In this quiet way she became fond of her aunt.  She saw little of anyone but the servants, who were all trained to quietness also.  As soon as she was old enough her aunt began her religious training.  Before she could speak plainly she heard legends of saints and stories of martyrs.  She was taken into the little chapel and taught to pray there.  She believed in miracles, and would not have been surprised at any moment if she had met the Child Jesus or the Virgin in the beautiful rambling gardens which surrounded the chateau.  She was a sensitive, imaginative child, and the sacred romances she heard filled all her mind and made up her little life.  She wished to be a saint herself, and spent hours in wandering in the terraced rose gardens wondering if such a thing was possible in modern days, and what she must do to obtain such holy victory.  Her chief sorrow was that she knew herself to be delicate and very timid—­so timid that she often suffered when people did not suspect it—­and she was afraid that she was not brave enough to be a martyr.  Once, poor little one! when she was alone in her room, she held her hand over a burning wax candle, but the pain was so terrible that she could not keep it there.  Indeed, she fell back white and faint, and sank upon her chair, breathless and in tears, because she felt sure that she could not chant holy songs if she were being burned at the stake.  She had been vowed to the Virgin in her babyhood, and was always dressed in white and blue, but her little dress was a small conventual robe, straight and narrow cut, of white woollen stuff, and banded plainly with blue at the waist.  She did not look like other children, but she was very sweet and gentle, and her pure little pale face and large, dark eyes had a lovely dreamy look.  When she was old enough to visit the poor with her Aunt Clotilde—­and she was hardly seven years old when it was considered proper that she should begin—­the villagers did not stand in awe of her.  They began to adore her, almost to worship her, as if she had, indeed, been a sacred child.  The little ones delighted to look at her, to draw near her sometimes and touch her soft white and blue robe.  And, when they did so, she always returned their looks with such a tender, sympathetic smile, and spoke to them in so gentle a voice, that they were in ecstasies.  They used to talk her over, tell stories about her when they were playing together afterwards.

“The little Mademoiselle,” they said, “she is a child saint.  I have heard them say so.  Sometimes there is a little light round her head.  One day her little white robe will begin to shine too, and her long sleeves will be wings, and she will spread them and ascend through the blue sky to Paradise.  You will see if it is not so.”