could not tell how or why.

But the lady would not let Bessie Bell get far from her, and Bessie
did not care to go far from her. She stood with her little pink
hands folded, and looked up at the lady who held to her so closely.

Sister Helen Vincula said: ``It was Sister Theckla who spent that
summer with the sick, and it was Sister Theckla who brought the
child to us. Can you not go home with us? Or I could write to you
at once--''

``No,'' said the lady. ``I will go. The child shall not leave me--'

``And we will talk to Sister Theckla, and she will tell us all that
she knows, and then--God willing--we shall know all.''

The lady said: ``Yes, we will all go together. We will go at once.''

And so it was that when Sister Theckla had told all that she knew,
then the lady knew (as she always had said she had known), past all
doubting, that Bessie Bell had really found what she most wished
for.

But we do not know how long it was before Bessie Bell really
understood that the Wisest Woman in the world, who knew what little
girls had almost forgotten how to remember, was her own Mother.

* * *
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