and, still holding the child's hand in hers, she turned to
the mother who was in attendance and said:

"I pray you, sweet lady, let me whilst I am your guest share the
room of this little daughter of yours. I am but a simple country
girl, all this grandeur weighs me down. If I might but sleep with
this little one in my arms--as the little sister at home loved to
lie--I should sleep so peacefully and have such happy dreams! Ah,
madame!--let me have my will in this!"

And Madame Boucher, being a mother and a true woman, understood;
and answered by taking the Maid in her arms and kissing her. And
so, as long as the Maid remained in Orleans, she shared the little
white bedroom of the child of the house, which opened from that of
the mother, and the bond which grew up between the three was so
close and tender a one, that I trow the good Treasurer and his wife
would fain have regarded this wonderful Maid as their own daughter,
and kept her ever with them, had duty and her voices not called her
elsewhere when the first part of her task was done.

Now Bertrand and I, together with Pierre, her brother, and the
Chevalier d'Aulon and Sir Guy de Laval, were lodged in the same
house, and entertained most hospitably by the Treasurer, who sat up
with us far into the night after our arrival, listening with
earnest attention to all we could tell him respecting the Maid, and
telling us on his part of the feeling in Orleans anent her and her
mission, and what we might expect to follow her arrival here.

"The townsfolk seem well-nigh wild for joy at sight of her," spoke
De Laval, "and the more they see of her, the more they will love
her and reverence her mission. I was one who did openly scoff, or
at least had no faith in any miracle, until that I saw her with
mine own eyes; and then some voice in my heart--I know not how to
speak more plainly of it--or some wonderful power in her glance or
in her voice, overcame me. And I knew that she had in very truth
come from God, and I have never doubted of her divine commission
from that day to this. It will be the same here in Orleans, if,
indeed, there be any that doubt."

"Alas! there are--too many!" spoke the Treasurer, shaking his head,
"I am rejoiced that our two greatest Generals, Dunois and La Hire,
have become her adherents, for I myself believe that she has been
sent of God for our deliverance, and so do the townsfolk almost to
a man. But there are numbers of the lesser officers--b