"Ah, yes! I hadn't brought many bandages for my foot with me, and I said
to her, 'It was very kind of the Blessed Virgin to cure me the first day,
as I should have run out of linen on the morrow.'"

Then there was fresh laughter, a general display of satisfaction at
seeing her look so pretty, telling her story, which she now knew by
heart, in too recitative a manner, but, nevertheless, remaining very
touching and truthful in appearance.

"Take off your shoe, Sophie," now said Doctor Bonamy; "show your foot to
these gentlemen. Let them feel it. Nobody must retain any doubt."

The little foot promptly appeared, very white, very clean, carefully
tended indeed, with its scar just below the ankle, a long scar, whose
whity seam testified to the gravity of the complaint. Some of the medical
men had drawn near, and looked on in silence. Others, whose opinions, no
doubt, were already formed, did not disturb themselves, though one of
them, with an air of extreme politeness, inquired why the Blessed Virgin
had not made a new foot while she was about it, for this would assuredly
have given her no more trouble. Doctor Bonamy, however, quickly replied,
that if the Blessed Virgin had left a scar, it was certainly in order
that a trace, a proof of the miracle, might remain. Then he entered into
technical particulars, demonstrating that a fragment of bone and flesh
must have been instantly formed, and this, of course, could not be
explained in any natural way.

"/Mon Dieu/!" interrupted the little fair-haired gentleman, "there is no
need of any such complicated affair. Let me merely see a finger cut with
a penknife, let me see it dipped in the water, and let it come out with