Two hours afterwards all three pictures were sold, and we never saw them
again. It was this Madonna which now recurred to the prince's mind.

"I stood," continued he, "gazing at her in silent admiration. She did
not observe me; my arrival did not disturb her, so completely was she
absorbed in her devotion. She prayed to her Deity, and I prayed to her
--yes, I adored her! All the pictures of saints, all the altars and the
burning tapers around me had failed to remind me of what now for the
first time burst upon me, that I was in a sacred place. Shall I confess
it to you? In that moment I believed firmly in Him whose image was
clasped in her beautiful hand. I read in her eyes that he answered her
prayers. Thanks be to her charming devotion, it had revealed him to me.
I wandered with her through all the paradise of prayer.

"She rose, and I recollected myself. I stepped aside confused; but the
noise I made in moving discovered me. I thought that the unexpected
presence of a man might alarm, that my boldness would offend her; but
neither of these feelings were expressed in the look with which she
regarded me. Peace, benign peace, was portrayed in her countenance, and
a cheerful smile played upon her lips. She was descending from her
heaven; and I was the first happy mortal who met her benevolent look.
Her mind was still wrapt in her concluding prayer; she had not yet come
in contact with earth.

"I now heard something stir in the opposite corner of the chapel. It
was an elderly lady, who rose from a cushion close behind me. Till now
I had not observed her. She had been distant only a few steps from me.
and must have seen my every motion. This confused me. I cast my eyes
to the earth, and both the ladies passed by me."

On this last point I thought myself able to console the prince.

"Strange," continued he, after a long silence, "that there should be
something which one has never known--never missed; and that yet on a
sudden one should seem to live and breathe for that alone. Can one
single moment so completely metamorphose a human being? It would now be
as impossible for me to indulge in the wishes or enjoy the pleasures of
yesterday as it would be to return to the toys of my childhood, and all
this since I have seen this object which lives and rules in the inmost
recesses of my soul. It seems to say that I can love nothing else, and
that nothing else in this world can produce an impression on me."

"But consider,