That silent creature, Madame Maze, was so transported that she spoke the
first. "I have a friend," said she, "who knew the Widow Rizan, that lady
whose cure also created so great a stir. For four-and-twenty years her
left side had been entirely paralysed. Her stomach was unable to retain
any solid food, and she had become an inert bag of bones which had to be
turned over in bed, The friction of the sheets, too, had ended by rubbing
her skin away in parts. Well, she was so low one evening that the doctor
announced that she would die during the night. An hour later, however,
she emerged from her torpor and asked her daughter in a faint voice to go
and fetch her a glass of Lourdes water from a neighbour's. But she was
only able to obtain this glass of water on the following morning; and she
cried out to her daughter: 'Oh! it is life that I am drinking--rub my
face with it, rub my arm and my leg, rub my whole body with it!' And when
her daughter obeyed her, she gradually saw the huge swelling subside, and
the paralysed, tumefied limbs recover their natural suppleness and
appearance. Nor was that all, for Madame Rizan cried out that she was
cured and felt hungry, and wanted bread and meat--she who had eaten none
for four-and-twenty years! And she got out of bed and dressed herself,
whilst her daughter, who was so overpowered that the neighbours thought
she had become an orphan, replied to them: 'No, no, mamma isn't dead, she
has come to life again!'"

This narrative had brought tears to Madame Vincent's eyes. Ah! if she had
only been able to see her little Rose recover like that, eat with a good
appetite, and run about again! At the same time, another case, which she
had been told of in Paris and which had greatly influenced her in
deciding to take her ailing child to Lourdes, returned to her memory.

"And I, too," said she, "know the story of a girl who was paralysed. Her