all-protecting embrace.

To me there is something infinitely touching in these shrines
to the Virgin, with all their associations of suffering and
prayer, in their little ex-voto pictures, and flowers, and
lighted tapers. I do not envy those who can see in them
nothing but the expression of a pitiable superstition; to my
mind they appeal to far wider sympathies, as one thinks of the
sick and weary hearts who have come there to seek consolation
and help. Everywhere one comes across these shrines--in the
gloom of some great Cathedral, in some homely village church,
in some humble wayside chapel, where, amidst sunny fields and
pastures, amidst mountains, streams, and lakes, one reads the
little heart-broken scrawls affixed to the grating, praying an
Ave-Maria or Paternoster from the passer-by, for a sick
person, for a mother watching beside her dying child, for a
woman forsaken of the world. A whole atmosphere of consecrated
suffering seems to float round these spots sacred to sorrow,
the sorrow that humbly appeals, as it best knows how, to the
love, wide enough to embrace and comfort all desolate, and
yearning, and heavy-laden souls.

One can fancy Madelon as she walks along the dim church; one
or two lights twinkle here and there in the darkness, the
taper she holds shines on her little pale face, and her brown
eyes are lighted up with a sudden glow of enthusiasm,
devotion, supplication, as she kneels for a moment before the
Virgin's altar, with an Ave-Maria on her lips, and an unspoken
prayer in her heart.

Half an hour later, Madelon, in the midst of the blaze of
light in the big gambling salon of the Redoute, is thinking of
nothing in the world but rouge-et-noir and the chances of the
game before her. For the first time she has ventured to push
her way through the crowd and take a seat at the table; and
for the moment she has forgotten her object, forgotten why she
is there even, in the excitement of watching whether black or
red will win. It matters little, it seems; whatever she stakes
on, comes up; her small capital is being doubled an trebled.
She had taken off her veil, which hitherto she had carefully
kept down, and the little flushed face, with the eager eyes
that sparkle with impatience at every pause in the game, is
noticed by several people round the table. Her invariable
luck, too, is remarked upon. "Stake for me, _mon enfant_,"
whispered a voice in her ear, and a little pile of five-franc
pieces w