Family life -- Juvenile fiction; Voyages and travels -- Juvenile fiction
"We won't mind looking any longer for our old court to-day, Maurice,"
said Cecile. "As soon as you are rested, darling, we'll go straight and
get a night's lodging. I am afraid we must do it as cheap as possible,
but you shan't walk any more to-day."
To all this Maurice, instead of replying in his usual grumbling
fashion, laid his head on his sister's lap, and dropped off into a
heavy sleep. His pretty baby face looked very white as he slept, and
when Cecile laid her hand on his cheek it was cold.
She felt a fresh dread coming over her. Was Maurice too completely a
baby boy to go on such a long and weary pilgrimage? And oh! if this was
the case, what should she do? For they had nothing to live on. There
seemed no future at all before the little girl but the future of
finding Lovedy.
Cecile buried her head in her hands, and again the longing rose up
strong, passionate, fervent, that Jesus, the good Guide, would come to
her. He had come once. He was in the dark room last night. He answered
her though He made no sound, though, listen as she would, she could not
hear the faintest whisper from His lips. Still He was surely there.
Jane had said so, and Jane knew Him well; she said it was He who had
sent back her purse. Suppose she met Him in the street to-day, and He
knew her? Suppose He came out of the church behind them? Or suppose,
suppose He came to her again in the dark in that "lodging for the
night," where they must go? Cecile wished much that Jesus would come in
the daylight; she wanted to see His face, to look into His kind eyes.
But even to feel that He would be with her in the dark was a great
comfort in her present desolation.
Cecile was aroused from her meditations by something very soft and warm
rubbing against her hand. She raised her eyes to encounter the honest
and affectionate gaze of Toby.
Toby's eyes were bright, and he was wagging his tail, and altogether
seeming as if he found life agreeable. He gamboled a little when Cecile
looked at him, and put his forepaws on her lap. Toby meant nothing by
this but to please and cheer his little mistress. He saw she was down
and tired, and he was determined to put a bold face on things, and to
get a bit of sunshine, even on this December afternoon, into his own
honest eyes, if it would come nowhere else. Generally Cecile was the
brightest of the party; now Toby was determined to show her that he was
a dog worth having in adversity.
She did think so. Tears sprang to her own blue eyes. She threw her arms
round Toby's neck and gave him a great hug. In the midst of this caress
the dog's whole demeanor changed; he gave a quick spring out of
Cecile's embrace, and uttered an angry growl. A girl was approaching by
stealthy steps at the back of the little party.
The moment she heard Toby's bark she changed her walk to a quick run
and threw herself down beside Cecile with an easy hail-fellow-well-met
manner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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