"Come, Maurice," said Cecile. "I know now what to do. Everything
will be quite right now. I have told Jesus all about it, and Jesus
the Guide has answered me, and said He would come with us. Did you
hear that wonderful, lovely music? That was Jesus answering me. And,
Maurice, I asked Him to let us find a kind woman who will help us to
a night's lodging, and I know He will do that too."

"A kind woman?" said Maurice. "The kindest woman I ever saw is
coming up the church steps this minute."

Cecile looked in the direction in which Maurice pointed.

A woman, with a pail in one hand and a large sweeping brush in the
other, was not only coming up the steps, but had now entered the
church door. Cecile and Maurice stood back a little in the shadow.
The woman could not see them, but they could gaze earnestly at her.
She was a stout woman with a round face, rosy cheeks, and bright,
though small and sunken, brown eyes. Her eyes had, however, a light
in them, and her wide lips were framed in smiles. She must have been
a women of about fifty, but her broad forehead was without a wrinkle.
Undoubtedly she was very plain. She had not a good feature, not even
a good point about her ungainly figure. Never in her youngest days
could this woman have been fair to see, but the two children, who
gazed at her with beating hearts, thought her beautiful. Goodness and
loving-kindness reigned in that homely face; so triumphantly did they
reign, these rare and precious things, that the little children, with
the peculiar penetration of childhood, found them out at once.

"She's a _lovely_ woman," pronounced Maurice. "I'm quite sure