trembled at these words. 'And now He gives me my consolation,' she said,
and called the little ones round her, and told them a tale of the Good
Shepherd, which is out of the holy Gospel. To see all the little ones
round her knees in a crowd, and the peaceful face with which she smiled
upon them, and the meadows all full of flowers, and the sunshine coming
and going through the branches: and to hear that tale of Him who went
forth to seek the lamb that was lost, was like a tale out of a holy
book, where all was peace and goodness and joy. But on the other side,
not twenty steps off, was the house full of those who wept, and at all
the doors and windows anxious faces gazing down upon that cloud in the
valley where Semur was. A procession of our women was coming back, many
with lingering steps, carrying the baskets which were empty. 'Is there
any news?' we asked, reading their faces before they could answer. And
some shook their heads, and some wept. There was no other reply.

On the last night before our deliverance, suddenly, in the middle of the
night, there was a great commotion in the house. We all rose out of our
beds at the sound of the cry, almost believing that some one at the
window had seen the lifting of the cloud, and rushed together,
frightened, yet all in an eager expectation to hear what it was. It was
in the room where the old Mère Julie slept that the disturbance was.
Mère Julie was one of the market-women of Semur, the one I have
mentioned who was devout, who never missed the _Salut_ in the afternoon,
besides all masses which are obligatory. But there were other matters
in which she had not satisfied my mind, as I have before said. She was
the mother of Jacques Richard, who was a good-for-nothing, as is well
known. At La Clairière Mère Julie had enacted a strange part. She had
taken no part in anything that was done, but had established herself in
the chamber allotted to her, and taken the best bed in it, where she
kept her place night and day, making the others wait upon her. She had