Fabiola : or, The church of the catacombs - Digital Repository Services

sunshine all around me, nnd a sweet odor filled the. po >. room. '
" The neighbor wbo was watching by Mrs. Ler
side, and who had stopped in her reading ou my entrance, now
beckoned me mysteriously to the hearth.
" '
It -will be to-night,' said .-In'.
STORY OF A PMT; or noors.
' The death-watch is in the
God, and begging me to stay no longer here. Oh !
it is in-
deed no bird it is Marie. You know how often I used to call
'
her my little dove !
"
There was nothing dreary or painful about this death-bed:
all that we saw was a tranquil farewell to the troubles of this
earth, and a foretaste of celestial joys, and a song
of thanks-
giving for trials patiently endured, and for p: omised happiness*.
Mrs. Lemaire died the following morning, just at dawn. I followed
her coffin to the cemetery, amid a crowd of j oor neighbors,
whom she bad so oft:-n succored, ami who formed a
(iod. In my ho'irn of weariness find din' nt, for nil
ions are liable t i! .ample of
this old woman mid child in m< le, Ji it
;
. -ult, to .r overcome, if I have to
I'M !, I repeat to myself thr words c,f Marie, when hlie hart given
chimney; do you not hear it souml ?'
"I he.iitated, ami heard distinctly the voice of a mirdl bird,
who at regular intervals uttered a little cry, very melancholy
and sweet.
" ' You think it is the death-wntch,' said she; 'but to me it
is my darling's voice, telling me of tin- goodness find glory of
up nil hopo of a cure; and before murmuring ajjr.inst !)
let, nil examine themselves \\.-ll, to KM: what their gratitude
has b
Valentino having finished his story, I said:
"However true your story may lie, it will find many incredulous,
that such virtue and elevating thoughts have been
found in the poor cottage, and from tho lips of its povertystricken
inhabitant!). However, will you allow mo to write
down for my friends thu history of Mrs. Lemaire and her
grandchild ?"
" Yon may -write for generous souls, for sincere Christians,"
said Valentine, " who are. to be found in all ranks of f
for those who remember that tho Mother of God could not
sifl'ord a lamb for tho ransom of her Divine Son, that the Apostles
were laborers and fishermen, and that many a saint has
been engaged in hard work to earn hia daily bread. What
deeply afflicted yet orderly little procession.
"I have now finished my story of Marie and her grandmother;
and I can assure you when, unhappily, I sometimes
hear men declaim agnirst Providence, I always recollect, that
a poor old market woman and her paralytic grandchild found
no grounds for crying out against the judgments and mercy of
say* the sacred Scriptures, in the eleventh chapter
asticus: 'The wisdom of the humble shall exalt his head, and
shall make him sit in the midst of great men. Praise not a
man for his beauty; neither despise a man for his lo k. The
bee is small among flying things: but her fruit hath the chiefest
sweetness.'"
AN alms given with discretion is like a, bill of exchange
drawn upon heaven, and which is never protested. It is
often, indeed, paid before the time, and usually with large interest.
The hero of the present story will furnish us with an
example.
There was once, in the year 1848, in the military hospital of
n large town, which some reasons prevent my naming, a soldier
called Francois, belonging to the (the same reasons oblige
me to be silent as to the number of the artillery regiment which
was then garrisoned in that n, town). Francois, native, of a little
village of Alsace, in the department of the Bas-Khin, was
lying sick in the hosptal. The doctor who attended him maintained
that tlie extreme pleasure he felt at the idea of returning
k> his village (for Fra^ois had obtained his dismissal) was the
cause of the serious attack with which lie had been seized.
Excess in anything is a fault. Be that as it may, Francois was
as good a Christian as he was a brave s aldii-r. During tho
seven years he had passed in his regiment he had never been
seriously reprimanded but oiice; and that was for having given
a sabre thrust to one of his comrades for speaking irreverently
of sacred things. As for himself, he had long thought this
to God.
blow, given ill so good a cause, acceptable
The evening before his departure, when Francois, now almost
convalescent, was preparing to quit the hospital and return
home, he perceived in one of the long corridors a st. auger n
tall, robust young man, -who, from fatigue iu travelling, had
been obliged to remain some days in the hospital. This
stranger, named Thomassin, also intended leaving on the mor-
of con-
row, and his departure was at that moment the subject
versation -with the chaplain.
" Monsieur 1'Abbu," said he to the priest, "I have recovered
my health in this house; complete the work of mercy by giving
me a p: