"Do you know," she said, after a pause, "that you don't seem a stranger to me? You are like Miss Neale--so much like her that you might pass for her sister. Many a time she has sat where you are sitting now." "It is as I thought," Elsie murmured. "I have been guided by a vanished hand." The old lady smiled. "We are all guided," she said; "but sometimes the guidance is more plainly manifested than usual, or it may be that our perceptions are quickened. You will be disappointed when I tell you that I don't know where Jamie is now. However, you must keep up your heart, and not be discouraged." "I will not be discouraged," Elsie answered resolutely. "Did Mrs. Penn take the boy away with her?" "She did. She went away more than a year ago, and she has not fulfilled her promise of writing to me. If I had not been old and rheumatic I would have kept the little fellow myself." "I wish you had kept him," Elsie said earnestly. "But until he is safe in my own keeping I shall not rest." "That was spoken like Miss Neale," the old lady remarked. "You are prettier than she was; I am an old woman, and you won't mind my plain speaking. She was not as tall as you are, and her eyes were grey instead of brown, as yours are; but she had your black lashes and eyebrows. She always wore a very peaceful look, a look that comes to some people after great suffering. Your face is more eager than hers." "Mrs. Beaton," said Elsie, bending forward entreatingly, "I want to hear Meta's story from one who knew her. She has said very little about herself in her manuscript. Won't you begin at once, and tell me all that you know?" "Yes, my dear, I will tell you," Mrs. Beaton replied. "I have missed her very much. She used to come and talk to me when she had a little time to spare. Hers was a busy life, and it was a life lived for others. She was always going about among the burden-bearers, and trying to lighten the burdens. That was how it was that she met Mr. Waring." CHAPTER VI _HAROLD AND META_ "The dear Lord's best interpreters Are humble human souls; The gospel of a life like hers Is more than books or scrolls. From scheme and creed the light goes out, The saintly fact survives; The blessed Master none can doubt Revealed in holy lives." --WHITIER. The two women, sitting together in the little parlour behind the shop, seemed to have been drawn to each other by some subtle influence which neither could explain. When Mrs. Beaton proposed that Elsie should take off her cloak and stay long enough to drink a cup of tea, the invitation was accepted at once. And then Elsie told her name, and a little bit of her own history, before she began to listen to the story of Meta.