alone. Their troubled look says plainer than words: "Where is Jesus?" Neither has seen Him since they started. They make inquiries but can hear nothing of Him.
They go here and there, threading their way among the various parties settling down for the night. No one has time to listen to them, rough or careless words are the only replies they receive. Darkness falls and with it a stillness. Perhaps now He will come to them. They sit by the roadside and wait and pray. The hours go by. They cannot disturb the sleeping camp, and surely He would have come to them before now had He been anywhere there. He must have remained behind in Jerusalem. Joseph looks at Mary, tired out with her day's march and weary search, but she smiles through her tears and tries to cheer him. "Yes, surely, Jesus will be in the Temple," she says, "let us go to Him." And they set out.
She is quite spent by the time they reach Jerusalem. But there can be no rest for her till Jesus is found. They go to the Temple; they search the Courts and the colonnades; they question the talkers; they look among the worshippers. No, He is not here. They go out and wander up and down the still thronged streets of the Holy City, feeling for each other at every new disappointment, trying to keep up each other's hope.
Three days they search; the market, the bazaars or shops, the synagogues—all are visited, the Temple again and again. Joseph wonders how Mary keeps up. The anguish of her heart can be seen on her face, but there is never a complaint, never anything in the tone of her voice to tell of aught but patient suffering and resignation to God's Will.
On the third day, as they are passing a group of
