caravan.



CHAPTER VI

A FAMILY SECRET

How sweet and calm the village looked the next morning, when Rosalie woke
and looked out at it. She was quite sorry to leave it, but there was no
rest for these poor wanderers; they must move onwards towards the town
where they were next to perform. And as they travelled on, Rosalie's mother
went on with her sad story.

'I told you, darling, that my mother took a house in town, and that we all
moved there, that my brother Gerald might take possession of our old home.
We were getting great girls now, and my mother sent Miss Manders away, and
left us to our own devices.

'My sister Lucy had been very different since our father died. She was so
quiet and still, that I often wondered what was the matter with her. She
spent nearly all her time reading her Bible in a little attic chamber. I
did not know why she went there, till one day I went upstairs to get
something out of a box, and found Lucy sitting in the window-seat reading
her little black Bible. I asked her what she read it for, and she said--

'"Oh, Norah, it makes me so happy! won't you come and read it with me?" But
I tossed my head, and said I had too much to do to waste my time like that;
and I ran downstairs, and tried to forget what I had seen; for I knew that
my sister was right and I was wrong. Oh, Rosalie darling, I've often