"Ah, child! that's wot I can't tell you; I wishes as I could. One
day Susie went out and never come back again. She used to talk o'
France, same as you talk o' France, so perhaps she went there;
anyhow, she never come back to us who loved her. We fretted sore, and
we hadvertised in the papers, but we never, never heard another word
of Susie, and that's seven years or more gone by."




CHAPTER VIII.

THE TRIALS OF SECRECY.


The next day Mrs. Moseley went round to see her clergyman, Mr.
Danvers, to consult him about Cecile and Maurice. They puzzled her,
these queer little French children. Maurice was, it is true, nothing
but a rather willful, and yet winsome, baby boy; but Cecile had
character. Cecile was the gentlest of the gentle, but she was firm as
the finest steel. Mrs. Moseley owned to feeling even a little vexed
with Cecile, she was so determined in her intention of going to
France, and so equally determined not to tell what her motive in
going there was. She said over and over with a solemn shake of her
wise little head that she must go there, that a heavy weight was laid
upon her, that she was under a promise to the dead. Mrs. Moseley,
remembering how Susie had run away, felt a little afraid. Suppose
Cecile, too, disappeared? It was so easy for children to disappear in
London. They were just as much lost as if they were dead to their