and so little, giving her the kiss of eternal happiness.

But when the wind rushed through the street, the snow was blown in the
child's face, and the threshold was almost barred by the white masses;
then she moved away to the side, against the virgins placed above the
base of the arch. These are the companions of Agnes, the saints who
served as her escort: three at her right--Dorothea, who was fed in
prison by miraculous bread; Barbe, who lived in a tower; and Genevieve,
whose heroism saved Paris: and three at her left--Agatha, whose breast
was torn; Christina, who was put to torture by her father; and Cecilia,
beloved by the angels. Above these were statues and statues; three
close ranks mounting with the curves of the arches, decorating them with
chaste triumphant figures, who, after the suffering and martyrdom
of their earthly life, were welcomed by a host of winged cherubim,
transported with ecstasy into the Celestial Kingdom.

There had been no shelter for the little waif for a long time, when at
last the clock struck eight and daylight came. The snow, had she not
trampled it down, would have come up to her shoulders. The old door
behind her was covered with it, as if hung with ermine, and it looked
as white as an altar, beneath the grey front of the church, so bare and
smooth that not even a single flake had clung to it. The great saints,
those of the sloping surface especially, were clothed in it, and were
glistening in purity from their feet to their white beards. Still
higher, in the scenes of the tympanum, the outlines of the little saints
of the arches were designed most clearly on a dark background, and this
magic sect continued until the final rapture at the marriage of Agnes,
which the archangels appeared to be celebrating under a shower of white
roses. Standing upon her pillar, with her white branch of palm and her
white lamp, the Virgin Child had such purity in the lines of her body of