At last, in the apse, forming the top of the cross, it poured in,
symbolical of the light that flooded the world from the top of the Tree;
and the pictures were diaphanous, just lightly covered with flowing
lines and aerial tints, to frame in a sheaf of coloured sparks the image
of a Madonna, less hieratic and barbaric than the others, and a fairer
Infant, blessing the earth with uplifted hand.

By this time the Cathedral of Chartres was alive with the clatter of
wooden shoes, the rustle of petticoats, and the tinkle of mass-bells.

Durtal left the corner of the transept where he had been sitting with
his back to a pillar, and turned to the left, towards a bay where there
was a framework ablaze with lighted tapers before the statue of the
Virgin.

And schools of little girls under the guidance of Sisters, troops of
peasant women and countrymen, poured out of every aisle, knelt in front
of the image, and then came up to kiss the pedestal.

The appearance of these folks suggested to Durtal that their prayers
were not like those that are sobbed out at evening twilight, the
supplications of women worn and dismayed by the weary hours of day.
These peasant souls prayed less as complaining than as loving; these
people, kneeling on the flags, had come for Her sake rather than for
their own. There was here and now a pause from grieving, a sort of
reprieve from tears; and this attitude was in harmony with the special
aspect adopted by Mary in this cathedral; She was seen there, in fact,
under the form of a child and of a young mother; She was the Virgin of
the Nativity, rather than our Lady of Dolour. The old artists of the