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“The picture is a modern one,” said Isolde, “that is why the Holy Family are painted without halos, and Miss Mills was quite right about its being a legend. Your mother once told me all the different things that the painter had tried to express in his picture. The smoke above the trees is supposed to come from an inn, where the inn-keeper and his wife have just refused to give shelter to the travellers, and it is said that their children’s children are the gipsies, who have now no settled home or shelter of their own. Then there is another story that when the idols of Egypt recognized the true God, they fell down and were broken. The bird with the outspread wings is the human soul, and the Lord is feeding it with the Bread of Life.”

“Still you don’t think the Holy Family will mind my having made up the other story about them, do you?” inquired Philomène anxiously. But Godmother only shook her head and smiled.

Philomène certainly asked a great many questions, but then Isolde was never tired of answering them. Yet though she loved her goddaughter dearly, it was not entirely for her own sake. For she was Rachel’s child.