At the farther end was the altar, also painted and gilded, with its twisted columns and its screens on which appeared the Virgin and Ste.

Anne, and the beheading of St.John the Baptist--the whole of a gaudy and somewhat barbaric splendour.

And as sleepiness grew upon her, the child must have often seen a mystical vision as it were of those crudely coloured designs rising before her--have seen the blood flowing from St.John's severed head, have seen the aureolas shining, the Virgin ever returning and gazing at her with her blue, living eyes, and looking as though she were on the point of opening her vermilion lips in order to speak to her.

For some months Bernadette spent her evenings in this wise, half asleep in front of that sumptuous, vaguely defined altar, in the incipiency of a divine dream which she carried away with her, and finished in bed, slumbering peacefully under the watchful care of her guardian angel.
And it was also in that old church, so humble yet so impregnated with ardent faith, that Bernadette began to learn her catechism.

She would soon be fourteen now, and must think of her first communion.