Here, indeed, early as it was in the day, the short time of light
seemed almost to have disappeared. The sky--what could be seen of it
between the tall houses of the narrow street--looked almost black,
and little flakes of snow began to fall noiselessly.

Here Joe, thinking of the Norman peasant, began to be a little
alarmed. He proposed, as they had got into Caen, that they should run
no further risk, but spend the night there.

But this proposition was met by tears of reproach by Cecile. "Oh,
dear Jography! and stepmother did say, never, never to stay in the
big towns--always to sleep in the little inns. Caen is much, much too
big a town. We must not break my word to stepmother--we must not
stay here."

Cecile's firmness, joined to her great childish ignorance, could be
dangerous, but Joe only made a feeble protest.

"Do you see that old woman, and the little lass by her side making
lace?" he said. "That house don't look big; we might get a night's
lodging as cheap as in the villages."

But though the little Norman girl of seven nodded a friendly
greeting to pretty brown-eyed Maurice as he passed, and though the
making of lace on bobbins must be a delightful employment, Cecile
felt there could be no tidings of Lovedy for her there; and after
partaking of a little hot soup in the smallest cafe they could come
across, the little pilgrims found themselves outside Caen and in the
desolate and wintry country, when it was still early in the day.