ng into this little drama as
sympathetically as if she herself were the forlorn old woman, and this
silent, white-haired man at her side were Jack.

Sister Denisa came running out to meet them, her face shining and her
eyes glistening with tears. "It is for joy that I weep," she exclaimed,
"that poor madame should have come to her own again. See the change that
has already been made in her by the blessed news."

Joyce looked down the corridor as monsieur hurried forward to meet the
old lady coming towards them, and to offer his arm. Hope had
straightened the bowed figure; joy had put lustre into her dark eyes and
strength into her weak frame. She walked with such proud stateliness
that the other inmates of the home looked up at her in surprise as she
passed. She was no more like the tearful, broken-spirited woman who had
lived among them so long, than her threadbare dress was like the elegant
mantle which monsieur had brought to fold around her.

Joyce had brought a handful of roses to Sister Denisa, who caught them
up with a cry of pleasure, and held them against her face as if they
carried with them some sweetness of another world.

Madame came up then, and, taking the nun in her arms, tried to thank her
for all that she had done, but could find no words for a gratitude so
deep, and turned away, sobbing.

They said good-by to Sister Denisa,--brave Little Sister of the Poor,
whose only joy was the pleasure of unselfish service; who had no time to
even stand at the gate and be a glad witness of other people's Christmas
happiness, but must hurry back to her morning task of dealing out coffee
and clean handkerchiefs to two hundred old paupers. No, there were only
a hundred and ninety-nine now. Down the streets, across the Loire, into
the old village and out again, along the wide Paris road, one of them
was going home.

The carriage turned and went for a little space between brown fields and
closely clipped hedgerows, and then madame saw the windows of her old
home flashing back the morning sunlight over the high stone wall. Again
the carriage turned, into the lane this time, and now the sunlight was
caught up by the scissors over the gate, and thrown dazzlingly down into
their faces.

Monsieur smiled as he looked at Joyce, a tender, gentle smile that one
would have supposed never could have been seen on those harsh lips. She
was almost standing up in the carriage, in her excitement.

"Oh, it has come true!" she c