Mr. and Mrs. Clay were out, but Louisa was at home; she had a cold, and had not cared to venture out in the raw December air. Jim was shown into a snug little parlor at the back of the shop. Louisa was becomingly dressed, and looked remarkably handsome. She started with pleasure when she saw Jim, colored up to her eyes, and then noticing something which she had never noticed before in his glance, looked down, trembling and overcome. At that moment her love made her beautiful. Jim saw it trembling on her lips. The reaction between her warmth and Alison's frozen manner was too much for him; he made a stride forward, and the next moment had taken her in his arms; his kisses rested on her lips. She gave a sigh of ineffable bliss.

"Oh, Jim!" she said, "has it come to this? Am I to have my heart's desire after all?"

"If I am your heart's desire, you can have me, and welcome," answered Jim.

"Oh, Jim! I love you so much. I am the happiest gel in all the world. Kiss me again, do. Oh, how I love you!"

"My dear girl," said the young man.

He did not say yet that he loved her back again, but his heart was beating high. At that moment he was not proof against her beauty, which in its own way was remarkable.

"Then we're engaged," she said. "Oh, Jim, is it true that such happiness is come to me? I feel sort o' frightened. I never, never thought that such good could come to me."

"We're engaged, that is if we can be straight and above-board," answered Jim; "but first I must know what about Sampson. He has asked you to be his wife, hasn't he?"

"Yes, yes. Oh, don't trouble about him. Sit close to me, can't you, and kiss me again."

"I must know about Sampson first," said Jim. "Have you given him a promise?"

"Not yet, I don't love him a bit, you see; but when I thought you'd never come forward, and that all your heart was given to Alison Reed——"

Jim shuddered and drew himself away from Louisa.

"I thought," she continued, "that George Sampson would be better than nobody, so I told him he might come for his answer to-night, and he'll get it too. He always knew that I loved yer. Why, he even said so. He said to me, not a week ago, 'You can't win him, Louisa, so don't waste your breath on him, but come to an honest fellow what loves yer, and who don't think nothing of any other gel.'"

"But doesn't it seem hard on the honest fellow?" said Jim, with a smile.

"Oh, no, it don't! Do you think I'd look at him after what you have said? Oh, I'm so happy! Sit by me, and tell me when you first thought of throwing over Alison Reed for me?"

"Listen," said Jim. "There is nothing now between Alison and me. I'll try to make you a good mate; I will try to do everything to make you happy, and to give you back love for love; but if you value our future happiness, you must make me a promise now."

"What's that?" she asked, looking up at him, frightened at the solemnity in his tone.

"You must never talk of Alison to me. Promise, do you hear?"

"Oh, why not? You can't care for her a bit, or you wouldn't come to me."

"I like you most—I wouldn't ask you to marry me if I didn't; but I won't talk of Alison. If you can't have me without bringing up her name, say so at once, and everything shall be at an end between us. Now you have got to choose. Alison's name is not to pass yer lips to me. We are not to talk of her, do you understand? Do you promise?"

"I promise anything—anything, if you will only kiss me again."



CHAPTER XII.

The next day it was all over the place that Jim Hardy and Louisa Clay were engaged. Harry heard the news as he was coming home from doing a message for Grannie; Grannie heard it when she went shopping; Alison heard it from the boy who sold the milk—in short, this little bit of tidings of paramount interest in Alison's small world was dinned into her ears wherever she turned. Jim was engaged. His friends thought that he had done very well for himself, and it was arranged that the wedding was to take place just before Lent. Lent would fall early this year, and Jim's engagement would not last much over six weeks.

Notwithstanding all she had said the day before, Alison turned very pale when the cruel news came to her.

"What can it mean?" said Grannie, who followed the girl into her bedroom. "I don't understand it—there must be an awful mistake somewhere. You can't, surely, have thrown over a good fellow like that, Alison?"

"No, he threw me over," said Alison.

"Child, I jest don't believe yer."

"All right, Grannie; I'm afraid I can't help it whether you believe me or not. Jim is dead to me now, and we won't talk of him any more. Grannie dear, let us go into the kitchen; you and I have something else to attend to. What is to come o' me? What am I to do for myself now that I can't get a situation for want of a character, and now that I have lost my young man?"

Alison laughed in a bitter way as she said the last words. She looked straight out of the window, and avoided meeting Grannie's clear blue eyes.

"I must get something to do," said Alison. "I am young, and strong, and capable, and the fact of having a false charge laid to my door can't mean surely that I am to starve. I must get work, Grannie; I must learn to support myself and the children. Oh, and you, you dear old lady; for you can't do much, now that your 'and is so bad."

"It do get worse," said Grannie, in a solemn voice; "it pains and burns awful now and then, and the thumb and forefinger are next to useless—they aint got any power in 'em. 'Taint like my usual luck, that it aint. I can't understand it anyhow. But there, child, for the Lord's sake don't worry about an old body like me. Thank the Lord for his goodness, I am at the slack time o' life, and I don't want no thought and little or no care. I aint the p'int—it's you that's the p'int, Ally—you and the chil'en."

"Well, what is to be done, grandmother? It seems to me that we have not a day to lose. We never could save much, there was too great a drag on your earnings, and mine seemed swept up by rent and twenty other things, and now neither you nor I have been earning anything for weeks. We can't have much money left now, have we?"

"We have got one pound ten," said Grannie. "I looked at the purse this morning. One pound ten, and sevenpence ha'penny in coppers; that's all. That wouldn't be a bad sum if there was anythink more coming in; but seeing as ther' aint, it is uncommon likely to dwindle, look at it from what p'int you may."

"Well, then, we haven't an hour to lose," said Alison.

"We haven't an hour to lose," repeated Grannie. She looked around the little room; her voice was cheerful, but there was a dreary expression in her eyes. Alison noticed it. She got up and kissed her.

"Don't, child, don't; it aint good to move the feelin's when things is a bit rough, as they are now. We have got to be firm, Alison, and we have got to be brave, and there aint no manner o' use drawing on the feelin's. Keep 'em under, say I, and stand straight to your guns. It's a tough bit o' battle we're goin' through, but we must stand to our guns, that's wot I say."

"And I too," said the girl, stiffening herself under the words of courage. "Well now, I know you are a very wise woman, Grannie; what's to be done?"

"I am going to see Mr. Williams, that old clergyman in Bayswater wot was so good to me when my husband died. I am going to see him to-morrow," said Grannie. "Arter I have had a good spell of talk with him, I'll tell you more."

"Do you think he could get me a situation?"

"Maybe he could."

"I wish you would go to him at once, Grannie. There really doesn't seem to be a day to be lost."

"What's the hour, child? I don't mind going to him now, but I thought it might be a bit late."

"Not at all; you'll see him when he comes home to dinner. Shall I go with you? Somehow I pine for a change and a bit of the air."

"No, darlin', I'd best see him by myself, and then there's the bus fare to consider; but ef you'd walk with me as far as St. Paul's Churchyard, I'd be much obleeged, and you can see me into the bus. I am werry strong, thank the Lord; but somehow, when the crowd jostle and push, they seem to take my nerve off—particular since this 'and got so bad."

Grannie went into her little room to get ready for her expedition, and Alison also pinned on her hat and buttoned on her pilot-cloth jacket. Grannie put on her best clothes for this occasion. She came out equipped for her interview in her neat black shawl and little quilted bonnet. The excitement had brought a bright color to her cheeks and an added light to her blue eyes.

"Why, Grannie, how pretty you look," said her granddaughter. "I declare you are the very prettiest old lady I ever saw."

Grannie was accustomed to being told that she was good-looking. She drew herself up and perked her little face.

"The Phippses were always remarked for their skins," she said; "beautiful they was, although my poor mother used to say that wot's skin-deep aint worth considering. Still, a good skin is from the Lord, and he gave it to the Phippses with other good luck; no mistake on that p'int."

The next moment the two set out. It was certainly getting late in the day, but Alison cheered Grannie on, repeating several times in a firm and almost defiant manner that there was not an hour to be lost. They got to St. Paul's Churchyard, and Alison helped Grannie to get into an omnibus. The old woman got a seat near the door, and smiled and nodded brightly to her granddaughter as the bus rolled away. Alison went back very slowly to her home. She had a terrible depression over her, and longed almost frantically for something to do. All her life she had been a very active girl. No granddaughter of Mrs. Reed's was likely to grow up idle, and Alison, almost from the time she could think, had been accustomed to fully occupy each moment of her day. Now the long day dragged, while despair clutched at her heart. What had she done? What sin had she committed to be treated so cruelly? Grannie was religious; she was accustomed to referring things to God. There was a Rock on which her spirit dwelt which Alison knew nothing about. Now, the thought of Grannie and her religion stirred the girl's heart in the queerest way.

"I don't do any good," she said to herself; "seems as if the Lord didn't care for poor folks, or he wouldn't let all this sort of thing come on me. It aint as if I weren't always respectable; it aint as if I didn't always try to do what's right. Then there's so much bad luck jist now come all of a heap: Grannie's bad hand, which means the loss of our daily bread, and this false accusation of me, and then my losing Jim. Oh, dear, that's the worst part, but I won't think of that now, I won't. I feel that I could go mad if I thought much of that."

When Alison returned to the flat in Sparrow Street it was in time to get tea for the children. The little larder was becoming sadly bare; the Christmas feast was almost all eaten up, and Alison could only provide the children with very dry bread, and skim milk largely diluted with water.

"Grannie wouldn't treat us like that," said Kitty, who was extremely fond of her meals.

"You may be thankful if you even get dry bread soon," said Alison.

The three little girls stared up at her with wondering, terrified eyes. Her tone was very morose. They saw that she was unapproachable, and looked down again. They ate their unpalatable meal quickly, and in silence. Alison kept the kettle boiling on the fire against Grannie's return.

"You haven't taken any tea yourself," said Polly, who was Alison's room-fellow, and the most affectionate of the three.

"I aint hungry, dear; don't notice it," said the elder sister in a somewhat gentler tone. "Now you may run, all of you, and have a play in the court."

"But it's quite dark, and Grannie doesn't like us to be out in the dark."

"I don't think she'll mind when I tell her that I gave you leave. I have a splitting headache and must be alone for a bit. It is a dry night, and the three of you keep close together, and then you'll come to no harm. There, run off now, and don't bother me."

Kitty stared hard at her sister; Polly's eyes flashed with pleasure at the thought of a bit of unexpected fun; Annie was only too anxious to be off. Soon Alison had the little kitchen to herself. She sat by the fire, feeling very dull and heavy; her thoughts would keep circulating round unpleasant subjects: the one pound ten and sevenpence halfpenny which stood between the family and starvation; Jim and Louisa—Louisa's face full of triumph, and her voice full of pride, and Jim's devotion to her; Grannie's painful right hand, and the feather-stitching which she, Alison, had never taken the trouble to learn.

"The old lady was right," she said, half under her breath, half aloud. "She's a deal wiser than me, and I might have done worse that follow her advice. I wish I knew the stitch now; yes, I do. Oh! is that you, Dave?" as her brother came in; "but we have done tea."

"I have had some," said David. "Mr. Watson called me into his room, and gave me a cup. What is it, Ally; what's the matter?"

"You needn't ask," said Alison. "You don't suppose I am likely to be very cheerful just now."

"I am ever so sorry," said the boy. "I can't think how this trouble come to you."

"If it's Jim," she answered angrily, "you needn't worry to find out, for I'll tell you. I don't love him no more. He would have married me if I cared to have him, but I didn't see my way to it. Now let's drop the subject."

David sat down not far from the fire. He held out his hands to the blaze. There was a sort of pleased excitement about him which Alison after a time could not help noticing.

"You look quite perky about something," she said. "It is good for any of us to be cheerful just now. What's up?"

"Where's Grannie?" said Dave. "I'd like to tell her first."

"Oh, very well, just as you please. But she is out. She won't be back for a good bit yet."

"Aint it very late for her to be out? Where is she gone?"

"To Bayswater—to talk to a clergyman who used to befriend us in the old days. What is your news, David? You may as well tell me."

"Why, it's this. Mr. Watson has just had a long talk with me. He wants me to help him with the accounts, and not to do messages any more. He could get a lad for messages, he says, who hasn't got such a head on his shoulders as I have. I can do bookkeeping pretty well, and he'll give me some more lessons. I am to start next week doing office-work, and he'll give me five shillings a week instead of half a crown. I call that prime; don't you, Alison?"

"To be sure it is," she answered heartily. She was very fond of David, and the note of exultation in his voice touched her, and penetrated through the deep gloom at her heart.

"Why, this will cheer Grannie," she continued.

"There's more to tell yet," continued David, "for I am to have my meals as well as the five shillings a week; so there'll be half a crown at the very least to put to the family purse, Alison, and I need be no expense, only just to sleep here. I'll bring the five shillings to Grannie every Saturday night, and she can spend just what I want for clothes and keep the rest. I guess she'll make it go as far as anybody."

"This is good news," continued Alison. "Of course five shillings is a sight better nor nothing, and if I only got a place we might keep the home together."

"Why, is there any fear of our losing it?" asked David.

"Dear me, David, can we keep it on nothing at all? There's Grannie not earning sixpence, and there's me not earning sixpence; and how is the rent to be paid, and us all to be kept in food and things? It aint to be done—you might have the common sense to know that."

"To be sure I might," said David, his brow clouding. "After all, then, I don't suppose the five shillings is much help."

"Oh, yes, it will support you whatever happens, and that's a good deal. Don't fret, Dave; you are a right, good, manly fellow. You will fight your way in the world yet, and Grannie and me we'll be proud of you. I wish I had half the pluck you have; but there, I am so down now that nothing seems to come right. I wish I had had the sense to learn that feather-stitching that you do so beautifully."

David colored.

"I aint ashamed to say that I know it," he said. "I dare say I could teach it to you if you had a mind to learn it."

But Alison shook her head.

"No; it's too late now," she said. "It takes months and months of practice to make a stitch like that to come to look anything like right, and we want the money at once. We have got scarcely any left, and there's the rent due on Monday, and the little girls want new shoes—Kitty's feet were wringing wet when she came in to-day. Oh, yes, I don't see how we are to go on. But Grannie will tell us when she comes back. Oh, and here she is."

Alison flew to the door and opened it. Mrs. Reed, looking bright and excited, entered.

"Why, where are the little ones?" she said at once. "Aint they reading their books, like good children?"

"No, Grannie. I'd a headache, and I let them go into the court to play a bit. You don't mind, do you?"

"Not for once, I don't," said Grannie; "but, Dave, lad, you'd better fetch 'em in now, for it's getting real late. They may as well go straight off to bed, for I have a deal I want to talk over with you two to-night."

Alison felt impatient and anxious; she could scarcely wait to hear Grannie's news. The old lady sat down near the fire, uttering a deep sigh of relief as she did so.

"Ally, my dear," she said, "I'm as weary as if I were seventy-eight instead of sixty-eight. It's a long walk back from St. Paul's Churchyard, and there was a crowd out, to be sure; but it's a fine starlight night, and I felt as I was walking along, the Lord's in his heaven, and there can never be real bad luck for us, his servants, what trusts in him."

Alison frowned. She wished Grannie would not quote Scripture so much as she had done lately. It jarred upon her own queer, perverse mood; but as she saw the courageous light in the blue eyes she suppressed an impatient sigh which almost bubbled to her lips. She got tea for Grannie, who drank it in great contentment. David brought the children in. They kissed Grannie, and were hustled off to bed, rather to their own disgust, and then David, Grannie, and Alison sat gravely down, and looked each at the other.

"Where's Harry?" said Grannie suddenly. "Why aint the boy to home?"

"I expect he's at the Boys' Club," said David. "He's very fond of running round there in the evening."

"There's no harm in that, Grannie," said Alison. "Don't fret about Harry. Now tell us your news, do. Did you see Mr. Williams, and can he do anything?"

"I saw Mr. Williams," said Grannie. "He remembered me quite well. I told him everything. It seems to me that he has put things straight. I don't say that things aint sore—no, I don't go to pretend they aint—but somehow they seem straightened out a bit, and I know wot to do."

"And what's that, Grannie?" asked David, taking her left hand very tenderly in his as he spoke.

Grannie had been leaning back in a sort of restless attitude. Now she straightened herself up and looked keenly at the boy.

"It means, lad," she said, after a pause, "the sore part means this, that we must give up the little bit of a home."

"We must give it up?" said David, in a blank sort of way. "Oh, wait a while; you don't know about my five shillings a week."

"Dave has got a rise," interrupted Alison. "Mr. Watson thinks a sight of him, and he's to go into the house as a clerk, and he's to have five shillings a week and his meals. So he's provided for."

"But your five shillings a week won't keep up the home, Dave, so there's no use thinking of it, from that p'int o' view."

"Go on, please, Grannie; what else have you and Mr. Williams arranged?"

"It's the Lord has arranged it, child," said Grannie, "it aint Mr. Williams. It's that thought that makes me kind o' cheerful over it."

"But what is it, Grannie? We are to give up the home?"

"Well, the home gives us up," said Grannie, "for we can't keep the rooms ef we can't pay the rent, and the children can't be fed without money. To put it plain, as far as the home goes, we're broke. That's plain English. It's this 'and that has done it, and I'll never believe in eddication from this time forward; but there's no use goin' back on that now. Thank the Lord, I has everything settled and clear in my mind. I pay the last rent come Monday, and out we go."

"But where to?" said Alison. "There's a lot of us, and we must live somewhere."

"It's all settled, and beautiful too," said Grannie. "Mr. Williams knows a lady who 'll be right glad to have you, Alison. The lady is a friend of his, and she wants a sort of upper maid, and though you are a Phipps and a Simpson and a Reed all in one, you needn't be too proud to do work o' that sort. He said she was quite certain to take to you, and you are to go to see her to-morrow morning. She lives in Bayswater, and wants a girl who will attend on her and go messages for her and keep her clothes in order. It will be a very light, genteel sort o' place, and you'll have a right good time there, Alison. And then the three little girls. Mr. Williams said it was wonderful lucky I called to-day, for he has got three vacancies for a school for orphan children in the country, and for a wonder he don't know any special orphan children to give them to this time, and he says that Kitty and Polly and Annie can go, and they'll be well fed, and well taught, and well clothed, and when they are old enough they'll go to service perhaps. Anyhow, they'll be taught how to earn their living. So they are settled for, and so are you, and it seems as if David's settled for too. As to Harry, I told Mr. Williams all about him, and he says he'll think what he can do; he expects he can get him taken on somewhere, for he is a smart lad, although a bit wild in his ways."

"But what is to come of you, Grannie?" said Alison, after a long pause.

Grannie jumped up when Alison made this remark.

"Well, I'm goin' on a visit," she said, "jest to freshen me up. It don't matter a bit about me—life is slacking down with me, and there aint the least cause to worry. I'm goin' on a visit; don't you fret, children."

"But where to?" asked Alison. "You don't know anybody. I have never heard that you had any friends. The Phippses and the Simpsons are all dead, all those you used to know."

"I'm goin' to some friends of Mr. Williams," said Grannie, "and I'll be werry comfortable and I can stay as long as I like. Now, for the Lord's sake don't begin to fret 'bout me; it's enough to anger me ef you do. Aint we a heap to do atween this and Monday without fussin' over an old lady wot 'as 'ad the best o' good luck all her days? This is Tuesday, and you are to go and see Mrs. Faulkner to-morrow morning, Alison. I have got her address, and you are to be there by ten o'clock, not a minute later. Oh, yes, our hands will be full, and we have no time to think o' the future. The Lord has the future in his grip, chil'en, and 'taint for you and me to fret about it."

Grannie seated herself again in her old armchair.

"Fetch the Bible, Dave," she said suddenly, "and read a verse or two aloud."

David rose to comply. He took the family Bible from its place on the shelf. Grannie opened the old book reverently.

"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty," read David.

Grannie looked solemnly at the boy while the words so familiar and comforting fell from his lips. He read or to the end of the magnificent Psalm.

"I guess there's a power of luck in that hidin' place for them as can find it," she said, when he had finished.

Then she kissed the boy and girl and went abruptly away to her own room.

"What does she mean by going on a visit?" said David to his sister.

"I don't know," said Alison fearfully.

"It can't be——" began David.

"No, no; don't say it, Dave," interrupted Alison. "Don't say it aloud, don't——" She clapped her hands suddenly to his lips. "I can't bear it," she said suddenly. "I won't hear it. No, it's a visit. It's all true; it's only a visit. Good-night, Dave."

She went away to her own room. During the darkness and misery of that night Alison scarcely slept; but old Grannie slept. God had given his angels charge of her, and no one ever had more peaceful slumber.



CHAPTER XIII.

Monday came all too quickly. Grannie was very masterful during the few days which went before. She insisted on all the grandchildren doing exactly what she told them. There were moments when she was almost stern; she had always been authoritative, and had a certain commanding way about her. This week, even Alison did not dare to cross her in the smallest matter. There was not a single hitch in the arrangements which Mr. Williams had sketched out. Mrs. Faulkner took a great fancy to Alison, absolutely believed in her honesty and truth, and engaged her for a month's trial on the spot. She told her to be sure to be with her by ten o'clock on Monday to begin her new duties. Grannie went herself to see Mr. Watson; she had a private talk with him which no one knew anything about. He told her that David was a boy in a hundred, that he was certain to do well, for he was both clever and conscientious. He said that he could easily manage to fit up a bed for him in the back part of the shop; so he was provided for, and, according to Grannie and Mr. Watson, provided for well. When Harry heard of the family's exodus, he left the house without a word. He came back in the course of two or three hours, and told Mrs. Reed what he had done.

"I am going to sea," he announced. "I saw the captain of the Brigand down at the West India Docks, and he'll take me as cabin boy. I dare say the life is a bit rough, but I know I shall like it. I have always been so keen for adventure. I am off to-morrow, Grannie; so I am out of the way."

Grannie kissed the boy between his straight brows, looked into his fearless, dancing, mischievous eyes, and said a word or two which he never forgot. She sent him off the next morning with the best wardrobe she could muster, half a crown in his pocket, and her blessing ringing in his ears.

"'Taint much; it's a rough life, but it's the best that could be done," she said to Alison. "Ef he keeps straight he'll have good luck, for it's in the breed," she continued; then she resumed her preparations for the little girls.

They went away on Saturday, and Alison, David, and Grannie had Sunday to themselves. It was a sort of day which Alison could never talk of afterward. It ought to have been very miserable, but it was not; there was a peace about it which comforted the much-tried girl, and which she often hugged to her heart in some of the dark days which were close at hand.

"Now, chil'en," said Grannie, on the evening of that day, "you two will please go off early in the morning and leave me the last in the old house."

"But mayn't we see you as far as the railway station?" said Alison.

"No, my love, I prefer not," was the response.

"But won't you tell us where you are going, Grannie?" said David. "It seems so queer for us to lose sight of you. Don't you think it a bit hard on us, old lady?"

Grannie looked very earnestly at David.

"No," she said, after a pause, "'taint hard, it's best. I am goin' on a wisit; ef it aint comfortable, and ef the Lord don't want me to stay, why I won't stay; but I'd rayther not speak o' it to-night. You must let me have my own way, Dave and Alison. We are all suited for, some in one way and some in t'other, but I'd rayther go away to-morrow with jest the bit of fun of keeping it all to myself, at least for a time."

"Is it in the country, Grannie?" said Alison.

"I'm told it's a fine big place," replied Grannie.

"And are they folks you ever knew?"

"They're friends o' Mr. Williams," said Grannie, shutting up her lips. "Mr. Williams knows all about 'em. He says I can go to see you often; 'taint far from town. You won't really be very far from me at all. But don't let us talk any more about it. When a woman comes to my time o' life, ef she frets about herself she must be a mighty poor sort, and that aint me."

Monday morning dawned, and Grannie had her way. Alison and David both kissed her, and went out into the world to face their new duties. They were not coming back any more to the little home. Grannie was alone.

"I haven't a minute to waste," she said to herself after they had gone, bustling about as she spoke. "There's all the furniture to be sold now. The auctioneer round the corner said he would look in arter the chil'en were well out o' the way. Oh, I dare say I shall have heaps of time to fret by and by, but I ain't agoin' to fret now; not I. There'll be a nice little nest-egg out of the furniture, which Mr. Williams can keep for Alison; and ef Alison gets on, why, 'twill do for burying me when my time comes. I think a sight of having a good funeral; the Lord knows I want to be buried decent, comin' of the breed I do; but there, I've no time to think of funerals or anything else now. I had to be masterful this week to 'em darlin's, but 'twas the only thing to do. Lor' sakes! Suppose they'd begun fussing over me, what would have become of us all?"

At this moment there came a knock at the door. Grannie knew who it was. It was the agent who came weekly, Monday after Monday, to collect the rent.

"Here's your rent, Mr. Johnson," said Grannie, "and I hope you'll get another tenant soon. It was a right comfortable little flat, and we all enjoyed ourselves here. We haven't a word to say agen our landlord, Mr. Johnson."

"I am very sorry to lose you as a tenant, Mrs. Reed," said Mr. Johnson, giving the bright-eyed little woman a puzzled glance. "If there is anything in my power——"

"No, there aint! No, there aint!" said Grannie, nodding. "We has made fresh arrangements in the fam'ly, and don't require the rooms any longer. I'll have the furniture out by twelve o'clock to-day, sir, and then the rooms will be washed out and tidied. A neighbor downstairs has promised to do it. Will you please tell me where I shall leave the key?"

"You may leave it with Mrs. Murray on the next flat," said Mr. Johnson. "Well, I am sorry to lose you as a tenant, Mrs. Reed, and if ever you do want to settle down in a home again, please let me know, and I'll do my very best to provide you with a comfortable one."

"I 'spect I won't have to pay no rent for my next home," said Grannie softly, under her breath, as she turned away from the door. "Oh, Lord, to think that you're gettin' a mansion in the sky ready for an old body like me, and no rent to pay neither! Dear Lord, to think it is getting ready for me now! I am about as happy an old woman as walks—that I am."

Grannie felt the religion which was part and parcel of her life extremely uplifting that morning. It tided her safely over an hour so dark that it might have broken a less stout heart. The auctioneer came round and priced the furniture. Every bit of that furniture had a history. Part of it belonged to the Reeds, part to the Phippses, and part to the Simpsons. It was full of the stories of many lives; but, as Grannie said to herself, "I'll have heaps of time by and by to fret about the eight-day clock, and the little oak bureau under the window, and the plates, and cups, and dishes, and tables; I need not waste precious minutes over 'em now."

So the auctioneer, who somehow could not cheat those blue eyes, offered a fair price for the little "bits o' duds," and by twelve o'clock he sent round a cart and a couple of men to carry them away. The flat was quite bare and empty before Grannie finally locked the hall door and took the key down to Mrs. Murray.

Mrs. Murray was very fond of Grannie, and was extremely inclined to be inquisitive; but if ever Mrs. Reed had been on her full dignity it was this morning. She spoke about the good luck of the children in having found such comfortable homes, said that household work was getting a little too much for her, and that now she was going away on a visit.

"To the country, ma'am?" said Mrs. Murray. "It is rather early for the country jest yet, aint it?"

"It is to a very nice part, suitable to the season," replied Grannie, setting her lips firmly. "I'm always in luck, and I'm in my usual good luck now in findin' kind friends willin' and glad to have me. I will wish you 'good-day' now, ma'am; I mustn't keep my friends waiting."

"But won't you have a cup of tea afore you go, for you really look quite shaky?" said Mrs. Murray, who noticed that Grannie's left hand shook when she laid the key of the lost home on the table.

"No, no, ma'am. I expect to have tea with my friends," was the reply. "Thank you kindly, I am sure, Mrs. Murray, and I wish you well, ma'am."

Mrs. Murray shook hands with Grannie and looked at her kindly and affectionately as she tripped down the winding stairs for the last time.

Grannie wore her black silk bonnet, and her snow-white kerchief, and her neat little black shawl, and her white cotton gloves. Her snow-white hair was as fluffy as usual under the brim of her bonnet, and her eyes were even brighter, and her cheeks wore a deeper shade of apple bloom about them. Perhaps some people, some keen observers, would have said that the light in the eyes and the bloom on the cheeks were too vivid for perfect health; but, as it was, people only remarked as they saw her go down the street, "What a dear, pretty old lady! Now, she belongs to some of the provident, respectable poor, if you like." People said things of that sort as Grannie got into the omnibus presently, and drove away, and away, and away. They did not know, they could not possibly guess, what Grannie herself knew well, that she was only a pauper on her way to the workhouse. For Mrs. Reed had kept her secret, and the keeping of that secret was what saved her heart from being broken. Mr. Williams had used influence on her behalf, and had got her into the workhouse of a parish to which she had originally belonged. It was in the outskirts of London, and was, he said, one of the best and least severe of the class.

"Provided the children don't know, nothing else matters," thought Grannie over and over, as she approached nearer and nearer to her destination. "I am just determined to make the best of it," she said to herself, "and the children need never know. I shall be let out on visits from time to time, and I must keep up the story that I am staying with kind friends. I told Mr. Williams what I meant to do, and he didn't say it were wrong. Lord, in thy mercy help me to keep this dark from the children, and help me to remember, wherever I am, that I was born a Phipps and a Simpson. Coming of that breed, nothing ought to daunt me, and I'll live and die showing the good stock I am of."

The omnibus set Grannie down within a quarter of a mile of her destination. She carried a few treasures tied up in a silk handkerchief on her left arm, and presently reached the big gloomy gates of the workhouse. Mr. Williams had made all the necessary arrangements for her, and she was admitted at once. A male porter, dressed in hideous garb, conducted her across a courtyard to a bare-looking office, where she was asked to sit down. After a few minutes the matron appeared, accompanied by a stoutly built woman, who called herself the labor matron, and into whose care Grannie was immediately given. She was taken away to the bath-room first of all. There her own neat, pretty clothes were taken from her, and she was given the workhouse print dress, the ugly apron, the hideous cap, and the little three-cornered shawl to wear.

"What's your age?" asked the matron.

"Sixty-eight, ma'am," replied Grannie.

"Let me see; surely there is something wrong with that hand."

"Yes, ma'am," replied Grannie solemnly; "it is the hand that has brought me here. I was good at needlework in my day, ma'am, but 'twas writing as did it."

"Writing! did you write much?" asked the matron.

"No, ma'am, only twice a year at the most, but even them two letters cost me sore; they brought on a disease in the hand; it is called writers' cramp. It is an awful complaint, and it has brought me here, ma'am."

The labor matron looked very hard at Grannie. She did not understand her words, nor the expression on her brave face. Grannie by no means wore the helpless air which characterizes most old women when they come to the workhouse.

"Well," she said, after a pause, "hurry with your bath; you needn't have another for a fortnight; but once a fortnight you must wash here. At your age, and with your hand so bad, you won't be expected to do any manual work at all."

"I'd rayther, ef you please, ma'am," said Grannie. "I'm not accustomed to settin' idle."

"Well, I don't see that you can do anything; that hand is quite past all use, but perhaps the doctor will take a look at it to-morrow. Now get through that bath, and I'll take you to the room where the other old women are."

"Good Lord, keep me from thinkin' o' the past," said Grannie when the door closed behind her.

She got through the bath and put on her workhouse dress, and felt, with a chill all through her little frame, that she had passed suddenly from life to death. The matron came presently to fetch her.

"This way, please," she said, in a tart voice. She had treated Grannie with just a shadow of respect as long as she wore her own nice and dainty clothes, but now that she was in the workhouse garb, she looked like any other bowed down little woman. She belonged, in short, to the failures of life. She was hurried down one or two long passages, then through a big room, empty at present, which the matron briefly told her was the "Able-bodied Women's Ward," and then into another very large room, where a bright fire burnt, and where several women, perhaps fifty or sixty, were seated on benches, doing some light jobs of needlework, or pretending to read, or openly dozing away their time. They were all dressed just like Grannie, and took little or no notice when she came in. She was only one more failure, to join the failures in the room. These old women were all half dead, and another old woman was coming to share their living grave. The matron said something hastily, and shut the door behind her. Grannie looked round; an almost wild light lit up her blue eyes for a moment, then it died out, and she went softly and quietly across the room.

"Ef you are cold, ma'am, perhaps you'll like to set by the fire," said an old body who must have been at least ten years Grannie's senior.

"Thank you, ma'am, I'll be much obleeged," said Grannie, and she sat down.

Her bath had, through some neglect, not been properly heated; it had chilled her, and all of a sudden she felt tired, old, and feeble, and a long shiver ran down her back. She held out her left hand to the blaze. A few of the most active of the women approached slowly, and either stood and looked at her, or sat down as near her as possible. She had very lately come from life; they were most of them accustomed to death. Their hearts were feebly stirred with a kind of dim interest, but the life such as Grannie knew was dull and far off to them.

"This is a poor sort of place, ma'am," said one of them.

Grannie roused herself with a great effort.

"Ef I begin to grumble I am lost," she said stoutly to herself. "Well, now, it seems to me a fine airy room," she said. "It is all as it strikes a body, o' course," she added, very politely; "but the room seems to me lofty."

"You aint been here long, anybody can see that," said an old woman of the name of Peters, with a sniff. "Wait till you live here day after day, with nothin' to do, and nothin' to think of, and nothin' to hear, and nothin' to read, and, you may say, nothin' to eat."

"Dear me," said Grannie, "don't they give us our meals?"

"Ef you like to call 'em such," said Mrs. Peters, with a sniff. And all the other women sniffed too. And when Mrs. Peters emphasized her condemnation of the food with a groan, all the other old women groaned in concert.

Grannie looked at them, and felt that she had crossed an impassable gulf. Never again could she be the Grannie she had been when she awoke that morning.



CHAPTER XIV.

It was bitterly cold weather when Grannie arrived at the workhouse. Not that the workhouse itself was really cold. Its sanitary arrangements were as far as possible perfect; its heating arrangements were also fairly good. Notwithstanding the other old women's groans, the food was passable and even nourishing, and beyond the fact that there was an absence of hope over everything, there were no real hardships in the great Beverley workhouse. There were a good many old women in this workhouse—in fact, two large wards full—and these were perhaps the most melancholy parts of the establishment. They slept on clean little narrow beds in a huge ward upstairs. There was a partition about eight feet high down the middle of this room. Beds stood in rows, back to back, at each side of this partition; beds stood in rows along the walls; there were narrow passages between the long rows of beds. The room was lighted with many windows high up in the walls, and there was a huge fireplace at either end. By a curious arrangement, which could scarcely be considered indulgent, the fires in very cold weather were lit at nine o'clock in the morning, after the paupers had gone downstairs, and put out again at five in the afternoon. Why the old creatures might not have had the comfort of the fires when they were in their ward, it was difficult to say, but such was the rule of the place.

Grannie's bed was just under one of the windows, and when she went upstairs the first night, the chill, of which she had complained ever since she had taken her bath, kept her awake during the greater part of the hours of darkness. There were plenty of blankets on her little bed, but they did not seem to warm her. The fact is, there was a great chill at her heart itself. Her vitality was suddenly lowered; she was afraid of the long dreary future; afraid of all those hopeless old women; afraid of the severe cleanliness, the life hedged in with innumerable rules, the dinginess of the new existence. Her faith burned dim; her trust in God himself was even a little shaken. She wondered why such a severe punishment was sent to her; why she, who wrote so little, should get a disease brought on by writing. It seemed all incomprehensible, unfathomable, too dark for any ordinary words, or any ordinary consolation to reach.

For the first time in her life she forgot her grandchildren, and the invariable good luck of the family, and thought mostly about herself. Toward morning she fell into a troubled doze, but she had scarcely seemed to drop asleep before a great bell sounded, which summoned her to rise. It was just six o'clock, and, at this time of the year, pitch dark. The long ward was now bitterly cold, and Grannie shivered as she got into her ugly workhouse dress. The other old women rose from their hard beds with many "ughs" and groans, and undercurrents of grumbling. Grannie was much too proud to complain. They were all dressed by five-and-twenty past six, and then they went downstairs in melancholy procession, and entered the dining-hall, where their breakfast, consisting of tea, bread and margarine, was served to them. When breakfast was over they went upstairs to the ground floor, and Grannie found herself again in the ward into which she had been introduced the night before.

The women who could work got out their needlework, and began to perform their allotted tasks in a very perfunctory manner. Grannie's fingers quite longed and ached for something to do. She was sent for presently to see the doctor, who examined her hand, said it would never be of any use again, ordered a simple liniment, and dismissed her. As Grannie was returning from this visit, she met the labor matron in one of the corridors.

"I wish you would give me something to do," she said suddenly.

"Well, what can you do?" asked the matron. "Has the doctor seen your hand?"

"Yes."

"And what does he say to it?"

"He says it will never be any better."

"Never be any better!" The labor matron fixed Grannie with two rather indignant eyes. "And what are you wasting my time for, asking for work, when you know you can't do it?"

"Oh, yes; I think I can, ma'am—that is, with the left hand. I cannot do needlework, perhaps, but I could dust and tidy, and even polish a bit. I have always been very industrious, ma'am, and it goes sore agen the grain to do nothin'."

"Industrious indeed!" muttered the matron. "If you had been industrious and careful, you wouldn't have found your way here. No, there is no work for you, as far as I can see. Some of the able-bodied women do out the old women's ward; it would never do to trust it to an incapable like yourself. There, I can't waste any more time with you."

The matron hurried away, and Grannie went back to her seat by the fire, in the company of the other old women. They were curious to know what the doctor had said to her, and when she told them they shook their heads and groaned, and said they all knew that would be the case.

"No one hadvanced in life gets better here," said Mrs. Peters; "and you are hadvanced in life, aint you, ma'am?"

"Not so very," replied Grannie indignantly. She felt quite young beside most of the other old paupers.

"Well now, I calc'late you're close on eighty," said Mrs. Peters.

"Indeed, you are mistook," replied Grannie. "I aint seventy yet. I'm jest at the age when it is no expense at all to live, so to speak. I were sixty-eight last November, and no one can call that old. At least not to say very old."

"You look seventy-eight at the very least," said most of the women. They nodded and gave Grannie some solemn, queer glances. They all saw a change in her which she did not know anything about herself. She had aged quite ten years since yesterday.

The one variety in the old women's lives was their meals. Dinner came at half-past twelve, and supper at six. All the huge old family went up to bed sharp at eight. There could not possibly be a more dreary life than theirs. As the days passed on, Grannie recovered from her first sense of chill and misery, and a certain portion of her brave spirit returned. It was one of the rules of the workhouse that the pauper women of over sixty might go out every Sunday from half-past twelve to six. They might also go out for the same number of hours on Thursday. Those who were in sufficiently good health always availed themselves of this outing, and Grannie herself looked forward quite eagerly to Sunday. She scarcely slept on Saturday night for thinking of this time of freedom. She had obtained permission to wear her own neat dress, and she put it on with untold pride and satisfaction on this Sunday morning. Once again some of the spirit of the Simpsons and Phippses came into her. She left the workhouse quite gayly.

"I feel young again," she murmured to herself as she heard the ugly gates clang behind her.

She walked down the road briskly, took an omnibus, and by and by found herself at Bayswater. She had asked Alison to wait in for her, telling the girl that she might be able to pay her a little visit on Sunday. When she rang, therefore, the servants' bell at Mrs. Faulkner's beautiful house, Alison herself opened the door.

Alison looked handsomer than ever in her neat lady's-maid costume.

"Oh, Grannie," she exclaimed. "It is good for sore eyes to see you. Come in, come in. You can't think how kind Mrs. Faulkner is. She says I'm to have you all to myself, and you are to stay to dinner, and David is here; and the housekeeper (I have been telling the housekeeper a lot about you, Grannie) has given us her little parlor to dine in, and Mrs. Faulkner is out for the day. Oh, we'll have quite a good time. Come downstairs at once, dear Grannie, for dinner is waiting."

"Well, child, I am pleased to see you so spry," said Grannie. Her voice felt quite choking when she entered the big, luxurious house. "I'll be able to keep it up fine," she murmured to herself. "Lor', I'm a sight better; it was the air of that place that was a-killin' me. I'll keep it up afore the chil'en, and ef I can manage to do that, why bless the Lord for all his mercies."

David was waiting in the housekeeper's room when Grannie got downstairs. Grannie had never known before what a power of comfort there was in David's strong young step, and the feel of his firm muscular arms, and the sensation of his manly kiss on her cheek.

"Aye, Dave," she said, "I'm a sight better for seeing you, my lad."

"And I for seeing you," replied the boy. "We have missed Grannie, haven't we, Ally?"

"Don't talk of it," said Alison, tears springing to her blue eyes.

"Well, we're all together again now," said Grannie. "Bless the Lord! Set down each side of me, my darlin's, and tell me everything. Oh, I have hungered to know, I have hungered to know."

"Mine is a very good place," said Alison. "Mrs. Faulkner is most kind."

"And ef it weren't for thinking of you, Grannie, and missing you," said David, "why, I'd be as happy as the day is long."

"But tell us about yourself, dear Grannie," said Alison. "How do you like the country, and are Mr. Williams' friends good to you?"

"Real good! that they are," said Grannie. "Why, it's a beautiful big place."

"They are not poor folks, then?" said David.

"Poor!" said Grannie. "I don't go for to deny that there are some poor people there, but they as owns the place aint poor. Lor' bless yer, it's a fine place. Don't you fret for me, my dearies. I'm well provided for, whoever aint."

"But how long are you to stay?" said David. "You can't always be on a visit with folks, even if they are the friends of Mr. Williams."

"Of course I can't stay always," said Grannie, "but Mr. Williams has arranged that I am to stay for a good two or three months at least, and by then, why, we don't know what 'll turn out. Now, chil'en, for the Lord's sake don't let us waste time over an old body like me. Didn't I tell you that I have come to the time o' life when I aint much 'count? Let's talk of you, my dearies, let's talk of you."

"Let's talk of dinner first," said David. "I'm mighty hungry, whoever aint."

The dinner served in Mrs. Faulkner's housekeeper's room was remarkably nourishing and dainty, and Grannie enjoyed the food, which was not workhouse food, with a zest which surprised herself. She thought that she had completely thrown her grandchildren off the scent, and if that were the case, nothing else mattered. When dinner was over the sun shone out brightly, and Alison and David took Grannie out for a walk. They went into Kensington Gardens, which were looking very bright and pretty. Then they came home, and Grannie had a cup of tea, after which she rose resolutely and said it was time for her to go.

"I will see you back," said David, in a determined voice. "I have nothing else to do. I don't suppose those friends of Mr. Williams who are so good to you would mind me coming as far as the door."

"Yes, they would," said Grannie, "they wouldn't like it a bit."

"Now, Grannie, that's all nonsense, you know," said the young man.

"No it aint, my lad, no it aint. You've just got to obey me, David, in this matter. I know what I know, and I won't be gainsaid."

Grannie had suddenly put on her commanding air.

"I am on a visit with right decent folks—people well-to-do in the world, wot keep up everything in fine style—and ef they have fads about relations comin' round their visitors, why shouldn't they? Anyhow, I am bound to respect 'em. You can't go home with me, Dave, but you shall see me to the 'bus, ef you like."

"Well," said Dave, a suspicious, troubled look creeping up into his face, "that's all very fine, but I wish you wouldn't make a mystery of where you are staying, dear Grannie."

"I don't want to," said Grannie. "It's all Mr. Williams. He has been real kind to me and mine, and ef he wants to keep to himself what his friends are doing for me, why shouldn't I obleege him?"

"Why not, indeed?" said Alison. "But are you sure you are really comfortable, Grannie?"

"And why shouldn't I be comfortable, child? I don't look uncomfortable, do I?"

"No, not really, but somehow——"

"Yes, I know what you mean," interrupted David.

"Somehow," said Alison, "you look changed."

"Oh, and ef I do look a bit changed," said the old woman, "it's cause I'm a-frettin' for you. Of course I miss you all, but I'll get accustomed to it; and it's a beautiful big place, and I'm in rare luck to have got a 'ome there. Now I must hurry off. God bless you, my dear!"

Alison stood on the steps of Mrs. Faulkner's house, and watched Grannie as she walked down the street. The weather had changed, and it was now bitterly cold; sleet was falling, and there was a high wind. But Grannie was leaning on Dave's arm, and she got along bravely.

"I don't like it," said Alison to herself, as she went into the house. "Grannie's hiding something; I can't think what it is. Oh, dear, oh dear, how I wish Jim had been true to me. If he only had, we would have made a home for Grannie somehow. Grannie is hiding something. What can it be?"

Meanwhile David saw Grannie to the omnibus, where he bade her an affectionate "good-by." She arranged to come again to see her grandchildren on the following Sunday if all was well.

"But ef I don't come, don't you fret, Dave, boy," was her last word to the lad. "Ef by chance I don't come, you'll know it's because it aint quite convenient in the family I'm staying with. Now, good-by, Dave. Bless you, lad."

The omnibus rolled away, and Grannie snuggled back into her corner. Her visit to her grandchildren had cheered her much, and she thought that she could very well get through a dreary week in the workhouse with that beacon post of Sunday on ahead. She would not for the world trouble the children on work-a-day Thursday, but on Sunday she might as a rule get a sight of them.

"And they suspect nothin', thank the good Lord!" she said, hugging her secret to her breast.

She left the omnibus at the same corner where she had left it on the previous Monday.

The weather meanwhile had been changing for the worse; snow was now falling thickly, and the old woman had no umbrella. She staggered along, beaten and battered by the great tempest of wind and snow. At first she stepped on bravely enough, but by and by her steps grew feeble. The snow blinded her eyes and took away her breath, it trickled in little pools down into her neck, and seemed to find out all the weak parts of her dress. Her thin black shawl was covered with snow; her bonnet was no longer black, but white. Her heart began to beat at first too loudly, then feebly; she tottered forward, stumbling as one in a dream. She was cold, chilled through and through; bitterly, bitterly cold. Suddenly, without knowing it, she put her foot on a piece of orange-peel; she slipped, and the next moment lay prone in the soft snow. Her fall took away her last remnant of strength; try as she would, she found she could not rise. She raised her voice to call for assistance, and presently a stout laboring man came up and bent over the little prostrate woman.

"Let me help you to get up, ma'am," he said politely.

He caught hold of her swollen right hand. The sudden pain forced a sharp scream from her lips.

"Not that hand, please, sir; the other," she said. She put out her left hand.

"Nay, I'll lift you altogether," he said. "Why, you are no weight at all. Are you badly hurt, ma'am?"

"No, no, it's nothin'," said Grannie, panting, and breathing with difficulty.

"And where shall I take you to? You can't walk—you are not to attempt it. Is your home anywhere near here, ma'am?"

In spite of all her pain and weakness, a flush of shame came into the old cheeks.

"It is nigh here, very nigh," said Grannie, "but it aint my home; it's Beverley workhouse, please, sir."

"All right," said the man. He did not notice Grannie's shame.

The next moment he had pulled the bell at the dreary gates, and Grannie was taken in. She was conveyed straight up to the infirmary.



CHAPTER XV.

It wanted but a week to Jim Hardy's wedding day. Preparations were in full swing, and the Clays' house was, so to speak, turned topsy-turvy. Jim was considered a most lucky man. He was to get five hundred pounds with his bride. With that five hundred pounds Louisa proposed that Jim should set up in business for himself. He and she would own a small haberdasher's shop. They could stock it well, and even put by a nest-egg for future emergencies. Jim consented to all her proposals. He felt depressed and unlike himself. In short, there never was a more unwilling bridegroom. He had never loved Louisa. She had always been repugnant to him. In a moment of pique he had asked her to marry him, and his repentance began half an hour after his engagement. Still he managed to play his part sufficiently well. Louisa, whose passion for him increased as the days went on, made no complaint; she was true to her promise, and never mentioned Alison's name, and the wedding day drew on apace. The young people's banns had already been called twice in the neighboring church, the next Sunday would be the third time, and the following Thursday was fixed for the wedding. Jim came home late one evening tired out, and feeling more depressed than usual. A letter was waiting for him on the mantelpiece. He had already given notice to quit his comfortable bedroom. He and Louisa were to live for a time—until they had chosen their shop and furnished it—with the Clays. This arrangement was very disagreeable to Jim, but it did not occur to him to demur; his whole mind was in such a state of collapse that he allowed Louisa and her people to make what arrangements they pleased.

"There's a letter for you upstairs," said his landlady, as he hurried past her.

The young man's heart beat fast for a moment. Could Alison by any chance have written to him? He struck a light hastily and looked at the letter, which was lying on his table. No, the handwriting was not Alison's, and when he opened it the first thing he saw was a check, which fell out.

"My Dear Nephew [ran the letter], I hope this finds you well, as it leaves me. You must be a well-grown lad now, and, in short, have come to full man's estate. I have done well in Australia, and if you like to join me here, I believe I can put you in the way of earning a good living. I inclose a draft on the City Bank, London, for one hundred pounds, which will pay your passage and something over. If you like to come, you will find me at the address at the head of this paper. I am making lots of money, and if you have a head on your shoulders, you can help me fine in my business. If you don't care to come, you may use the money to start housekeeping when you marry; but if you are wise you will take my advice.

"Your affectionate uncle, "JAMES HARDY."

Jim fingered the check, and looked absently before him.

"Why shouldn't I get clear out of the whole business?" he said. "I could leave the country to-morrow with this money, and go out and join Uncle James, and make my fortune by and by. Why should I stick to Louisa when I hate her? It's all over with Alison and me. Oh, Alison, how could you love another fellow when I loved you so well, and was so true to you? I can't understand it—no, I can't. I don't believe for a moment that she was telling me the truth the other day—why, there is no other fellow. I have made inquiries and I can't hear of anyone. It isn't as if hundreds wouldn't want her, but she is keeping company with no one. I believe it was an excuse she made; there's a mystery at the bottom of it. Something put her out, and she was too proud to let me see what it was. And, oh dear, why was I so mad as to propose marriage to a girl like Louisa Clay? Yes; why shouldn't I get quit of the thing to-night? I have the money now. I can take Uncle James's advice to-night; why shouldn't I do it?"

Jim stood straight up as these thoughts came to him. He slipped the foreign letter into his pocket, walked with a long stride to the window, flung the sash open, and looked out into the night.

"I can't do it," he muttered; "it isn't in me to be an out-and-out scoundrel. She is not the girl I want, but I have promised her, and I must stick to it; all the same, I am a ruined man. Oh, if Alison had only been true to me."

"Now, old chap, what are you grumbling to yourself for?" said a voice just behind him.

He turned abruptly and met the keen-eyed, ferret-looking face of the detective Sampson. Sampson and Jim had not been very friendly lately, and Jim wondered now in a vague sort of way why his quondam friend had troubled himself to visit him.

"Sit down, won't you?" he said abruptly. "There's a chair."

"I'll shut the door first," said Sampson. "I have got a thing or two to say to you, and you may as well hear me out. You aint behaved straight to me, Jim; you did a shabby thing behind my back; but, Lor' bless you, ef it's saved me from a gel like Louisa Clay, why, I'll be obleeged to you to the end of my days. Look here, I was very near committing myself with that girl. 'Twasn't that I loved her, but I don't go for to deny that she was good-looking, and she certainly did tickle my fancy considerable, and then when I thought of the tidy bit of silver that she would have from her father, I made up my mind that she would be a good enough match for me; but mind you, I never thought her straight—I never yet was mistook in any character I ever studied carefully. I couldn't follow out my calling if I did, Jim, old chap; and that you know well."

"I don't suppose you could, George," said Jim; "but I think it only fair to tell you before you go a step further, that I am engaged to Louisa, and I can't hear her run down by anyone now. So you may as well know that first as last."

"Engaged or not," said Sampson, with curious emphasis, "you have got to hear a thing or two about Louisa Clay to-night."

"If it is bad, I won't hear it," said Jim, clenching his big hand.

"Then you are a greater fool than I took you for; but, look here, you've got to listen, for it concerns that other girl, the girl you used to be so mad on, Alison Reed."

Jim's hands slowly unclenched. He turned round and fixed his great dark eyes with a kind of hungry passion in them on Sampson's face.

"If it has anything to do with Alison I am bound to hear it," he said.

"Then you love her still?" said Sampson, in surprise.

"Love her!" replied Jim; "aye, lad, that I do. I am near mad about her."

"And yet you are going to marry Louisa Clay."

"So it seems, George, so it seems; but what's the good of talking about what can't be cured? Alison has thrown me over, and I am promised to Louisa, and there's an end of it."

"Seems to me much more like that you have thrown Alison over," said Sampson. "Why, I was in the room that night of the play-acting, and I saw Alison Reed just by the stairs, looking as beautiful as a picter, and you come up with that other loud, noisy gel, and you talked to her werry affectionate, I must say. I heard what she said to you—that there wasn't a thing in heaven above, or in earth beneath, she wouldn't do for you. Maybe Alison heard them words too; there's no saying. I was so mad at what I thought Louisa's falsehood to me, that I cut the whole concern fast enough. Well, that's not what I have come to talk on to-night; it is this: I think I have traced the theft of that five-pound note straight home at last."

"You haven't?" said Jim. "Oh, but that's good news indeed; and Alison is cleared?"

"She is; but I don't see how it is good news to you, for the theft is brought home to the gel what is to be your wife in less than a week."

"Nonsense!" said Hardy. "I always said you were too sharp on Louisa. She aint altogether to my taste, I am bound to confess, although I have promised her marriage; but she's not a thief. Come, now, you cannot get me to believe she's as bad as that."

"You listen to me, Hardy, and stay quiet," said Sampson. "I can put what I know in a few words, and I will. From the very first I suspected Louisa Clay. She was jealous of Alison, and had a motive for tryin' to do her a bad turn. She was over head and ears in love with you, as all the world could see. That, when I saw her first, I will own, I began to think as she'd be a good mate for myself, and it come over me that I wouldn't push the inquiry any further. It might be well to know a secret about your wife, to hold over her in case she proved troublesome by'm-by. I am not a feller with any high notions, as perhaps you have guessed—anyhow, I let the thing drop, and I went in for Louisa for the sake of her money. When she threw me over so sharp, you may suppose that my feelings underwent a head-to-tail sort of motion, and I picked up the clew pretty fast again, and worked on it until I got a good thread in my hand. I needn't go into particulars here about all I did and all I didn't do, but I managed first of all to pick up with Shaw, your master. I met him out one evening, and I told him that I knew you, and that you were in an awful taking because your gel, Alison Reed, was thought to have stolen a five-pound note. He talked a bit about the theft, and then I asked him if he had the number of the note. He clapped his hand on his thigh, and said what a fool he was, but he had never thought of the number until that moment. He had looked at it when he put the note in the till as he supposed, and by good luck he remembered it. He said off to me what he believed it was, and I entered it in my notebook.

"'I have you now, my fine lady,' I said to myself, and I went off and did a little bit of visiting in the smartest shops round, and by and by I heard further tidings of the note. It had been changed, two days after it had been stolen, by a young woman answering to Louisa Clay in all particulars. When things had come as far as that, I said to myself——

"'Ef there is a case for bluff, this is one. I'll just go and wring the truth from Louisa before she is an hour older.'

"So I went to see her only this morning. I blarneyed her a bit first—you know my style—and then I twitted her for being false to me, and then I got up a sort of pretense quarrel, and I worked on her feelings until she got into a rage, and when she was all hot and peppery, I faced right round on her, and charged her with the theft.

"'You stole that five-pound note from the till in Shaw's shop,' I said, 'and you let Alison Reed be charged with it. I know you stole it, so you needn't deny it. The number of the note was, one, one, one, seven. I have it written here in my note-book. I traced the note to Dawson's, round the corner, and they can swear, if necessary, in a court of justice, that you gave it to them in exchange for some yards of black silk. By the way, I believe that is the very identical silk you have on you this minute. Oh, fie, Louisa! you are a bad 'un.'

"She turned white as one of them egg-shell china cups, and she put her hands before her eyes, and her hands shook. And after a bit she said:

"'Oh, George, don't have me locked up, and I'll tell you everything."

"'Well, you'll have to put it in writing,' I said, 'or I won't have a crumb of mercy on you.'

"So I got the story out of her, Jim. It seems the note had never been dropped into the till at all, but had fallen on the floor just by the manager's desk, and Louisa had seen it and picked it up, and she confessed to hoping that Alison would be charged with it. Here's her confession in this envelope, signed and witnessed and all. So now, you can marry her come Thursday ef you like."

Sampson got up and stretched himself as he spoke.

Jim's face, which had turned from red to white, and from white again to crimson, during this brief narrative, was now stern and dark.

"I am obliged to you, Sampson," he said, after a pause.

"What will you do?" asked the detective, with some curiosity. "I see this is a bit of a blow, and I am not surprised; but what will you do?"

"I can't tell. I must think things over. Do you say you have the confession in your pocket?"

"Yes; in my breast pocket. Here is the envelope sticking out above my coat."

"Give it to me," said Jim, stretching out his big hand.

"Not I. That's my affair. I can make use of this. Why, I could hold a thing of this sort over the head of your fair bride, and blackmail her, if necessary."

"No, no, Sampson; you are not a ruffian, of that sort."

George Sampson suddenly changed his manner.

"As far as you are concerned, Jim, I am no ruffian," he said. "To tell the plain truth, I have always liked yer, and I'll act by you as straight as a die in this matter. If you never do anything else, you've saved me from being the husband of that gel, and I'll be thankful to you for it to my dying day. But for the Lord's sake, don't you put yourself into the noose now. You can't be so mad, surely."

"Leave me for to-night, Sampson," said Jim in a voice of entreaty. "I can't say anything, I must think. Leave me for to-night."

The detective got up slowly, whistled in a significant manner, and left the room.

"Now, if Jim Hardy is quixotic enough to marry Louisa Clay after what I have said, I'll never speak to a good man again as long as I live," he muttered.

But Jim Hardy had not made up his mind how to act at all; he was simply stunned. When he found himself alone he sank down on a chair close to his little center table, put his elbows on the table, and buried his head in his big hands. The whole bewildering truth was too much for him. He was honest and straight himself, and could not understand duplicity. Louisa's conduct was incomprehensible to him. What should he do now? Should he be true to one so false? This question began dimly to struggle to obtain an answer in his mind. He had scarcely begun to face it, when a knock at the door, and the shrill voice of his landlady calling out, "I have got a letter for you, Mr. Hardy, you are in favor with the post to-night," reached him.

He walked across the room, opened the door, and took the letter from the landlady's hand. She gave him a quick, curious glance; she saw shrewdly enough that something was worrying him.

"Why do he go and marry a girl like that Clay creature?" she muttered to herself as she whisked downstairs. "I wouldn't have her if she had double the money they say he's to get with her."

Jim meanwhile stared hard at the writing on his letter. It was in Louisa Clay's straggling, badly formed hand. He hastily tore open the envelope, and read the brief contents. They ran as follows:

"DEAR JIM,—I dare say you have heard something about me, and I don't go for to deny that that something is true. I was mad when I did it, but, mad or sane, it is best now that all should be over between you and me. I couldn't bear to marry you, and you knowing the truth. Then you never loved me—any fool could see that. So I am off out of London, and you needn't expect to see me any more.

"Yours no longer, "LOUISA CLAY."

Jim's first impulse when he had read this extraordinary and unexpected letter was to dance a hornpipe from one end of the room to the other; his next was to cry hip, hip, hurrah in a stentorian voice. His last impulse he acted upon. He caught up his hat and went out as fast as ever he could. With rapid strides he hurried through the crowded streets, reached the Bank, and presently found himself on the top of an omnibus which was to convey him to Bayswater. He was following his impulse with a beating heart, eyes that blazed with light, and lips that trembled with emotion. He had been a prisoner tied fast in chains of his own forging. All of a sudden he was free. Impulse should have its way. His heart should dictate to him in very earnest at last. With Louisa's letter and his uncle's letter in his pocket, he presently reached the great house where Mrs. Faulkner lived. He had often passed that house since Alison had gone to it, walking hungrily past it at dead of night, thinking of the girl whom he loved but might never win; now he might win his true love after all—he meant to try. His triumphant steps were heard hurrying down the pavement. He pulled the servants' bell and asked boldly for Alison.

"Who shall I say?" asked the kitchen-maid who admitted him.

"Say Jim Hardy, and that my message is urgent," was the reply.

The girl, who was impressed by Jim's goodly height and breadth, invited him into the housekeeper's parlor, where Alison joined him in a few minutes. Her face was like death when she came in; her hand shook so that she could scarcely hold it out for Jim to clasp. He was master, however, on this occasion—the averted eyes, the white face, the shaking hand were only all the more reasons why he should clasp the maiden he loved to his heart. He strode across the room and shut the door.

"Can we be alone for a few minutes?" he said.

"I suppose so, Jim, if—if it is necessary," said Alison.

"It is necessary. I have something to say."

Alison did not reply. She was trembling more than ever.

"I have got to say this," said Jim: "I am off with Louisa Clay. We're not going to be married. I don't want her, I never wanted her, and now it seems that she don't want me. And, Alison, you are cleared of that matter of the five-pound note."

"Cleared?" said Alison, springing forward, and her eyes lighting up.

"Yes, darlin', cleared," said Jim boldly. "I always knew you were as innocent as the dawn, and now all the world will know it. Sampson, good fellow, ferreted out the truth, and it seems—it seems that Louisa is the thief. Sampson can give you all particulars himself to-morrow; but I have come here now to talk on a matter of much more importance. I have always loved you, Alison, from the first day I set eyes on you. From that first moment I gave you all my heart; my life was yours, my happiness yours, and all the love I am capable of. In an evil hour a shadow came atween us; I was mad at losing you, and I asked Louisa to wed me; but though I'd 'a' been true to her—for a promise is a promise—I'd have been the most miserable man what ever lived, for my heart would have been yours. I'd have committed a sin, an awful sin, but, thank God, I am saved from that now. Louisa herself has set me free. There's her letter; you can read it if you want to."

Jim pulled it out of his pocket, and thrust it before Alison's dazzled eyes.

"No, no!" she said, pushing it from her; "your word is enough. I don't want to see the letter."

She hid her face in her shaking hands.

"I was always true to you," continued Jim, "in heart at least; and now I want to know if there is any reason why you and me should not be wed after all. I have got money enough, and I can wed you and give you a nice home as soon as ever the banns are read, and there'll be a corner for Grannie too, by our fireside. Come, Alison, is there any reason, any impediment? as they say in the marriage service. There aint really any other feller, is there, Ally? That was a sort of way to cheat me, Ally; wasn't it, darlin'?"

"Oh, Jim, yes, yes," cried Alison. "I always loved you with all my heart. I loved you more than ever the day I gave you up, but I was proud, and I misunderstood, and—and—oh, I can say no more; but I love you, Jim, I love you. Oh, my heart is like to burst, but it is all happiness now, for I love you so well—so true—so very, very dearly."

"Then that's all right," he answered solemnly. He took her into his arms there and then and held her fast to his beating heart. They kissed each other many times.

Alison and Jim were married, and Grannie went to live with them. She was indispensable to the brightness of their home, and even more indispensable to the success of their little shop; for Grannie had a natural turn for business, and if her eyes were the kindest in all the world, they were also the sharpest to detect the least thing not perfectly straight in those with whom she had to deal. So the shop, started on thoroughly business principles, flourished well. And the young pair were happy, and the other children by and by made a good start in the world, and Grannie's face beamed more and more lovingly as the years went on, but never to her dying day did she reveal the secret of her visit to the workhouse.

"It was the one piece of bad luck in all my happy life," she was wont to murmur to herself, then she would smile and perk up her little figure. "Lord knows, I needn't ha' been frighted," she would add; "comin' o' the breed of the Phippses and Simpsons, I might ha' known it wouldn't last—the luck o' the family bein' wot it is."



THE END



THE FLOWERS' WORK

"See, mother! I've finished my bouquet. Isn't it beautiful? More so, I think, than those made by the florist which he asked two dollars for, and this has cost me but seventy-five cents."

"Yes, yes, it is very pretty. But, dear me, child, I cannot help thinking how illy we can spare so much for such a very useless thing. Almost as much as you can make in a day it has cost."

"Don't say useless, mother. It will express to Edward our appreciation of his exertions and their result, and our regards. How he has struggled to obtain a profession! I only wish I could cover the platform with bouquets, baskets and wreaths tonight, when he receives his diploma."

"Well, well; if it will do any good, I shall not mind the expense. But, child, he will know it is from you, and men don't care for such things coming from home folks. Now, if it was from any other young lady, I expect he'd be mightily pleased."

"Oh, mother, I don't think so. Edward will think as much of it, coming from his sister-in-law, as from any other girl. And it will please Kate, too. If we do not think enough of him to send him bouquets, who else could? Rest easy, mother, dear; I feel quite sure my bouquet will do much good," answered Annie, putting her bouquet in a glass of water.

She left the room to make her simple toilet for the evening.

Mrs. Grey had been widowed when her two little girls were in their infancy. It had been a hard struggle for the mother to raise her children. Constant toil, privation and anxiety had worn heavily on her naturally delicate constitution, until she had become a confirmed invalid. But there was no longer a necessity for her toiling. Katy, the elder daughter, was married; and Annie, a loving, devoted girl, could now return the mother's long and loving care. By her needle she obtained a support for herself and mother.

Katy's husband held a position under the government, receiving a small compensation, only sufficient for the necessities of the present, and of very uncertain continuance. He was ambitious of doing better than this for himself, as well as his family. So he employed every spare hour in studying medicine, and it was the night that he was to receive his diploma that my little story begins.

The exercises of the evening were concluded. Edward Roberts came down the aisle to where his wife and Annie were seated, bearing his flowers—an elegant basket, tastefully arranged, and a beautiful bouquet. But it needed only a quick glance for Annie to see it was not her bouquet. Although the flowers were fragrant and rare, they were not so carefully selected or well chosen. Hers expressed not alone her affection and appreciation, but his energy, perseverance and success.

"Why, where is my bouquet? I do not see it," asked Annie, a look of disappointment on her usually bright face.

"Yours? I do not know. Did you send me one?" returned her brother-in-law.

"Indeed I did. And such a beauty, too! It is too bad! I suppose it is the result of the stupidity of the young man in whose hands I placed it. I told him plain enough it was for you, and your name, with mine, was on the card," answered Annie, really very much provoked.

"Well, do not fret, little sister; I am just as much obliged; and perchance some poor fellow not so fortunate as I may have received it," answered Edward Roberts.

"Don't, for pity's sake, let mother know of the mistake, or whatever it is, that has robbed you of your bouquet. She will fret dreadfully about it," said Annie.

All that night, until she was lost in sleep, did she constantly repeat:

"I wonder who has got it?"

She had failed to observe on the list of graduates the name of Edgar Roberts, from Ohio, or she might have had an idea into whose hands her bouquet had fallen. Her brother Edward, immediately on hearing Annie's exclamation, thought how the mistake had occurred, and was really glad that it was as it was; for the young man whose name was so nearly like his own was a stranger in the city, and Edward had noticed his receiving one bouquet only, which of course was the missing one, and Annie's.

Edgar Roberts sat in his room that night, after his return from the distribution of diplomas, holding in his hand Annie's bouquet, and on the table beside him was a floral dictionary. An expression of gratification was on his pleasant face, and, as again and again his eyes turned from the flowers to seek their interpreter, his lips were wreathed with smiles, and he murmured low:

"Annie Grey! Sweet Annie Grey! I never dreamed of any one in this place knowing or caring enough for me to send such a tribute. How carefully these flowers are chosen! What a charming, appreciative little girl she is! Pretty, I know, of course. I wonder how she came to send me this? How shall I find her? Find her I must, and know her."

And Edgar Roberts fell asleep to dream of Annie Grey, and awoke in the morning whispering the last words of the night before:

"Sweet Annie Grey!"

During the day he found it quite impossible to fix his mind on his work; mind and heart were both occupied with thoughts of Annie Grey. And so it continued to be until Edgar Roberts was really in love with a girl he knew not, nor had ever seen. To find her was his fixed determination. But how delicately he must go about it. He could not make inquiry among his gentlemen acquaintances without speculations arising, and a name sacred to him then, passed from one to another, lightly spoken, perhaps. Then he bethought himself of the city directory; he would consult that. And so doing he found Greys innumerable—some in elegant, spacious dwellings, some in the business thoroughfares of the place. The young ladies of the first mentioned, he thought, living in fashionable life, surrounded by many admirers, would scarcely think of bestowing any token of regard or appreciation on a poor unknown student. The next would have but little time to devote to such things; and time and thought were both spent in the arrangement of his bouquet. Among the long list of Greys he found one that attracted him more than all the others—a widow, living in a quiet part of the city, quite near his daily route. So he sought and found the place and exact number. Fortune favored him. Standing at the door of a neat little frame cottage he beheld a young girl talking with two little children. She was not the blue-eyed, golden-haired girl of his dreams, but a sweet, earnest dove-eyed darling. And what care he, whether her eyes were blue or brown, if her name were only Annie? Oh, how could he find out that?

She was bidding the little ones "good-bye." They were off from her, on the sidewalk, when the elder child—a bright, laughing boy of five—sang out, kissing his little dimpled hand:

"Good-bye, Annie, darling!"

Edgar Roberts felt as if he would like to clasp the little fellow to the heart he had relieved of all anxiety. No longer a doubt was in his mind. He had found his Annie Grey.

From that afternoon, twice every day he passed the cottage of the widow Grey, frequently seeing sweet Annie. This, however, was his only reward. She never seemed at all conscious of his presence. Often her eyes would glance carelessly toward him. Oftener they were never raised from her work. Sewing by the window, she always was.

What next? How to proceed, on his fixed determination of winning her, if possible?

Another bright thought. He felt pretty sure she attended church somewhere; perhaps had a class in the Sabbath school. So the next Sunday morning, at an early hour, he was commanding a view of Annie's home. When the school bells commenced to ring, he grew very anxious. A few moments, and the door opened and the object of his thoughts stepped forth. How beautiful she looked in her pretty white suit! Now Edgar felt his cause was in the ascendancy. Some distance behind, and on the other side of the street, he followed, ever keeping her in view until he saw her enter a not far distant church. Every Sunday after found him an attentive listener to the Rev. Mr. Ashton, who soon became aware of the presence of the young gentleman so regularly, and apparently so much interested in the services. So the good man sought an opportunity to speak to Edgar, and urge his accepting a charge in the Sabbath school. We can imagine Edgar needed no great urging on that subject; so, frequently, he stood near his Annie. In the library, while selecting books for their pupils, once or twice they had met, and he had handed to her the volume for which her hand was raised. Of course a smile and bow of acknowledgment and thanks rewarded him.

THE END