Paula the Waldensian - Eva Lecomte

Paula was more to me than it seems she could mean to any one of you. I was
a drunkard and a robber--a monster of iniquity! I was despised and hated and
feared by everybody, and for good reason. But there in Celestina's kitchen
that day, Mademoiselle was not afraid to take these rough hands--these hands
that had been so often stained with crime and violence in her own pure white
ones to tell me she would help me! She it was who taught me to pray. She it
was who had prayed for me while I was in prison. I have seen men ground to
pieces in the gears of a machine in the factory. I've looked on death in many
terrible forms without shedding a tear--but this one!--oh, Mademoiselle
Paula! Would that I could have died in your place!" And again quivering
with emotion, the Breton turned and leaned against the wall to hide his tears.
Suddenly a convulsion shook the form of my dear one and Dr. Lebon
stepped forward and took her hand. "The end is coming," he said.
My father dropped on his knees beside the bed. "Oh, Lord," he said, "I,
too, would be Thine own. Is it too late for me?"
At that moment a hand was laid on his shoulder. It was the same hand
that years ago had been laid on his wife's eyes to close them for the last time.
That same hand had tended and cared faithfully for his children ever since.
"Monsieur! My good Master!" said Teresa, in a tone of tender love and
respect such as I had never heard her use before, "It is not too late! He has
said, 'Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out.'"
My father looked up. "Well, then, Teresa--I come to Him."
The dear old woman dropped on her knees and with folded hands simply
said, "Thanks, dear Lord, for Thou hast answered my prayer, and Paula's
too!"
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