again, and Marie, Mother Soulard fairly ran
out of the dimly-lighted church, brushing against the shadowy pews as
she sped along the narrow aisles. So bound up was she in her
newly-found faith, that she scarcely noticed, on reaching the street,
how heavily the rain was falling and how fierce the storm had grown.
So boisterous, indeed, was the wind on the bleak Champ de Mars that
again and again she had to halt for breath.

"I can imagine I see them," she thought, as she struggled on, "sitting
in the parlor together with Delmia. How surprised Delmia must have
been when Ovide walked in! and how Marie must have cried and kissed
him! But the miracle will soon be known to all the neighbors, and will
be told of in the churches, too. They shall be married in church by
Father Benoit, because it was through his sermon the miracle was
brought about. Ah, what a blessed day this will always be to me!"

As she turned the corner of St. Dominique Street and saw her house,
with the yellow glare of the street-lamp still upon it, she caught her
old, dripping black dress in her hands, drew it in above her ankles,
and began to run, painfully. "_Mon Dieu!_ At last, at last!" she
panted.

Delmia, who had fallen asleep in her chair, sprang hastily to her feet
as the street-door was burst open, and uttered a startled cry on
seeing her sister standing in the doorway, looking with dazed
expression around the parlor, the water pouring in great streams from
her dress, which she still unconsciously held.

"Where are they? Where are they, Delmia?" she asked, stretching out
her hand for support. The heavy fatigue she had borne seemed to come
back to her all at once.

In her surprise and haste to reach the door, the bent and palsied
Delmia let the crutch slip from her hand, and as she fell heavily
after it, and lay struggling to regain her feet again, she looked like
some distorted creature of fancy.

The sodden, pitiful figure in the door seemed not to have seen her.
"Ovide! Ovide!" she called brokenly, staring blankly around the room.

At last Delmia reached her side. Very gently she drew her into the
house and closed the door.

"Has Ovide not come, then?" she asked again, as she sank on the crazy
rocking-chair.

"Is Ovide coming?" asked her sister, wonderingly.

The blood rushed back to the Little Mother's face, and she rose
hastily. "How very foolish I am to-night," she said, trying to be
brave. "I had forgotten that he may not have h