* Curiously enough I find no trace of ‘Bosom of Election’ in the
    Litany of the Blessed Virgin as printed in English Catholic
    works.—­ED.

How many times had not the Litany of the Virgin, recited in common in the seminary chapel, left the young man with broken limbs and void head, as if from some great fall!  And since his departure from the seminary, Abbe Mouret had grown to love the Virgin still more.  He gave to her that impassioned cult which to Brother Archangias savoured of heresy.  In his opinion it was she who would save the Church by some matchless prodigy whose near appearance would entrance the world.  She was the only miracle of our impious age—­the blue-robed lady that showed herself to little shepherdesses, the whiteness that gleamed at night between two clouds, her veil trailing over the low thatched roofs of peasant homes.  When Brother Archangias coarsely asked him if he had ever espied her, he simply smiled and tightened his lips as if to keep his secret.  Truth to say, he saw her every night.  She no longer seemed a playful sister or a lovely pious maiden; she wore a bridal robe, with white flowers in her hair; and from beneath her drooping eyelids fell moist glances of hopeful promise that set his cheeks aglow.  He could feel that she was coming, that she was promising to delay no longer; that she said to him, ‘Here I am, receive me!’ Thrice a day when the Angelus rang out—­at break of dawn, in the fulness of midday, and at the gentle fall of twilight—­he bared his head and said an Ave with a glance around him as if to ascertain whether the bell were not at last announcing Mary’s coming.  He was five-and-twenty.  He awaited her.

During the month of May the young priest’s expectation was fraught with joyful hope.  To La Teuse’s grumblings he no longer paid the slightest attention.  If he remained so late praying in the church, it was because he entertained the mad idea that the great golden Virgin would at last come down from her pedestal.  And yet he stood in awe of that Virgin, so like a princess in her mien.  He did not love all the Virgins alike, and this one inspired him with supreme respect.  She was, indeed, the Mother of God, she showed the fertile development of form, the majestic countenance, the strong arms of the Divine Spouse bearing Jesus.  He pictured her thus, standing in the midst of the heavenly court, the train of her royal mantle trailing among the stars; so far above him, and of such exceeding might, that he would be shattered into dust should she deign to cast her eyes upon him.  She was the Virgin of his days of weakness, the austere Virgin who restored his inward peace by an awesome glimpse of Paradise.