IV.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 23, 8 June 1905, Page 24

IV.

When" Madame de Revannes had recovered slightly from the shock which the sight of the abhorred name had giv*n to her, her first impulse was to remove the flowers from the grave, and with this intention she stretched out her arm. As she did so, a gentle hand touched hers, two soft blue eyes looked at her pleadingly, and a tender \oice spoke in accents broken with tears. "Oh, please don't take away the flowers, dear little mother ; the poor girl would be so hurt ; look how delighted she is with them, and we can so easily spare them. Oh, do leave them ! ' Madame de Revannes' arm fell to her side. How could she resist that sweet entreaty. Then she looked at the murderer's child. Theie she knelt, gating rapturously at the blossoms, every moment discovering in them new beauties. Brougnt up as she had been in an obscure village, surrounded by poverty and squalor, she had' never had an opportunity of seeing flowers so rare and so beautiful. It seemed to her as sJie knelt inhaling their delicious fragrance that they must ha\e grown in the gardens of heaven and had'fallen to earth in answer to her prayers. On first disco\ering that the grave was that of her hjusbajnd's assassin, Madame de Revannes had looked upon it as an unholy spot ; it seemed to her to be a species of pollution to stand near it. But gradually a better feeling came over her. Her heart became softened, while something seemed to whisper that it had been to such a one as was Pedro Rogues that our Blessed Lord ha>d given the assurance that even on That day he should be with Him in Paradise Madame de Revannes looked at the grave with altered mind : perhaps it was as fit a resting-place for the blossoms as Mas the tomb of her innocent spouse. In contemplating the pathetic little figure who knelt beside it, she thought it was extremely probable that the poor cnild had never heard of her father's crime.

Amidst the solemn calm of that beautiful summer morning, its breath laden with the scent of newlyopefned flowers, was heard the music of two childish voices ; their accompaniment the sigh of the wind in the cypresses and the orchestra made by the varied notes of the bees as thoy .sought their early meal among the flowers. The children were reciting the ' Our Father,' and Madame de Revannes listened as one after another the beautiful petitions of that best ot all prayers fell from their lips As (hey approached the conclusion of the prayer, unconsciously the children's enunciation became slower and more impressive, and the words of the petition, 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us,' fell upon the ears of the widow invested with a meaning and a solemnity hitherto unknown to her. * All the bitterness gone out of her heart, the ieeently dried tears flowing again from her eves, Madame dc Revannes fell upon her .knees by the side of the criminal's child, while with voice trembling with emotion, heart-softened with tenderness and forgiveness, she repeated the words after the rhildren Meanwhile a deep calm flooded her soul, a gentle evpression of peace stolo over her countenance. Never had she felt so chastened by the great sorrow of her life, never so capable of saying ' Thy will be done ' a^ when she Knelt at the grave of him who had been her husband's murderer, and whose nncared-for and dishonored resting-place her own innocent chikl had unknowingly decorated with choicest flowers from tbc grave of his ■\ktim.—From the Spanish.