She did not imagine that he spoke in jest.
"Sometimes I pray very much and things come," she said softly.

"When the Gloire de Dijon was cut back too soon one summer, and never blossomed, and we all thought it was dead, I prayed all day long for it, and never thought of anything else; and by autumn it was all in new leaf, and now its flowers are finer than ever." "But you watered it whilst you prayed, I suppose ?" The sarcasm escaped her.
She was wondering to herself whether it would be vain and wicked to pray for a pair of stockings: she thought she would go and ask Father Francis.
By this time they were in the Rue Royale, and half-way down it.

The lamps were lighted.

A regiment was marching up it with a band playing.
The windows were open, and people were laughing and singing in some of them.

The light caught the white and gilded fronts of the houses.