Hearken! to-morrow is Easter-day; go to mass, and pray more fervently than of late; take some of the blessed bread, and sign yourself with the cross.

I am certain that God will restore your lost happiness, and will prove, by your countenance, that He has not erased you from the number of those He calls his own." The hope she had conjured up irradiated the face of the poor woman; her child hung round her neck, and promised to do her bidding; and peace was restored for a while to the little white cottage.
The next day, when the Hallelujah was ringing from the bells of St.Pe, great was the astonishment of all to behold Franconnette kneeling with her chaplet in the church,--her eyes cast down in prayer.
Poor girl! well might she pray to be spared; there was not a young woman who spared her as she passed: the less so, that Marcel and Pascal appeared to feel pity for her.

They were very cruel to her; not one would remain near; so that she found herself, at last, kneeling alone in the midst of a wide circle, like one condemned who has a mark of shame on his forehead.

Her mortification is not yet complete, for the uncle of Marcel--the churchwarden, who wears a vest of violet with large skirts--the tall man who offers the blessed bread at Easter--passes on when she puts out her hand to take her portion, and refuses to allow her to share the heavenly meal.
This was terrible! She believes that God has really abandoned her, and would drive her from His temple; she trembles, and sinks back nearly fainting; but some one advances--it is he who asks to-day for the offerings; it is Pascal, who had never quitted her with his looks, who had seen the meaning glance which passed between the uncle and nephew--he advances softly, and taking from the shining plate that part of the bread which is crowned with a garland of choice flowers, presents it to Franconnette.
What a moment of delicious joy to her! Her blood runs free again; she feels no longer frozen to stone; her soul had trembled; but it seems as if the bread of the living God, as she touched it, had restored her life.

But why is her cheek so covered with blushes?
It is because the Angel of Love had, with his breath, drawn forth the flame that slept in her heart; it is that a feeling, new, strange, subtle, like fire, sweet as honey, rises in her soul, and makes her bosom beat.