her eyes were wet, and on turning to her
sister-in-law, she saw that all the occupants of her seat were also
crying.

Soon, throughout the church, here and there, a wife, a mother, a sister,
seized by the strange sympathy of poignant emotion, and affected at the
sight of those handsome ladies on their knees, shaken with sobs was
moistening her cambric pocket handkerchief and pressing her beating heart
with her left hand.

Just as the sparks from an engine will set fire to dry grass, so the
tears of Rosa and of her companions infected the whole congregation in a
moment. Men, women, old men and lads in new smocks were soon all sobbing,
and something superhuman seemed to be hovering over their heads--a
spirit, the powerful breath of an invisible and all powerful Being.

Suddenly a species of madness seemed to pervade the church, the noise of
a crowd in a state of frenzy, a tempest of sobs and stifled cries. It
came like gusts of wind which blow the trees in a forest, and the priest,
paralyzed by emotion, stammered out incoherent prayers, without finding
words, ardent prayers of the soul soaring to heaven.

The people behind him gradually grew calmer. The cantors, in all the
dignity of their white surplices, went on in somewhat uncertain voices,
and the reed stop itself seemed hoarse, as if the instrument had been
weeping; the priest, however, raised his hand to command silence and went
and stood on the chancel steps, when everybody was silent at once.

After a few remarks on what had just taken place, and which he attributed
to a miracle, he continued, turning to the seats where the carpenter's
guests were sitting; "I especially thank you, my dear sisters, who have
come from such a distance, and whose presence among us, whose evident
faith and ardent piety have set such a salutary example to