And then picture after picture followed; there were ornamented letters, large and small, engravings in the text and at the heading of the chapters; "The Annunciation," an immense angel inundating with rays of light a slight, delicate-looking Mary; "The Massacre of the Innocents," where a cruel Herod was seen surrounded by dead bodies of dear little children; "The Nativity," where Saint Joseph is holding a candle, the light of which falls upon the face of the Infant Jesus, Who sleeps in His mother's arms; Saint John the Almoner, giving to the poor; Saint Matthias, breaking an idol; Saint Nicholas as a bishop, having at his right hand a little bucket filled with babies.

And then, a little farther on, came the female saints: Agnes, with her neck pierced by a sword; Christina, torn by pincers; Genevieve, followed by her lambs; Juliana, being whipped; Anastasia, burnt; Maria the Egyptian, repenting in the desert, Mary of Magdalene, carrying the vase of precious ointment; and others and still others followed.

There was an increasing terror and a piety in each one of them, making it a history which weighs upon the heart and fills the eyes with tears.
But, little by little, Angelique was curious to know exactly what these engravings represented.

The two columns of closely-printed text, the impression of which remained very black upon the papers yellowed by time, frightened her by the strange, almost barbaric look of the Gothic letters.

Still, she accustomed herself to it, deciphered these characters, learned the abbreviations and the contractions, and soon knew how to explain the turning of the phrases and the old-fashioned words.