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 velling backward many a year to the time when she had been young, and had known both the joys and the travails begotten of love. She had been a hard-working woman, toiling for the bare bread of life, until she had grown old; but she had been faithful, and she had not forgotten.

Only heaven had forgotten her.

She was one amongst so many, she thought; it was not wonderful.

Then she roused herself and went on with her speech to the child.

'I am old and you are young. Soon I must leave you, dear, down in the earth, up in the sky, one way or another I must go. I am anxious—there is the little money in the jug under the bricks, and the linen and the mule, that is all; the house goes back to the master. I cannot tell what you will do—may the saints spare me just a little. If you were a woman grown, one would not be so anxious. To please me will you go and learn of the Sisters?'

'No,' said the child, resolutely. There was a bare, dreary place near at hand, where a few good women dwelt, who nursed the fever-stricken and taught the children.