It is among the Sisters of Charity and Christian Instruction at Nevers that Bernadette has taken the veil. She is called Sister Marie-Bernard. We have lately seen her in her religious habit at the mother-house of this congregation. Though she is now twenty-five, her face has kept the character and the charm of childhood. In her presence, the heart feels moved in its better part by an indescribable religious sentiment, and one leaves it embalmed in the perfume of this peaceful innocence. One understands that the Holy Virgin has specially loved her. Otherwise, there is nothing extraordinary, nothing which would make her conspicuous, or would make one suspect the important part she has filled in this communication from heaven to earth. Her simplicity has not been touched by the unexampled interest which has been taken in her. The concourse and enthusiasm of the multitude have no more troubled her soul than the turbid water of a torrent would tarnish the imperishable purity of a diamond. God visits her still, not now by bright visions, but by the sacred trial of suffering. She is often ill, and suffers cruelly; but she bears her pains with a sweet and almost playful patience. Sometimes they have thought her dead. “I shall not die just yet,” she would say, smiling. She never speaks, unless questioned, of the favors which she has received. She was the Blessed Virgin’s messenger. Now that she has given her message, she has retired into the shade of religious life, wishing to be unnoticed among a number of companions. It is a trouble to her when the world comes to seek her in the depth of her retreat, and when some circumstance obliges her to appear before it again. She fears the glory of this life. She lives in the humility of the Lord, and is dead to the vanities of the earth. And this book which we have written, and which speaks so much of Bernadette, Sister Marie-Bernard will never read. [39] This statue, made of fine Carrara marble, of life-size, was presented to the Grotto of Lourdes by two noble and pious sisters of the diocese of Lyons, Mesdames de Lacour. It was executed according to Bernadette’s particular instructions, by M. Fabish, the eminent Lyonnese sculptor. The Blessed Virgin is represented as Bernadette described her, with scrupulous regard to the smallest details, and rare talent in execution. [40] Mgr. Laurence died at the Vatican Council in the winter of 1869-70. ---------- THE RIOT OF THE TWELFTH. 117