spend a solitary evening there.
Turning away from the window, she bestowed a little care upon her
person, smoothed away the traces of her day's labor, and after all was
done she lingered yet longer. She was going out, evidently. Whither? To
visit the mother of John Leclerc. She must carry back the tracts the
good woman had lent her. Their contents had firm lodgement in her
memory.

Others might run to and fro in the streets, and talk about the corners,
and prognosticate with passion, and defy, in the way of cowardice, where
safety rather than the truth is well assured. If one woman could console
another, Jacqueline wished that she might console Leclerc's mother. And
if any words of wisdom could drop from the poor old woman's lips while
her soul was in this strait, Jacqueline desired to hear those words.

Down the many flights of stairs she went across the court, and then
along the street, to the house where the wool-comber lived.

A brief pause followed her knock for admittance. She repeated it. Then
was heard a sound from within,--a step crossing the floor. The door
opened, and there stood the mother of Leclerc, ready to face any danger,
the very Fiend himself.

But when she saw that it was Jacqueline, only Jacqueline,--an angel, as
one might say, and not a devil,--the terrible look passed from her face;
she opened the door wide.

"Come in, child! come in!"

So Jacqueline went into the room where John had worked and thought,
reasoned, argued, prayed.

This is the home of the man because of whom many are this night offended
in the city of Meaux. This is the place whence issued the power that has
set the tongues to talking, and the minds to thinking, and the hearts to
hoping, and the authorities to avenging.

A grain of mustard-seed is the kingdom of heaven in a figure; the
wandering winds a symbol of the Pentecostal power: a dove did signify
the descent of God to man. This poor chamber, so pent in, and so lowly,
so obscure, has its significance. Here has a life been lived; and not
the least does it import, that walls are rough and the ceiling low.

But the life of John Leclerc was not to be limited. A power has stood
here which by its freedom has set at defiance the customary calculation
of the worldly-wise. In high places and in low the people are this night
disturbed because of him who has dared to lift his voice in the freedom
of the speech of God. In drawing-rooms odorous with luxury the man's
name has me