And they all crossed themselves devoutly, comprehending that the beautiful sleeping child, near whom were the carpenter’s tools, was Jesus of Nazareth in person, become for an hour such as he was when he worked in his parents’ house, and they bowed themselves before that miracle that the good God had seen fit to work, to reward the faith and charity of a child.
THE FOSTER SISTER.
I.
Sitting in her office at the end of the shop, shut off from it by glass windows, pretty Madame Bayard, in a black gown and with her hair in sober braids, was writing steadily in an enormous ledger with leather corners, while her husband, following his morning custom, stopped at the door to scold his workmen, who had not finished unloading a dray from the Northern Railway, which blocked the road, and carried to the druggist of the Rue Vieille du Temple a dozen casks of glucose.