In spite of her great devotion, although she spent days in
prayer, she was not at all bigoted or over-exacting with regard to
others, but tolerant and compassionate. In fact, no nun was ever so much
a woman, with distinct features, a decided personality, charming even in
its puerility. And this gift of childishness which she had retained, the
simple innocence of the child she still was, also made children love her,
as though they recognised in her one of themselves. They all ran to her,
jumped upon her lap, and passed their tiny arms round her neck, and the
garden would then fill with the noise of joyous games, races, and cries;
and it was not she who ran or cried the least, so happy was she at once
more feeling herself a poor unknown little girl as in the far-away days
of Bartres! Later on it was related that a mother had one day brought her
paralysed child to the convent for the saint to touch and cure it. The
woman sobbed so much that the Superior ended by consenting to make the
attempt. However, as Bernadette indignantly protested whenever she was
asked to perform a miracle, she was not forewarned, but simply called to
take the sick child to the infirmary. And she did so, and when she stood
the child on the ground it walked. It was cured.
Ah! how many times must Bartres and her free childhood spent watching her
lambs--the years passed among the hills, in the long grass, in the leafy
woods--have returned to her during the hours she gave to her dreams when
weary of praying for sinners! No one then fathomed her soul, no one could
say if involuntary regrets did not rend her wounded heart.
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