I remember reading in this way about the widow's son of Nain. When I had finished, the priest paused a moment, and then said, reverently: "My Lucy, do you think of what you read?" "Yes, my father; I think of it a great deal," I answered, which was quite true. "But do you make it real to you? Think, for instance, about this story which we have just finished. Think how that poor mother must have dreaded the return to her lonely house; the sitting down to her lonely table, and living on day after day without her son." "And then how different it all was from what she expected!" said Amabel, musingly. "I should think she would hardly have known how to believe it. She must have felt as if his sickness and death were all a dream." "And the holy Magdalene after her brother was restored!" said I. (Roman Catholics believe that Mary Magdalene, and the woman who was a sinner, who anointed our Lord's feet, were one and the same person, though there seems to us little or no ground in the scripture for such an idea.) "They were really people, were they not, and felt as we should do?" "Exactly, my daughter. That is what I wish you to consider. People lose half the benefit of the examples of the holy saints and martyrs, because they do not consider them to have been of the same flesh and blood as themselves." I have been obliged to the good father all my life for this idea, and especially since I have myself had the instructing of children in the truths of religion. But this is by the way. Besides being a famous gardener, Father Brousseau had a competent knowledge of surgery and medicine, and made himself very useful in prescribing for the poor people round us. His medicines were generally such as our pharmacy at the convent could provide, especially a bitter cordial, made of orange peel, chamomile, and some of the aromatic herbs with which that country abounds. I have the recipe for this cordial, which I have helped to distil by the gallon. It is excellent for ague and consumption. It was this medical knowledge of our confessor's which made him a welcome visitor at the Chateau de Crequi, even after the count had quarrelled with our superior. Madame de Crequi was a confirmed invalid, suffering terrible pain and distress at times, from some trouble in her breast. She had had endless doctors who had done her no good but rather harm, and in her despair, hearing of our confessor's gifts in that line, she sent for him. He was, happily, able greatly to alleviate her present suffering, though he told her frankly that there was no cure possible; and he had thus made the poor lady his friend. He had also cured the count's chaplain from a fever which threatened his life.