far from any frequented highway. The road dips down, the
few houses are scattered over grassland, divided by hedges and planted
with walnut and chestnut trees, whilst the clear rivulets, which are
never silent, follow the sloping banks beside the pathways, and nothing
rises on high save the small ancient romanesque church, which is perched
on a hillock, covered with graves. Wooded slopes undulate upon all sides.
Bartres lies in a hollow amidst grass of delicious freshness, grass of
intense greenness, which is ever moist at the roots, thanks to the
eternal subterraneous expanse of water which is fed by the mountain
torrents. And Bernadette, who, since becoming a big girl, had paid for
her keep by tending lambs, was wont to take them with her, season after
season, through all the greenery where she never met a soul. It was only
now and then, from the summit of some slope, that she saw the far-away
mountains, the Pic du Midi, the Pic de Viscos, those masses which rose
up, bright or gloomy, according to the weather, and which stretched away
to other peaks, lightly and faintly coloured, vaguely and confusedly
outlined, like apparitions seen in dreams.

Then came the home of the Lagueses, where her cradle was still preserved,
a solitary, silent house, the last of the village. A meadow planted with
pear and apple trees, and only separated from the open country by a
narrow stream which one could jump across, stretched out in front of the
house. Inside the latter, a low and damp abode, there were, on either
side of the wooden stairway leading to the loft, but two spacious rooms,
flagged with stones, and each containing four or five beds. The girls,
who slept together, fell asleep at even, gazing at the fine pictures
affixed to the walls, whilst the big clock in its pinewood case gravely
struck the hours in the midst of the deep silence.

Ah! those years at Bartres; in what sweet peacefulness did Bernadette
live them! Yet she grew up very thin, always in bad health, suffering
from a nervous asthma which stifled her in the least veering of the wind;
and on attaining her twelfth year she could neither read nor write, nor
speak otherwise than in dialect, having remained quite infantile,
behindhand in mind as in body. She was a very good little girl, very
gentle and well behaved, and but little different from other children,
except that instead of talking she preferred to listen. Limited as was
her intelligence, she often evinced muc