ions of which still continued to grow paler. And on the young
priest's left hand was Madame Vetu, now greatly weakened, in a hopeless
state, unable to doze off for a moment, shaken as she was by a continuous
rattle. He said a few kind words to her, for which she thanked him with a
nod; and, gathering her remaining strength together, she was at last able
to say: "There were several cures to-day; I was very pleased to hear of
them."

On a mattress at the foot of her bed was La Grivotte, who in a fever of
extraordinary activity kept on sitting up to repeat her favourite phrase:
"I am cured, I am cured!" And she went on to relate that she had eaten
half a fowl for dinner, she who had been unable to eat for long months
past. Then, too, she had followed the torchlight procession on foot
during nearly a couple of hours, and she would certainly have danced till
daybreak had the Blessed Virgin only been pleased to give a ball. And
once more she repeated: "I am cured, yes, cured, quite cured!"

Thereupon Madame Vetu found enough strength to say with childlike
serenity and perfect, gladsome abnegation: "The Blessed Virgin did well
to cure her since she is poor. I am better pleased than if it had been
myself, for I have my little shop to depend upon and can wait. We each
have our turn, each our turn."

One and all displayed a like charity, a like pleasure that others should
have been cured. Seldom, indeed, was any jealousy shown; they surrendered
themselves to a kind of epidemical beatitude, to a contagious hope that
they would all be cured whenever it should so please the Blessed Virgin.
And it was necessary that she should not be offended by any undue
impatience; for assuredly she had her reasons and knew right well why she
began by healing some rather than others. Thus with the fraternity born
of common suffering and hope, the most grievously afflicted patients
prayed for the cure of their neighbours. None of them ever despaired,
each fresh miracle was the promise of another one, of the one which would
be worked on themselves. Their faith remained unshakable. A story was
told of a paralytic woman, some farm servant, who with extraordinary
strength of will had contrived to take a few steps at the Grotto, and who
while being conveyed back to the hospital had asked to be set down that
she might return to the Grotto on foot. But she had gone only half the
distance when she had staggered, panting and livid; and on being brought
to