But Madame Soubirons was familiar with these scenes, and had no eyes for them.  She sat leaning her cheek upon her hand, and as she glanced down the crooked walk she murmured, “They have had time to get back, if they hurried as I charged them.”  Presently a cheery whistle rang out upon the air, and looking up she saw a man in miller’s dress approaching.  It was Jean Soubirons, her husband, coming home to dinner.  She waited until he arrived, and they then went into the house together.

“Can you eat a cold dinner to-day, Jean?” she asked.  “I have only bread and milk to give you.”

“Yes, with thanks, Louise,” he replied; “but where are Bernadette and Marie?”

“They went with Jeanne Abadie to gather fagots, but they should have been back long since.  You might then have had a warm dinner.”

“All is well if they come to no harm, but it is somewhat chilly for our Bernadette.”

“I gave her a pair of stockings to wear.  She can’t go like Marie, poor child! who can hardly endure her sabots, even in winter.  But I do not see what detains them.”

They sat down and ate in silence, the two vacant places seeming to fill them with a feeling of desolation.

“I am sorry,” said Jean Soubirons as he rose from the table, “that I am so poor a man that my little girls must bring the wood for the pot.”

“Perhaps we shall be richer some day, Jean,” said Louise, as if she had hope.

“Perhaps so—­in heaven,” said he sadly, “where there are no poor;” and he went back to his work.

Meantime the three girls had been wandering.  Of the two sisters, Marie was rosy and strong, but Bernadette pale and delicate, being afflicted with asthma.  Bernadette appeared to be only ten years old, but was fourteen.  Previous to this time almost all her life had been passed away from home, she having lived at Bastres with a friend of her mother, where she had been provided with a home for the small sum of five francs a month and her service in tending the sheep:  she was not strong enough for more laborious work.  Here Bernadette lived a calm and uneventful life, her duties causing her to be much in solitude, which she whiled away in petting her lambs.  Very often the time had been set when she was to return home, but it was as often postponed.  Her friends at Bastres could not bear to give her up, and year after year she had lingered with them.  She had been at home only two weeks upon that day when she went with Jeanne and Marie to gather sticks.

The three girls, dressed in their black woolen frocks, white capulets and wooden shoes—­Bernadette alone having stockings, in consideration of her health—­trudged on, enjoying the pure air.  They crossed the bridge of the Gave, passed the mill and went on through the meadow, turning their steps toward the grotto of Massabielle, which was not far distant.  There are, properly speaking, several grottoes in the rocks of Massabielle,