But it seems the train was starting and I only just
had time to run on to the platform. Oh! I ran so fast!"
She paused, laughing, still slightly out of breath, but already repenting
that she had been so giddy.
"And what is your name, my child?" asked Pierre.
"Sophie Couteau, Monsieur l'Abbe."
"You do not belong to the town of Poitiers?"
"Oh no! certainly not. We belong to Vivonne, which is seven kilometres
away. My father and mother have a little land there, and things would not
be so bad if there were not eight children at home--I am the
fifth,--fortunately the four older ones are beginning to work."
"And you, my child, what do you do?"
"I, Monsieur l'Abbe! Oh! I am no great help. Since last year, when I came
home cured, I have not been left quiet a single day, for, as you can
understand, so many people have come to see me, and then too I have been
taken to Monseigneur's,* and to the convents and all manner of other
places. And before all that I was a long time ill. I could not walk
without a stick, and each step I took made me cry out, so dreadfully did
my foot hurt me."
* The Bishop's residence.
"So it was of some injury to the foot that the Blessed Virgin cured you?"
Sophie did not have time to reply, for Sister Hyacinthe, who was
listening, intervened: "Of caries of the bones of the left heel, which
had been going on for three years," said she. "The foot was swollen and
quite deformed, and there were fistulas giving egress to continual
suppuration.
Pages:
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104