, or, rather, mercy.
'Child,' said I, 'wilt come into the Manor with me, and have some
chocolate and cake?' 'That will I, madam,' she answered softly. 'I came
on purpose to stay with you.' The little one has partly lost her wits, I
thought, but I said nothing, and the stranger trotted after me into my
own parlour, just as a tame lamb or a little dog might have done. She
took her seat on a tabouret at my knee, and ate her spiced cake and
sipped her chocolate with a pretty, modest air. Just so was my Gracie
wont to sit, and even as I thought of her my dim eyes grew dimmer still
with tears. At last they fell, and some of them dropped on the strange
guest's golden head, which she had confidingly placed on my knee.
'Don't, sweet madam,' she said, 'don't grieve overmuch! You will find
balm in giving balm! You will find comfort in giving comfort! For _I am
Peace_, and I have come to tarry with you for a little space!' I
perceived that the child's wits were astray, but, somehow, I felt
strangely drawn to her, and as she had nowhere else to go I kept her
with me, and that New Year's Eve she slept in my Grace's bed, and on
the succeeding day she was clothed in one of my lost ewe lamb's gowns,
and all in the household styled her Little Peace, because she gave no
other name at all.

* * * * *

"Time passed on--and the strange child still abode with us, and every
day we loved her more, for she 'went about doing good,' and, what is
more, became my schoolmistress, and instructed me in the holy art of
charity. For my own great woe had made me forgetful of the woes and
afflictions of others. This is how she went about her work. One winter
day, when the fountain in the park was frozen, the child, who had been
a-walking, came up to me and said, 'Dear madam, are apples good?' 'Of a
surety they are--excellent for dessert, and also baked, with spiced ale.
Wherefore dost ask?' 'Because old Gaffer Cressidge, and the dame his
wife, are sitting eating baked apples and dry bread over in Ashete
village, and methinks that soup would suit them better. Madam, we must
set the pot boiling, and I will take them some. And, madam, dear, there
must be a cupboard in this house.' 'Alack, my pretty one,' said I, 'of
cupboards we already have enow. There is King Charles's cupboard in
which we hid his Majesty after Worcester fight, and the green and blue
closet, as well as many others. Sure, you prattle of that of which you
do n