Then the orphan and the old woman, thinking of all the beautiful things that were in their chimney, were full of amazement. But presently they saw the cure coming with wonder in his face. Above the seat, placed near the door of the church, at the same place where in the evening a child, clad in a white robe, and with feet bare notwithstanding the cold, had rested his sleeping head, the priest had just seen a circle of gold incrusted with precious stones. And they all crossed themselves devoutly, comprehending that the beautiful sleeping child, near whom were the carpenter's tools, was Jesus of Nazareth in person, become for an hour such as he was when he worked in his parents' house, and they bowed themselves before that miracle that the good God had seen fit to work, to reward the faith and charity of a child. [Illustration] THE FOSTER SISTER. [Illustration: THE FOSTER SISTER] I. Sitting in her office at the end of the shop, shut off from it by glass windows, pretty Madame Bayard, in a black gown and with her hair in sober braids, was writing steadily in an enormous ledger with leather corners, while her husband, following his morning custom, stopped at the door to scold his workmen, who had not finished unloading a dray from the Northern Railway, which blocked the road, and carried to the druggist of the Rue Vieille du Temple a dozen casks of glucose. [Illustration] "I have bad news to tell you," said Madame Bayard, sticking her pen in a cup of leaden shot, when her husband had entered the glass cage. "Poor Voisin is dead." "The nurse of Leon? Poor woman! And her little daughter?" "That is the saddest part, my dear. A relative of poor Voisin writes me that they are too poor to take charge of the child, and she must be sent to an orphan asylum." "Oh, those peasants!" The druggist was silent for a moment, rubbing his thick blond beard; then suddenly looking at his wife with kindly eyes: "Say, Mimi, the child is the foster sister of our Leon. Suppose we give her a home?" "I should think so," was the quiet reply of the pretty wife. "Well done," cried Bayard, as, caring little if he were seen by his clerks and store-boys, he leaned towards his wife and kissed her forehead, "well done! you're a good woman, Mimi. We will take little Norine with us, and bring her up with Leon. That won't ruin us, eh? Besides, I have just made a good stroke in quinine. We will go after the child Sunday to Argenteuil, sha'n't we?" "We will make that our Sunday excursion." II.