Exclamations of delight resounded from all the pleased listeners; they smiled and laughed with satisfaction, radiant at finding that nothing was beyond the power of Heaven, and that if it were Heaven's pleasure they themselves would all become healthy, young, and superb.

It was sufficient that one should fervently believe and pray in order that nature might be confounded and that the Incredible might come to pass.

Apart from that there was merely a question of good luck, since Heaven seemed to make a selection of those sufferers who should be cured.
"Oh! how beautiful it is, father," murmured Marie, who, revived by the passionate interest which she took in the momentous subject, had so far contented herself with listening, dumb with amazement as it were.

"Do you remember," she continued, "what you yourself told me of that poor woman, Joachine Dehaut, who came from Belgium and made her way right across France with her twisted leg eaten away by an ulcer, the awful smell of which drove everybody away from her?
First of all the ulcer was healed; you could press her knee and she felt nothing, only a slight redness remained to mark where it had been.

And then came the turn of the dislocation.