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Next afternoon at five o’clock saw Rosalie kneeling in the famous temple, her head buried in her hands, praying in the silence as only sincerity and helplessness can pray.

“Oh, Serpent, give me my tongue! Let me talk,” said she, a most natural request when coming from a woman.

Then she went home quite comforted, as only the simple can be.

“One does not pray for nothing,” she thought “I feel the Serpent heard me.”

And that night she was so happy, she did not notice her uncle’s troubled look and silent way. She did not mean to be selfish, she was thinking purely of her prayer.

Some weeks went by, and every day she walked to the temple and prayed:

“Oh, Serpent, give me my tongue! Let me talk.”

But no answer came to her prayer, and at last she got tired of kneeling down among the empty pews. The building was so big that she felt quite far away, so she picked up her courage and went up the big aisle, right up through the choir stalls to the steps rising towards the altar, hidden by the curtains. It was legitimate for any woman to go so far. She was perfectly within her right. So she went up the steps and knelt down quietly beside the golden railing.