enable me to keep my resolution.

"I shall be nineteen in the month of April; at my age there is still a
chance. It seems to me that I was never born till three months ago.--I
prayed to God every morning that Lucien might never know what my
former life had been. I bought that Virgin you see there, and I prayed
to her in my own way, for I do not know any prayers; I cannot read nor
write, and I have never been into a church; I have never seen anything
of God excepting in processions, out of curiosity."

"And what do you say to the Virgin?"

"I talk to her as I talk to Lucien, with all my soul, till I make him
cry."

"Oh, so he cries?"

"With joy," said she eagerly, "poor dear boy! We understand each other
so well that we have but one soul! He is so nice, so fond, so sweet in
heart and mind and manners! He says he is a poet; I say he is god.--
Forgive me! You priests, you see, don't know what love is. But, in
fact, only girls like me know enough of men to appreciate such as
Lucien. A Lucien, you see, is as rare as a woman without sin. When you
come across him you can love no one else; so there! But such a being
must have his fellow; so I want to be worthy to be loved by my Lucien.
That is where my trouble began. Last evening, at the opera, I was
recognized by some young men who have no more feeling than a tiger has
pity--for that matter, I could come round the tiger! The veil of
innocence I had tried to wear was worn off; their laughter pierced my
brain and my heart. Do not think you have saved me; I shall die of