ma, along of the thought of losin' her,--an' as I said, I had
been walkin' I don' know how long, plannin' as I went, when the darlin'
woke up, an' begun to cry. An' jus' then a man opened a door to come out
of a place as had a great sign up, an' in the light as come out with
him, he caught sight of us.

"'Haven't you no place to go fer shelter, my poor woman?' he says, for I
was kinder breathless, an' pantin', fer the darlin' an' the bundle was a
weight to carry. But I was that tired out, I couldn't say nothin' but
jus' begin to cry. Seem' which he says, 'This is one of the
All-Night-Missions, come in an' I will see if you may stay until
morning.'

"Thinkin' as how th' child might be sufferin' with the cold, I follered
him in, a-plannin' to leave at daylight an' get across the river. I set
down on a bench where he pointed me, an' when I got my breath I begun to
look around.

"It was a nice place, Norma, with picters round th' walls an' a good
fire an' people sittin' round listenin' to a man talkin', an' when he
stopped, a lady begun to sing a song about some sheep as were lost.

"Angel here, she had stopped crying soon as she got warm, an' now she
set up, peart an' smilin', pleased to death with the singin'. An' when
she was done her song, the lady went to talkin', an' right along, Norma,
she was talkin' straight at me. It mus' have been th' Lord as tol' her
to do it, else how did she know?

"'Rachel,' says she, an' I reckon this Rachel's another poor such a one
as me, don't you, Norma?--'Rachel a cryin' for her children an' there
wasn't any comfort for her because they weren't there!' That's how she
begun. 'There isn't no love,' she said, 'no love on earth like the love
a mother has for her child, you might take it away,' she said, 'an' try
to fill its place with money an' everything good in life, but you can't
make her stop wantin' her child an' thinkin' about it, not if you was to
separate them fifty years; or you might try to beat it out of a mother
or starve it out of her, but if the mother love had ever been there,
it'd be there still.' That's what she said, Norma. An' she s'posed like
the child was lost an' she said, 'even if there was a lot of children
besides that a one, would she stay at home, contented like, with them as
was safe? No,' she said, 'that mother wouldn't, she'd start out and go
hunt for the one as was lost,--even to faintin' along the way, till she
found the child or give up an' died. That's