This was a favour which all the sufferers ardently coveted, but which only a few favoured ones with difficulty secured.

After protesting, anxious as he felt with regard to the effect which a night spent in the open air might have upon her health, the young priest, seeing how unhappy she had suddenly become, at last promised that he would make the application.

Doubtless she imagined that she would only obtain a hearing from the Virgin when they were alone together in the slumbering peacefulness of the night.

That morning, indeed, she felt so lost among the innumerable patients who were heaped together in front of the Grotto, that already at ten o'clock she asked to be taken back to the hospital, complaining that the bright light tired her eyes.

And when her father and the priest had again installed her in the Sainte-Honorine Ward, she gave them their liberty for the remainder of the day.