"Did you never go inside to pray?" How embarrassing such a question
is, even to a child!

"No, ma'am. Does that count, too? The little baby didn't pray, the
flowers didn't go inside, nor the birds. And they say the birds broke
out singing all at once, and the flowers shined, like the sun was
shining on 'em--like the sun was shining in 'em," he corrected
himself. "The birds they can see, and the flowers they can't see, and
they seed her." He shivered with the damp cold--and perhaps too with
hunger.

"Where do you live?"

He wouldn't answer.

"What do you live on?"

He shook his head.

"Come with me." He could not resist the grasp on his shoulder, and the
firm directing of his bare, muddy feet through the gate, up the walk,
and into the chamber which the Virgin found that day. He was turned to
the altar, and pressed down on his knees.

One should not look at the face of a blind child praying to the Virgin
for sight. Only the Virgin herself should see that--and if she once
saw that little boy! There were hearts, feet, hands, and eyes enough
hanging around to warrant hope at least, if not faith; the effigies of
the human aches and pains that had here found relief, if not surcease;
feet and hands beholden to no physician for their exorcism of