in the garden, and gave me one with a grace in the giving which made the flower valuable.  It still lives and blooms in a glass on my writing-table at which I have been jotting down the notes of what I mean to say.  What I mean to say!  There is more in those words than there seems, if you could but guess all!  I shall trust to the day itself for the necessary eloquence.  The congregation that assembles at the Lorette is a curious and a mixed one.  ‘Artistes’ of the stage and the cafe chantant are among the worshippers;—­dames of rank and fashion who worship the male ‘artistes,’ and the golden youth of Paris who adore the very points of the shoes of the female ones,—­are generally there also.  It is altogether what ‘perfide Albion,’ or Dame Grundee would call a ‘fast’ audience.  And the fact that I have arranged to preach there will draw a still greater mixture and ‘faster’ quality, as I am, alas!—­a fashion in preachers.  I pray you to come, or I shall think you have not forgiven me!

“Vergniaud.”

Cardinal Bonpre folded the letter and put it aside with a curious feeling of compassion for the writer.

“Yes, I will go,” he thought, “I have never heard him preach, though I know by report that he is popular.  I was told once that he seems to be possessed by a very demon of mockery, and that it is this spirit which makes his attraction for the people; but I hope it is something more than that—­I hope—­” Here interrupting his meditations he turned to Manuel.

“So you gave the Abbe Vergniaud a rose the other day, my child?”

“Yes,” replied Manuel, “He looked sad when I met him,—­and sometimes a flower gives pleasure to a person in sorrow.”

The Cardinal thought of his own roses far away, and sighed with a sensation of longing and homesickness.

“Flowers are like visible messages from God,” he said, “Messages written in all the brightest and loveliest colours!  I never gather one without finding out that it has something to say to me.”

“There is a legend,” said Manuel, “which tells how a poor girl who has lost every human creature she loved on earth, had a rose-tree she was fond of, and every day she found upon it just one bloom.  And though she longed to gather the flower for herself she would not do so, but always placed it before the picture of the Christ.  And God saw her do this, as He sees everything.  At last, quite suddenly she died, and when she found herself in Heaven, there were such crowds and crowds of angels about her that she was bewildered, and could not find her way.  All at once she saw a pathway edged with roses before her, and one of the angels said, ’These are all the roses you gave to our Lord on earth, and He has made them into a pathway for you which will lead you straight to those you love!’ And so with great joy she followed the windings of the path, seeing her roses blossoming all the way, and she found all those whom she had loved and lost on earth waiting to welcome her at the end!”