"What service, mademoiselle?"
"Why, the holy office we attend every day."
Then, seeing that Ernestine evinced some surprise, Mlle. Helena added, sanctimoniously:
"We go every day to pray an hour for the souls of your father and mother."
Until then the young girl had never had any fixed hour to pray for her father and mother. The orphan prayed nearly all day; that is to say, almost every minute she was thinking with pious respect and ineffable tenderness of the parents whose loss she so deeply deplored. Now, scarcely daring to decline mademoiselle's invitation, Ernestine sadly replied:
"I thank you for the kind thought, mademoiselle. I will accompany you, of course."
"The nine o'clock mass would be most suitable, I think," said the devotee, "and that is said in the Chapel of the Virgin, for whom you have a special preference, I think you remarked last evening, Ernestine."
"Yes, mademoiselle, every Sunday in Italy I attended mass in the Chapel of the Madonna. She, too, was a mother, so it seemed most fitting that I should address my prayers for my mother to her."
"They will certainly prove efficacious, Ernestine, and as you have commenced your devotions under the invocation of the mother of our blessed Saviour, it would be well to continue them under the same protection, so we will perform our devotions in the Chapel of the Virgin every morning at nine o'clock."
"I will be ready, mademoiselle."