Then she heard the rapid "tick, tick, tick, tick," of the little watch,
and was comforted. She had not realized before that time could go so
fast. Now thirty seconds were gone; then sixty. At this rate it could
not be such a very long time before they would be packing their trunks
to start home; so Joyce concluded not to make herself unhappy by longing
for the family, but to get as much pleasure as possible out of this
strange Christmas abroad.
That little watch seemed to make the morning fly. She looked at it at
least twenty times an hour. She had shown it to every one in the house,
and was wishing that she could take it over to Jules for him to see,
when Monsieur Ciseaux's carriage stopped at the gate. He was on his way
to the Little Sisters of the Poor, and had come to ask Joyce to drive
with him to bring his sister home.
He handed her into the carriage as if she had been a duchess, and then
seemed to forget that she was beside him; for nothing was said all the
way. As the horses spun along the road in the keen morning air, the old
man was busy with his memories, his head dropped forward on his breast.
The child watched him, entering into this little drama as
sympathetically as if she herself were the forlorn old woman, and this
silent, white-haired man at her side were Jack.
Sister Denisa came running out to meet them, her face shining and her
eyes glistening with tears.
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