Then came a lady, a countess, who was fearfully emaciated, and
whose story was an extraordinary one. Cured of tuberculosis by the
Blessed Virgin, a first time, seven years previously, she had
subsequently given birth to four children, and had then again fallen into
consumption. At present she was a morphinomaniac, but her first bath had
already relieved her so much, that she proposed taking part in the
torchlight procession that same evening with the twenty-seven members of
her family whom she had brought with her to Lourdes. Then there was a
woman afflicted with nervous aphonia, who after months of absolute
dumbness had just recovered her voice at the moment when the Blessed
Sacrament went by at the head of the four o'clock procession.
"Gentlemen," declared Doctor Bonamy, affecting the graciousness of a
/savant/ of extremely liberal views, "as you are aware, we do not draw
any conclusions when a nervous affection is in question. Still you will
kindly observe that this woman was treated at the Salpetriere for six
months, and that she had to come here to find her tongue suddenly
loosened."
Despite all these fine words he displayed some little impatience, for he
would have greatly liked to show the gentleman from Paris one of those
remarkable instances of cure which occasionally presented themselves
during the four o'clock procession--that being the moment of grace and
exaltation when the Blessed Virgin interceded for those whom she had
chosen.
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