Mère Girauds Little Daughter | Page 8

My God! Do you think I would have permitted my mother's hand to have touched a gift of hers? She wrote the letters, but the money I had earned honestly. Heaven will justify me for my falsehood since I have suffered so much."
"Yes," responded the Curé, looking at his bent form with gentle, pitying eyes, "Heaven will justify you, my son."
They watched by Laure until the morning, but she did not see them; she saw nothing; to-night it was the statue of marble which lay before them. But in the early morning, when the sky was dappled with pink and gold, and the air was fresh and cool, and a silence, even more complete than that of the night, seemed to reign, there came a change. The eyes they had seen closed for so many hours were opened, and the soft voice broke in upon the perfect stillness of the room:--
"The lilies in the garden are in bloom to-day. They were never so tall, and white, and fair before. I will gather them--for the altar--to give to the Virgin--at my confession. Mea culpa--Mea"--and all was over, and Mère Giraud fell upon her knees again, crying, as she had cried before, amid a passion of sobs and tears:--
"She has died, my child, the death of a blessed martyr."
It was rather strange, the villagers said, that Madame Legrand should have been buried in the little graveyard at St. Croix instead of in some fine tomb at Père la Chaise; but--it was terribly sad!--her husband was away, they knew not where, and it was Valentin's wish, and Mère Giraud's heart yearned so over her beloved one. So she was laid there, and a marble cross was placed at her head--a tall, beautiful cross--by Monsieur Legrand, of course. Only it was singular that he never came, though perhaps that is the way of the great--not to mourn long or deeply even for those who have been most lovely, and whom they have most tenderly loved.

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