she at once perceived the tracts which jacqueline had brought. aware of this, the girl said, i stayed to hear them read, after i heard that for the sake of the truth in themshe hesitatedthis city will invite gods wrath to-morrow. and she gave the papers to the old woman, who took them in silence. by-and-by she asked, are you just home, jacqueline? since sunset,though it was nearly dark when i came in,she answered. victor le roy was down by the riverbank, and he read them for me. he wanted to get out of town, maybe. you would surely have thought it was a holiday, jacqueline, if you could have seen the people. anything for a show: but some of them might well lament. did you want to know the truth he pays so dear for teaching? but you have heard it, my child. we all heard what he must pay for it, in the fields at noon. yes, mother, i wanted to know. but if you shall believe it, jacqueline, it may lead you into danger, into sad straits, said the old woman, looking at the young girl with earnest pity in her eyes. she loved this girl, and shuddered at the thought of exposing her to danger. jacqueline had nursed her neighbor, antonine, and more than once, after a hard days labor, which must be followed by another, she had sat with her through the night; and she could pay this service only with love, and the best gift of her love was to instruct her in the truth. john and she had proved their grateful interest in her fortunes by giving her that which might expose her to danger, persecution, and they could not foresee to what extremity of evil. and now the old woman felt constrained to say this to her, even for her loves sake,it may lead you into danger. but if truth is dangerous, shall i choose to be safe? answered jacqueline, with stately courage. it _is_ truth. it _will_ support him. blessed be jesus christ and his witnesses! to-night, and to-morrow, and the third day, our jesus will sustain him. they think john will retract. they do not know my son. they do not know how he has waited, prayed, and studied to learn the truth, and how dear it is to him. no, jacqueline, they do not. but when they prove him, they will know. and if he is willing to witness, shall i not be glad? the people will understand him better afterward,and the priests, maybe. i can do all things, said he, christ strengthening me; and that was said long ago, by one who was proved. where shall you be, jacqueline? oh, groaned jacqueline, i shall be in the fields at work, away from these cruel people, and the noise and the sight. but, mother, where shall you be? with the people, child. with him, if i live. yes, he is my son; and i have never been ashamed of the brave boy. i will not be ashamed to-morrow. i will follow john; and when they bind him, i will let him see his mothers eyes are on him,blessing him, my child!hark! how they talk through the streets!jacqueline, he was never a coward. he is strong, too. they will not kill him, and they cannot make him dumb. he will hold the truth the faster for all they do to him. jesus christ on his side, do you think he will fear the city, or all paris, or all france? he does not know what it is to be afraid. and when god opened his eyes to the truth of his gospel, which the priests had hid, he meant that john should work for it,for he is a working-man, whatever he sets about. so this old woman tried, and not without success, to comfort herself, and sustain her tender, proud, maternal heart. the dire extremity into which she and her son had fallen did not crush her; few were the tears that fell from her eyes as she recalled for jacqueline the years of her sons boyhood,told her of his courage, as in various ways it had made itself manifest: how he had always been fearless in danger,a conqueror of pain,seemingly regardless of comfort,fond of contemplation,contented with his humble state,kindly, affectionate, generous, but easily stirred to wrath by injustice, when manifested by the strong toward the weak,or by cruelty, or by falsehood. many an anecdote of his career might she relate; for his character, under the pressure of this trial, which was as searching and severe a test of her faith as of his, seemed to illustrate itself in manifold heroic ways, all now of the highest significance. with more majesty and grandeur his character arose before her; for now in all the past, as she surveyed it, she beheld a living power, a capability, and a necessity of new and grand significance, and her heart reverenced the spirit she had nursed into being. removed to the distance of a prison from her sight, separated from her love by bolts and bars, and the wrath of tyranny and close-banded bigotry, he became a power, a hero, who moved her, as she recalled his sentence, and prophesied the morrow, to a feeling tears could not explain. they passed the night together, the young woman and the old. in the morning jacqueline must go into the field again. she was in haste to go. leaving a kiss on the old womans cheek, she was about to steal away in silence; but as she laid her hand upon the latch, a thought arrested her, and she did not open the door, but went back and sat beside the window, and watched the mother of leclerc through the sleep that must be brief. it was not in her heart to go away and leave those eyes to waken upon solitude. she must see a helpful hand and hopeful face, and, if it might be, hear a cheerful human voice, in the dawning of that day. she had not long to wait, and the time she may have lost in waiting jacqueline did not count or reckon, when she heard her name spoken, and could answer, what wilt thou? here am i