was old enough her aunt began her religious training. Before she could
speak plainly she heard legends of saints and stories of martyrs. She was
taken into the little chapel and taught to pray there. She believed in
miracles, and would not have been surprised at any moment if she had met
the Child Jesus or the Virgin in the beautiful rambling gardens which
surrounded the _chateau_. She was a sensitive, imaginative child, and the
sacred romances she heard filled all her mind and made up her little
life. She wished to be a saint herself, and spent hours in wandering in
the terraced rose gardens wondering if such a thing was possible in
modern days, and what she must do to obtain such holy victory. Her chief
sorrow was that she knew herself to be delicate and very timid--so timid
that she often suffered when people did not suspect it--and she was
afraid that she was not brave enough to be a martyr. Once, poor little
one! when she was alone in her room, she held her hand over a burning wax
candle, but the pain was so terrible that she could not keep it there.
Indeed, she fell back white and faint, and sank upon her chair,
breathless and in tears, because she felt sure that she could not chant
holy songs if she were being burned at the stake. She had been vowed to
the Virgin in her babyhood, and was always dressed in white and blue, but
her little dress was a small conventual robe, straight and narrow cut, of
white woollen stuff, and banded plainly with blue at the waist. She did
not look like other children, but she was very sweet and gentle, and her
pure little pale face and large, dark eyes had a lovely dreamy look. When
she was old enough to visit the poor with her Aunt Clotilde--and she was
hardly seven years old when it was considered proper that she should
begin--the villagers did not stand in awe of her. They began to adore
her, almost to worship her, as if she had, indeed, been a sacred child.
The little ones delighted to look at her, to draw near her sometimes and
touch her soft white and blue robe. And, when they did so, she always
returned their looks with such a tender, sympathetic smile, and spoke to
them in so gentle a voice, that they were in ecstasies. They used to
talk her over, tell stories about her when they were playing together
afterwards.

"The little Mademoiselle," they said, "she is a child saint. I have heard
them say so. Sometimes there is a little light round her head. One day
her little white ro