Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/104

86 not painted by hands, and reading histories more interesting to her than those of saints and martyrs.

In one dim chapel, with a single candle lighting up the divine sorrow of the Mater Dolorosa, knelt a woman in deep black, weeping and praying all alone. In another flowery nook dedicated to the Infant Jesus, a peasant girl was telling her beads over the baby asleep in her lap; her sunburnt face refined and beautified by the tenderness of mother-love. In a third chapel a pale, wasted, old man sat propped in a chair, while his rosy old wife prayed heartily to St. Gratien, the patron saint of the church, for the recovery of her John Anderson. And most striking of all, was a dark, handsome young man, well-dressed and elegant, who was waiting at the door of a confessional with some great trouble in his face, as he muttered and crossed himself, while his haggard eyes were fixed on the benignant figure of St. Francis, as if asking himself if it were possible for him also, to put away the pleasant sins and follies of the world, and lead a life like that which embalms the memory of that good man.

"If we don't go away to-morrow we never shall, for this church will bewitch us, and make it