With a shriek she awoke, and sprang up, shivering and
trembling with cold and fright--all the terrors of the night
suddenly come upon her. She looked round; all was as it had
been when she went to sleep; the lonely road, the dark fields,
the trees and hedges; but a breeze had sprung up before the
dawn, and was rustling the leaves and branches; overhead a
star or two was shining in dark rifts, and in the east a
melancholy waning moon was slowly rising, half obscured by
scattered clouds. With a sudden impulse, born of an urgent
sense of utter loneliness and helplessness, the child fell on
her knees and repeated an Ave Maria; the clouds drifted away,
and the low moon shone out between the trees with a pale glow,
that to our convent-taught Madelon seemed suddenly to
irradiate and transfigure the night with a glory not of earth.
Never in after years did she, in church or picture-gallery,
come across glorified Madonna, or saint floating in ethereal
spaces, without the memory returning to her of a silent road,
dark, rustling trees, a midnight sky swept with clouds; and
then a vision, as it were, of light and hope, giving new
strength and courage to one little terrified heart.

Madelon started on her journey with renewed energy, but she
hardly knew how she got through the miles that remained. The
moon rose higher and higher, the road bordered with poplar-
trees seemed to stretch before and behind into a never-ending
length, as in some wearying nightmare. Madelon, in her
straight, old-fashioned silk frock, her bundle on her arm,
marching steadily on, looked nothing but a queer little black
speck, casting a long narrow shadow, as she passed from one
moon-lit space to another. Ever afterwards, when she looked