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Title: The Children's Pilgrimage

Author: L. T. Meade

Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6899]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on February 9, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHILDREN'S PILGRIMAGE ***




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THE CHILDREN'S PILGRIMAGE

BY

MRS. L. T. MEADE






THE CHILDREN'S PILGRIMAGE






FIRST PART.

"LOOKING FOR THE GUIDE."



  "The night is dark, and I am far from home.
  Lead Thou me on"




CHAPTER I.

"THREE ON A DOORSTEP."


In a poor part of London, but not in the very poorest part--two
children sat on a certain autumn evening, side by side on a doorstep.
The eldest might have been ten, the youngest eight. The eldest was a
girl, the youngest a boy. Drawn up in front of these children,
looking into their little faces with hungry, loving, pathetic eyes,
lay a mongrel dog.

The three were alone, for the street in which they sat was a cul-de-sac
--leading nowhere; and at this hour, on this Sunday evening,
seemed quite deserted. The boy and girl were no East End waifs; they
were clean; they looked respectable; and the doorstep which gave them
a temporary resting-place belonged to no far-famed Stepney or Poplar.
It stood in a little, old-fashioned, old-world court, back of
Bloomsbury. They were a foreign-looking little pair--not in their
dress, which was truly English in its clumsiness and want of
picturesque coloring--but their faces were foreign. The contour was
peculiar, the setting of the two pairs of eyes--un-Saxon. They sat
very close together, a grave little couple. Presently the girl threw
her arm round the boy's neck, the boy laid his head on her shoulder.
In this position those who watched could have traced motherly lines
round this little girl's firm mouth. She was a creature to defend and
protect. The evening fell and the court grew dark, but the boy had
found shelter on her breast, and the dog, coming close, laid his head
on her lap.

After a time the boy raised his eyes, looked at her and spoke:

"Will it be soon, Cecile?"

"I think so, Maurice; I think it must be soon now."

"I'm so cold, Cecile, and it's getting so dark."

"Never mind, darling, stepmother will soon wake now, and then you
can come indoors and sit by the fire."

The boy, with a slight impatient sigh, laid his head once more on
her shoulder, and the grave trio sat on as before.

Presently a step was heard approaching inside the house--it came
along the passage, the door was opened, and a gentleman in a plain
black coat came out. He was a doctor and a young man. His smooth,
almost boyish face looked so kind that it could not but be an index
to a charitable heart.

He stopped before the children, looking at them with interest and
pity.

"How is our stepmother, Dr. Austin?" asked Cecile, raising her head
and speaking with alacrity.

"Your stepmother is very ill, my dear--very ill indeed. I stopped
with her to write a letter which she wants me to post. Yes, she is
very ill, but she is awake now; you may go upstairs; you won't
disturb her."

"Oh, come, Cecile," said little Maurice, springing to his feet;
"stepmother is awake, and we may get to the fire. I am so bitter cold."

There was not a particle of anything but a kind of selfish longing
for warmth and comfort on his little face. He ran along the passage
holding out his hand to his sister, but Cecile drew back. She came
out more into the light and looked straight up into the tall doctor's
face:

"Is my stepmother going to be ill very long, Dr. Austin?"

"No, my dear; I don't expect her illness will last much longer."

"Oh, then, she'll be quite well to-morrow."

"Perhaps--in a sense--who knows!" said the doctor, jerking out his
words and speaking queerly. He looked as if he wanted to say more,
but finally nodding to the child, turned on his heel and walked away.

Cecile, satisfied with this answer, and reading no double meaning in
it, followed her brother and the dog upstairs. She entered a
tolerably comfortable sitting-room, where, on a sofa, lay a woman
partly dressed. The woman's cheeks were crimson, and her large eyes,
which were wide open, were very bright. Little Maurice had already
found a seat and a hunch of bread and butter, and was enjoying both
drawn up by a good fire, while the dog Toby crouched at his feet and
snapped at morsels which he threw him. Cecile, scarcely glancing at
the group by the fire, went straight up to the woman on the sofa:

"Stepmother," she said, taking her hand in hers, "Dr. Austin says
you'll be quite well to-morrow."

The woman gazed hard and hungrily into the sweet eyes of the child;
she held her small hand with almost feverish energy, but she did not
speak, and when Maurice called out from the fire, "Cecile, I want
some more bread and butter," she motioned to her to go and attend to
him.

All his small world did attend to Maurice at once, so Cecile ran to
him, and after supplying him with milk and bread and butter, she took
his hand to lead him to bed. There were only two years between the
children, but Maurice seemed quite a baby, and Cecile a womanly
creature.

When they got into the tiny bedroom, which they shared together,
Cecile helped her little brother to undress, and tucked him up when
he got into bed.

"Now, Toby," she said, addressing the dog, whose watchful eyes had
followed her every movement, "you must lie down by Maurice and keep
him company; and good-night, Maurice, dear."

"Won't you come to bed too, Cecile?"

"Presently, darling; but first I have to see to stepmother. Our
stepmother is very ill, you know, Maurice."

"Very ill, you know," repeated Maurice sleepily, and without
comprehending; then he shut his eyes, and Cecile went back into the
sitting-room.

The sick woman had never stirred during the child's absence, now she
turned round eagerly. The little girl went up to the sofa with a
confident step. Though her stepmother was so ill now, she would be
quite well to-morrow, so the doctor had said, and surely the best way
to bring that desirable end about was to get her to have as much
sleep as possible.

"Stepmother," said Cecile softly, "'tis very late; may I bring in
your night-dress and air it by the fire, and then may I help you to
get into bed, stepmother dear?"

"No, Cecile," replied the sick woman. "I'm not going to stir from
this yere sofa to-night."

"Oh, but then--but then you won't be quite well to-morrow," said the
child, tears springing to her eyes.

"Who said I'd be quite well to-morrow?" asked Cecile's stepmother.

"Dr. Austin, mother; I asked him, and he said, 'Yes,'--at least he
said 'Perhaps,' but I think he was very sure from his look."

"Aye, child, aye; he was very sure, but he was not meaning what you
were meaning. Well, never mind; but what was that you called me just
now, Cecile?"

"I--I----" said Cecile, hesitating and coloring.

"Aye, like enough 'twas a slip of your tongue. But you said,
'Mother'; you said it without the 'step' added on. You don't know
--not that it matters now--but you won't never know how that
'stepmother' hardened my heart against you and Maurice, child."

"'Twas our father," said Cecile; "he couldn't forget our own mother,
and he asked us not to say 'Mother,' and me and Maurice, we could
think of no other way. It wasn't that we--that I--didn't love."

"Aye, child, you're a tender little thing; I'm not blaming you, and
maybe I couldn't have borne the word from your lips, for I didn't
love you, Cecile--neither you nor Maurice--I had none of the mother
about me for either of you little kids. Aye, you were right enough;
your father, Maurice D'Albert, never forgot his Rosalie, as he called
her. I always thought as Frenchmen were fickle, but he worn't not
fickle enough for me. Well, Cecile, I'm no way sleepy, and I've a
deal to say, and no one but you to say it to; I'm more strong now
than I have been for the day, so I'd better say my say while I have
any strength left. You build up the fire, and then come back to me,
child. Build it up big, for I'm not going to bed to-night."




CHAPTER II.

A SOLEMN PROMISE.


When Cecile had built up the fire, she made a cup of tea and brought
it to her stepmother. Mrs. D'Albert drank it off greedily; afterward
she seemed refreshed and she made Cecile put another pillow under her
head and draw her higher on the sofa.

"You're a good, tender-hearted child, Cecile," she said to the
little creature, who was watching her every movement with a kind of
trembling eagerness. Cecile's sensitive face flushed at the words of
praise, and she came very close to the sofa. "Yes, you're a good
child," repeated Mrs. D'Albert; "you're yer father's own child, and
he was very good, though he was a foreigner. For myself I don't much
care for good people, but when you're dying, I don't deny as they're
something of a comfort. Good people are to be depended on, and you're
good, Cecile."

But there was only one sentence in these words which Cecile took in.

"When you're dying," she repeated, and every vestige of color
forsook her lips.

"Yes, my dear, when you're dying. I'm dying, Cecile; that was what
the doctor meant when he said I'd he quite well; he meant as I'd lie
straight and stiff, and have my eyes shut, and be put in a long box
and be buried, that was what he meant, Cecile. But look here now,
you're not to cry about it--not at present, I mean; you may as much
as you like by and by, but not now. I'm not crying, and 'tis a deal
worse for me; but there ain't no time for tears, they only weaken and
do no good, and I has a deal to say. Don't you dare shed a tear now,
Cecile; I can't a-bear the sight of tears; you may cry by and by, but
now you has got to listen to me."

"I won't cry," said Cecile; she made a great effort set her lips
firm, and looked hard at her stepmother.

"That's a good, brave girl. Now I can talk in comfort. I want to
talk all I can to you to-night, my dear, for to-morrow I may have the
weakness back again, and besides your Aunt Lydia will be here!"

"Who's my Aunt Lydia?" asked Cecile.

"She ain't rightly your aunt at all, she's my sister; but she's the
person as will have to take care of you and Maurice after I'm dead."

"Oh!" said Cecile; her little face fell, and a bright color came
into her cheeks.

"She's my own sister," continued Mrs. D'Albert, "but I don't like
her much. She's a good woman enough; not up to yer father's standard,
but still fair enough. But she's hard--she is hard ef you like. I
don't profess to have any violent love for you two little tots, but
I'd sooner not leave you to the care o' Aunt Lydia ef I could help it."

"Don't leave us to her care; do find some one kind--some one as 'ull
be kind to me, and Maurice, and Toby--do help it, stepmother," said
Cecile.

"I _can't_ help it, child; and there's no use bothering a dying
woman who's short of breath. You and Maurice have got to go to my
sister, your Aunt Lydia, and ef you'll take a word of advice by and
by, Cecile, from one as 'ull be in her grave, you'll not step-aunt
her--she's short of temper, Aunt Lydia is. Yes," continued the sick
woman, speaking fast, and gasping for breath a little, "you have
got to go to my sister Lydia. I have sent her word, and she'll come
to-morrow--but--never mind that now. I ha' something else I must say
to you, Cecile."

"Yes, stepmother."

"I ha' no one else to say it to, so you listen werry hard. I'm going
to put a great trust on you, little mite as you are--a great, great
trust; you has got to do something solemn, and to promise something
solemn too, Cecile."

"Yes," said Cecile, opening her blue eyes wide.

"Aye, you may well say yes, and open yer eyes big; you're going to
get some'ut on yer shoulders as 'ull make a woman of yer. You mayn't
like it, I don't suppose as you will; but for all that you ha' got to
promise, because I won't die easy, else. Cecile," suddenly bending
forward, and grasping the child's arm almost cruelly, "I can't die at
_all_ till you promise me this solemn and grave, as though it
were yer very last breath."

"I will promise, stepmother," said Cecile. "I'll promise solemn, and
I'll keep it solemn; don't you be fretted, now as you're a-dying. I
don't mind ef it is hard. Father often give me hard things to do, and
I did 'em. Father said I wor werry dependable," continued the little
creature gravely.

To her surprise, her stepmother bent forward and and kissed her. The
kiss she gave was warm, intense, passionate; such a kiss as Cecile
had never before received from those lips.

"You're a good child," she said eagerly; "yes, you're a very good
child; you promise me solemn and true, then I'll die easy and
comforted. Yes, I'll die easy, even though Lovedy ain't with me, even
though I'll never lay my eyes on my Lovedy again."

"Who's Lovedy?" asked Cecile.

"Aye, child, we're coming to Lovedy, 'tis about Lovedy you've got to
promise. Lovedy, she's my daughter, Cecile; she ain't no step-child,
but my own, my werry own, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh."

"I never knew as you had a daughter of yer werry own," said Cecile.

"But I had, Cecile. I had as true a child to me as you were to yer
father. My own, my own, my darling! Oh, my bonnie one, 'tis bitter,
bitter to die with her far, far away! Not for four years now have I
seen my girl. Oh, if I could see her face once again!"

Here the poor woman, who was opening up her life-story to the
astonished and frightened child, lost her self-control, and sobbed
hysterically. Cecile fetched water, and gave it to her, and in a few
moments she became calm.

"There now, my dear, sit down and listen. I'll soon be getting weak,
and I must tell everything tonight. Years ago, Cecile, afore ever I
met yer father, I was married. My husband was a sailor, and he died
at sea. But we had one child, one beautiful, bonnie English girl;
nothing foreign about her, bless her! She was big and tall, and fair
as a lily, and her hair, it was that golden that when the sun shone
on it it almost dazzled you. I never seed such hair as my Lovedy's,
never, never; it all fell in curls long below her waist. I _was_
that proud of it I spent hours dressing it and washing it, and
keeping it like any lady's. Then her eyes, they were just two bits of
the blue sky in her head, and her little teeth were like white
pearls, and her lips were always smiling. She had an old-world
English name taken from my mother, but surely it fitted her, for to
look at her was to love her.

"Well, my dear, my girl and me, we lived together till she was near
fifteen, and never a cloud between us. We were very poor; we lived by
my machining and what Lovedy could do to help me. There was never a
cloud between us, until one day I met yer father. I don't say as yer
father loved me much, for his heart was in the grave with your
mother, but he wanted someone to care for you two, and he thought me
a tidy, notable body, and so he asked me to marry him and he seemed
well off, and I thought it 'ud be a good thing for Lovedy. Besides, I
had a real fancy for him; so I promised. I never even guessed as my
girl 'ud mind, and I went home to our one shabby little room, quite
light-hearted like, to tell her. But oh, Cecile, I little knew my
Lovedy! Though I had reared her I did not know her nature. My news
seemed to change her all over.

"From being so sweet and gentle, she seemed to have the very devil
woke up in her. First soft, and trembling and crying, she went down
on her knees and begged me to give yer father up; but I liked him,
and I felt angered with her for taking on what I called foolish, and
I wouldn't yield; and I told her she was real silly, and I was
ashamed of her. They were the bitterest words I ever flung at her,
and they seemed to freeze up her whole heart. She got up off her
knees and walked away with her pretty head in the air, and wouldn't
speak to me for the evening; and the next day she come to me quick
and haughty like, and said that if I gave her a stepfather she would
not live with me; she would go to her Aunt Fanny, and her Aunt Fanny
would take her to Paris, and there she would see life. Fanny was my
youngest sister, and she was married to a traveler for one of the big
shops, and often went about with her husband and had a gay time. She
had no children of her own, and I knew she envied me my Lovedy beyond
words.

"I was so hurt with Lovedy for saying she would leave me for her
Aunt Fanny, that I said, bitter and sharp, she might do as she liked,
and that I did not care.

"Then she turned very red and went away and sat down and wrote a
letter, and I knew she had made up her mind to leave me. Still I
wasn't really frightened. I said to myself, I'll pretend to let her
have her own way, and she'll come round fast enough; and I began to
get ready for my wedding, and took no heed of Lovedy. The night
before I was married she came to me again. She was white as a sheet,
and all the hardness had gone out of her.

"'Mother, mother, mother,' she said, and she put her dear, bonnie
arms round me and clasped me tight to her. 'Mother, give him up, for
Lovedy's sake; it will break my heart, mother. Mother, I am jealous;
I must have you altogether or not at all. Stay at home with your own
Lovedy, for pity's sake, for pity's sake.'

"Of course I soothed her and petted her, and I think--I do think now
--that she, poor darling, had a kind of notion I was going to yield,
and that night she slept in my arms.

"The next morning I put on my neat new dress and bonnet, and went
into her room.

"'Lovedy, will you come to church to see your mother married?'

"I never forgot--never, never, the look she gave me. She went white
as marble, and her eyes blazed at me and then grew hard, and she put
her head down on her hands, and, do all in my power, I could not get
a word out of her.

"Well, Cecile, yer father and I were married, and when we came back
Lovedy was gone. There was just a little bit of a note, all blotted
with tears, on the table. Cecile, I have got that little note, and
you must put it in my coffin. These words were writ on it by my poor
girl: "'Mother, you had no pity, so your Lovedy is gone. Good-by,
mother.'

"Yes, Cecile, that was the note, and what it said was true. My
Lovedy was gone. She had disappeared, and so had her Aunt Fanny, and
never, never from that hour have I heard one single word of Lovedy."

Mrs. D'Albert paused here. The telling of her tale seemed to have
changed her. In talking of her child the hard look had left her face,
an expression almost beautiful in its love and longing filled her
poor dim eyes, and when Cecile, in her sympathy, slipped her little
hand into hers, she did not resist the pressure.

"Yes, Cecile," she continued, turning to the little girl, "I lost
Lovedy--more surely than if she was dead, was she torn from me. I
never got one clew to her. Yer father did all he could for me; he was
more than kind, he did pity me, and he made every inquiry for my girl
and advertised for her, but her aunt had taken her out of England,
and I never heard--I never heard of my Lovedy from the day I married
yer father, Cecile. It changed me, child; it changed me most bitter.
I grew hard, and I never could love you nor Maurice, no, nor even yer
good father, very much after that. I always looked upon you three as
the people who took by bonnie girl away. It was unfair of me. Now, as
I'm dying, I'll allow as it was real unfair, but the pain and hunger
in my heart was most awful to bear. You'll forgive me for never
loving you, when you think of all the pain I had to bear, Cecile."

"Yes, poor stepmother," answered the little girl, stooping down and
kissing her hand. "And, oh!" continued Cecile with fervor, "I wish--I
wish I could find Lovedy for you again."

"Why, Cecile, that's just what you've got to do," said her
stepmother; "you've got to look for Lovedy: you're a very young
girl; you're only a child; but you've got to go on looking, _always
--always_ until you find her. The finding of my Lovedy is to be yer
life-work, Cecile. I don't want you to begin now, not till you're
older and have got more sense; but you has to keep it firm in yer
head, and in two or three years' time you must begin. You must go on
looking until you find my Lovedy. That is what you have to promise me
before I die."

"Yes, stepmother."

"Look me full in the face, Cecile, and make the promise as solemn as
though it were yer werry last breath--look me in the face, Cecile,
and say after me, 'I promise to find Lovedy again.'"

"I promise to find Lovedy again," repeated Cecile.

"Now kiss me, child."

Cecile did so.

"That kiss is a seal," continued her stepmother; "ef you break yer
promise, you'll remember as you kissed the lips of her who is dead,
and the feel 'ull haunt you, and you'll never know a moment's
happiness. But you're a good girl, Cecile--a good, dependable child,
and I'm not afeared for you. And now, my dear, you has made the
promise, and I has got to give you directions. Cecile, did you ever
wonder why your stepmother worked so hard?"

"I thought we must be very poor," said Cecile.

"No, my dear, yer father had that little bit of money coming in from
France every year. It will come in for four or five years more, and
it will be enough to pay Aunt Lydia for taking care on you both. No,
Cecile, I did not work for myself, nor for you and Maurice--I worked
for Lovedy. All that beautiful church embroidery as I sat up so late
at night over, the money I got for it was for my girl; every lily I
worked, and every passion-flower, and every leaf, took a little drop
of my heart's blood, I think; but 'twas done for her. Now, Cecile,
put yer hand under my pillow--there's a purse there."

Cecile drew out an old, worn Russia-leather purse.

"Lovedy 'ud recognize that purse," said her mother, "it belonged to
her own father. She and I always kept our little earnings in it, in
the old happy days. Now open the purse, Cecile; you must know what is
inside it."

Cecile pressed the spring and took out a little bundle of notes.

"There, child, you open them--see, there are four notes--four Bank
of England notes for ten pounds each--that's forty pounds--forty
pounds as her mother earned for my girl. You give her those notes in
the old purse, Cecile. You give them into her own hands, and you say,
'Your mother sent you those. Your mother is dead, but she broke her
heart for you, she never forgot your voice when you said for pity's
sake, and she asks you now for pity's sake to forgive her.' That's
the message as you has to take to Lovedy, Cecile."

"Yes, stepmother, I'll take her that message--very faithful; very,
very faithful, stepmother."

"And now put yer hand into the purse again, Cecile; there's more
money in the purse--see! there's fifteen pounds all in gold. I had
that money all in gold, for I knew as it 'ud be easier for you--that
fifteen pounds is for you, Cecile, to spend in looking for Lovedy;
you must not waste it, and you must spend it on nothing else. I guess
you'll have to go to France to find my Lovedy; but ef you're very
careful, that money ought to last till you find her."

"There'll be heaps and heaps of money here," said Cecile, looking at
the little pile of gold with almost awe.

"Yes, child, but there won't, not unless you're _very_ saving,
and ask all sensible questions about how to go and how best to find
Lovedy. You must walk as much as you can, Cecile, and live very
plain, for you may have to go a power of miles--yes, a power, before
you find my girl; and ef you're starving, you must not touch those
four notes of money, only the fifteen pounds. Remember, only that;
and when you get to the little villages away in France, you may go to
the inns and ask there ef an English girl wor ever seen about the
place. You describe her, Cecile--tall, a tall, fair English girl,
with hair like the sun; you say as her name is Lovedy--Lovedy Joy.
You must get a deal o' sense to do this business proper, Cecile; but
ef you has sense and patience, why you will find my girl."

"There's only one thing, stepmother," said Cecile; "I'll do
everything as you tells me, every single thing; I'll be as careful as
possible, and I'll save every penny; but I can't go to look for your
Lovedy without Maurice, for I promised father afore ever I promised
you as I'd never lose sight on Maurice till he grew up, and it 'ud be
too long to put off looking for Lovedy till Maurice was grown up,
stepmother."

"I suppose it would," answered Cecile's stepmother; "'tis a pity,
for he'll spend some of the money. But there, it can't be helped, and
you'll do your best. I'll trust you to do yer werry best, Cecile."

"My werry, werry best," said Cecile earnestly.

"Well, child, there's only one thing more. All this as I'm telling
you is a secret, a solemn, solemn secret. Ef yer Aunt Lydia gets wind
on it, or ef she ever even guesses as you have all that money,
everything 'ull be ruined. Yer aunt is hard and saving, and she do
hanker sore for money, she always did--did Lydia, and not all the
stories you could tell her 'ud make her leave you that money; she 'ud
take it away, she 'ud be quite cruel enough to take the money away
that I worked myself into my grave to save, and then it 'ud be all up
with Lovedy. No, Cecile, you must take the purse o' money away with
you this very night, hide it in yer dress, or anywhere, for Aunt
Lydia may be here early in the morning, and the weakness may be on me
then. Yes, Cecile, you has charge on that money, fifty-five pounds in
all; fifteen pounds for you to spend, and forty to give to Lovedy.
Wherever you go, you must hide it so safe that no one 'ull ever guess
as a poor little girl like you has money, for anyone might rob you,
child; but the one as I'm fearing the most is yer Aunt Lydia."




CHAPTER III.

"NEVER A MOMENT TO GET READY."


To all these directions Cecile listened, and she there and then took
the old worn purse with its precious contents away with her, and went
into the bedroom which she shared with her brother, and taking out
her needle and thread she made a neat, strong bag for the purse, and
this bag she sewed securely into the lining of her frock-body. She
showed her stepmother what she had done, who smiled and seemed
satisfied.

For the rest of that night Cecile sat on by the sofa where Mrs.
D'Albert lay. Now that the excitement of telling her tale had passed,
the dreaded weakness had come back to the poor woman. Her voice, so
strong and full of interest when speaking of Lovedy, had sunk to a
mere whisper. She liked, however, to have her little stepdaughter
close to her, and even held her hand in hers. That little hand now
was a link between her and her lost girl, and as such, for the first
time she really loved Cecile.

As for the child herself, she was too excited far to sleep. The
sorrow so loving a heart must have felt at the prospect of her
stepmother's approaching death was not just now realized; she was
absorbed in the thought of the tale she had heard, of the promise she
had made.

Cecile was grave and womanly far beyond her years, and she knew well
that she had taken no light thing on her young shoulders. To shirk
this duty would not be possible to a nature such as hers. No, she
must go through with it; she had registered a vow, and she must
fulfill it. Her little face, always slightly careworn, looked now
almost pathetic under its load of care.

"Yes, poor stepmother," she kept saying to herself, "I will find
Lovedy--I will find Lovedy or die."

Then she tried to imagine the joyful moment when her quest would be
crowned with success, when she would see herself face to face with
the handsome, willful girl, whom she yet must utterly fail to
understand; for it would have been completely impossible for Cecile
herself, under any circumstances, to treat her father as Lovedy had
treated her poor mother.

"I could never, never go away like that, and let father's heart
break," thought Cecile, her lips growing white at the bare idea
of such suffering for one she loved. But then it came to her with
a sense of relief that perhaps Lovedy's Aunt Fanny was the guilty
person, and that she herself was quite innocent; her aunt, who
was powerful and strong, had been unkind, and had not allowed her
to write. When this thought came to Cecile, she gave a sigh of
relief. It would be so much nicer to find Lovedy, if she was not
so hard-hearted as her story seemed to show.

All that night Mrs. D'Albert lay with her eyes closed, but not
asleep. When the first dawn came in through the shutters she turned
to the watching child:

"Cecile," she said, "the day has broke, and this is the day the
doctor says as perhaps I'll die."

"Shall I open the shutters wide?" asked Cecile.

"No, my dear. No, no! The light 'ull come quite fast enough. Cecile,
ain't it a queer thing to be going to die, and not to be a bit ready
to die?"

"Ain't you ready, stepmother?" asked the little girl.

"No, child, how could I be ready? I never had no time. I never had a
moment to get ready, Cecile."

"Never a moment to get ready," repeated Cecile. "I should have
thought you had lots of time. You aren't at all a young woman, are
you, stepmother? You must have been a very long time alive."

"Yes, dear; it would seem long to you. But it ain't long really. It
seems very short to look back on. I ain't forty yet, Cecile; and
that's counted no age as lives go; but I never for all that had a
moment. When I wor very young I married; and afore I married, I had
only time for play and pleasure; and then afterward Lovedy came, and
her father died, and I had to think on my grief, and how to bring up
Lovedy. I had no time to remember about dying during those years,
Cecile; and since my Lovedy left me, I have not had one instant to do
anything but mourn for her, and think on her, and work for her. You
see, Cecile, I never did have a moment, even though I seems old to
you."

"No, stepmother, I see you never did have no time," repeated Cecile
gravely.

"But it ain't nice to think on now," repeated Mrs. D'Albert, in a
fretful, anxious key. "I ha' got to go, and I ain't ready to go,
that's the puzzle."

"Perhaps it don't take so very long to get ready," answered the
child, in a perplexed voice.

"Cecile," said Mrs. D'Albert, "you're a very wise little girl. Think
deep now, and answer me this: Do you believe as God 'ull be very
angry with a poor woman who had never, no never a moment of time to
get ready to die?"

"Stepmother," answered Cecile solemnly, "I don't know nothink about
God. Father didn't know, nor my own mother; and you say you never had
no time to know, stepmother. Only once--once----"

"Well, child, go on. Once?"

"Once me and Maurice were in the streets, and Toby was with us, and
we had walked a long way and were tired, and we sat down on a
doorstep to rest; and a girl come up, and she looked tired too, and
she had some crochet in her hand; and she took out her crochet and
began to work. And presently--jest as if she could not help it--she
sang. This wor what she sang. I never forgot the words:

  "'I am so glad that Jesus loves me;
  Jesus loves even me.'

"The girl had such a nice voice, stepmother, and she sang out so
bold, and seemed so happy, that I couldn't help asking her what it
meant. I said, 'Please, English girl, I'm only a little French girl,
and I don't know all the English words; and please, who's Jesus, kind
little English girl?'

"'Oh! _don't_ you know about Jesus?' she said at once. 'Why,
Jesus is--Jesus is----Oh! I don't know how to tell you; but He's
good, He's beautiful, He's dear. Jesus loves everybody."

"'Jesus loves everybody?' I said.

"'Yes. Don't the hymn say so? Jesus loves even me!'"

"'Oh! but I suppose 'tis because you're very, _very_ good,
little English girl,' I said.

"But the English girl said, 'No, that wasn't a bit of it. She wasn't
good, though she did try to be. But Jesus loved everybody, whether
they were good or not, ef only they'd believe it.'

"That's all she told me, stepmother; but she just said one thing
more, 'Oh, what a comfort to think Jesus loves one when one remembers
about dying.'"

While Cecile was telling her little tale, Mrs. D'Albert had closed
her eyes; now she opened them.

"Are you sure that is all you know, child, just 'Jesus loves
everybody?' It do seem nice to hear that. Cecile, could you jest say
a bit of a prayer?"

"I can only say, 'Our Father,'" answered Cecile.

"Well, then, go on your knees and say it earnest; say it werry
earnest, Cecile."

Cecile did so, and when her voice had ceased, Mrs. D'Albert opened
her eyes, clasped her hands together, and spoke:

"Jesus," she said, "Lord Jesus, I'm dreadful, bitter sorry as I
never took no time to get ready to die. Jesus, can you love even me?"

There was no answer in words, but a new and satisfied look came into
the poor, hungry eyes; a moment later, and the sick and dying woman
had dropped asleep.




CHAPTER IV.

TOBY.


Quite early in that same long morning, before little Maurice had
even opened his sleepy eyes, the woman whom Mrs. D'Albert called Aunt
Lydia arrived. She was a large, stout woman with a face made very red
and rough from constant exposure to the weather. She did not live in
London, but worked as housekeeper on a farm down in Kent. This woman
was not the least like Mrs. D'Albert, who was pale, and rather
refined in her expression. Aunt Lydia had never been married, and her
life seemed to have hardened her, for not only was her face rough and
coarse in texture, but her voice, and also, it is to be regretted,
her mind appeared to partake of the same quality. She came noisily
into the quiet room where Cecile had been tending her stepmother; she
spoke in a loud tone, and appeared quite unconcerned at the very
manifest danger of the sister she had come to see; she also instantly
took the management of everything, and ordered Cecile out of the room.

"There is no use in having children like _that_ about," she
said in a tone of great contempt; and although her stepmother looked
after her longingly, Cecile was obliged to leave the room and go to
comfort and pet Maurice.

The poor little girl's own heart was very heavy; she dreaded this
harsh new voice and face that had come into her life. It did not
matter very greatly for herself, Cecile thought, but Maurice--Maurice
was very tender, very young, very unused to unkindness. Was it
possible that Aunt Lydia would be unkind to little Maurice? How he
would look at her with wonder in his big brown eyes, bigger and
browner than English eyes are wont to be, and try hard to understand
what it all meant, what the new tone and the new words could possibly
signify; for Mrs. D'Albert, though she never professed to love the
children, had always been just to them, she had never given them
harsh treatment or rude words. It is true Cecile's heart, which was
very big, had hungered for more than her stepmother had ever offered;
but Maurice had felt no want, he had Cecile to love him, Toby to pet
him; and Mrs. D'Albert always gave him the warmest corner by the
hearth, the nicest bits to eat, the best of everything her poor and
struggling home afforded. Maurice was rather a spoiled little boy;
even Cecile, much as she loved him, felt that he was rather spoiled;
all the harder now would be the changed life.

But Cecile had something else just at present to make her anxious
and unhappy. She was a shrewd and clever child; she had not been
tossed about the world for nothing, and she could read character with
tolerable accuracy. Without putting her thoughts into regular words,
she yet had read in that hard new face a grasping love of power, an
eager greed for gold, and an unscrupulous nature which would not
hesitate to possess itself of what it could. Cecile trembled as she
felt that little bag of gold lying near her heart--suppose, oh!
suppose it got into Aunt Lydia's hands. Cecile felt that if this
happened, if in this way she was unfaithful to the vow she had made,
she should die.

"There are somethings as 'ud break any heart," she said to herself,
"and not to find Lovedy when I promised faithful, faithful to
Lovedy's mother as I would find her; why, that 'ud break my heart.
Father said once, when people had broken hearts they _died_, so
I 'ud die."

She began to consider already with great anxiety how she could hide
this precious money.

In the midst of her thoughts Maurice awoke, and Toby shook himself
and came round and looked into her face.

Toby was Maurice's own special property. He was Maurice's dog, and
he always stayed with him, slept on his bed at night, remained by his
side all day; but he had, for all his attachment for his little
master, looks for Cecile which he never bestowed upon Maurice. For
Maurice the expression in his brown eyes was simply protecting,
simply loving; but for Cecile that gaze seemed to partake of a higher
nature. For Cecile the big loving eyes grew pathetic, grew watchful,
grew anxious. When sitting very close to Maurice, apparently absorbed
in Maurice, he often rolled them softly round to the little girl.
Those eyes spoke volumes. They seemed to say, "You and I have the
care of this little baby boy. It is a great anxiety, a great
responsibility for us, but we are equal to the task. He is a dear
little fellow, but only a baby; you and I, Cecile, are his grown-up
protectors." Toby gamboled with Maurice, but with Cecile he never
attempted to play. His every movement, every glance, seemed to say
--"_We_ don't care for this nonsense, I only do it to amuse the
child."

On this particular morning Toby read at a glance the new anxiety in
Cecile's face. Instantly this anxiety was communicated to his own. He
hung his head, his eyes became clouded, and he looked quite an old
dog when he returned to Maurice's side.

When Maurice was dressed, Cecile conducted him as quietly as she
could down the stairs and out through the hall to the old-world and
deserted little court. The sun was shining here this morning. It was
a nice autumn morning, and the little court looked rather bright.
Maurice quite clapped his hands, and instantly began to run about and
called to Toby to gambol with him. Toby glanced at Cecile, who nodded
in reply, and then she ran upstairs to try and find some breakfast
which she could bring into the court for all three. She had to go
into the little sitting-room where her stepmother lay breathing loud
and hard, and with her eyes shut. There was a look of great pain on
her face, and Cecile, with a rush of sorrow, felt that she had looked
much happier when she alone had been caring for her. Aunt Lydia,
however, must be a good nurse, for she had made the room look quite
like a sickroom. She had drawn down the blinds and placed a little
table with bottles by the sofa, and she herself was bustling about,
with a very busy and important air. She was not quiet, however, as
Cecile had been, and her voice, which was reduced to a whisper pitch,
had an irritating effect, as all voices so pitched have.

Cecile, securing a loaf of bread and a jug of milk, ran downstairs,
and she, Maurice, and Toby had their breakfast in truly picnic
fashion. Afterward the children and dog stayed out in the court for
the rest of the day. The little court faced south, and the sun stayed
on it for many hours, so that Maurice was not cold, and every hour or
so Cecile crept upstairs and listened outside the sitting-room door.
There was always that hard breathing within, but otherwise no sound.
At last the sun went off the court, and Maurice got cold and cried,
and then Cecile, as softly as she had brought him out, took him back
to their little bedroom. Having had no sleep the night before, she
was very weary now, and she lay down on the bed, and before she had
time to think about it was fast asleep.

From this sleep she was awakened by a hand touching her, a light
being flashed in her eyes, and Aunt Lydia's strong, deep voice
bidding her get up and come with her at once.

Cecile followed her without a word into the next room.

The dying woman was sitting up on a sofa, supported by pillows, and
her breathing came quicker and louder than ever.

"Cecile," she gasped, "Cecile, say that bit--bit of a hymn once
again."

  "I am so glad Jesus loves me,
    Even me."

repeated the child instantly.

"Even me," echoed the dying woman.

Then she closed her eyes, but she felt about with her hand until it
clasped the little warm hand of the child.

"Go back to your room now, Cecile," said Aunt Lydia.

But the dying hand pressed the little hand, and Cecile answered
gravely and firmly:

"Stepmother 'ud like me to stay, Aunt Lydia."

Aunt Lydia did not speak again, and for half an hour there was
silence. Suddenly Cecile's stepmother opened her eyes bright and wide.

"Lovedy," she said, "Lovedy; find Lovedy," and then she died.




CHAPTER V.

THE TIN BOX AND ITS TREASURE.


Cecile and Maurice D'Albert were the orphan children of a French
father and a Spanish mother. Somewhere in the famous valleys of the
Pyrenees these two had loved each other, and married. Maurice
D'Albert, the father, was a man of a respectable class and for that
class of rather remarkable culture. He owned a small vineyard, and
had a picturesque chateau, which he inherited from his ancestors,
among the hills. Pretty Rosalie was without money. She had neither
fortune nor education. She sprang from a lower class than her
husband; but her young and childish face possessed so rare an order
of beauty that it would be impossible for any man to ask her where
she came from, or what she did. Maurice D'Albert loved her at once.
He married her when she was little more than a child; and for four
years the young couple lived happily among their native mountains;
for Rosalie's home had been only as far away as the Spanish side of
the Pyrenees.

But at the end of four years clouds came. The vine did not bear; a
blight seemed to rest on all vegetation of the prosperous little
farm. D'Albert, for the first time in his life, was short of money
for his simple needs. This was an anxiety; but worse troubles were to
follow. Pretty Rosalie bore him a son; and then, when no one even
apprehended danger, suddenly died. This death completely broke down
the poor man. He had loved Rosalie so well that when she left him the
sun seemed absolutely withdrawn from his life. He lived for many more
years, but he never really held up his head again. Rosalie was gone!
Even his children now could scarcely make him care for life. He began
to hate the place where he had been so happy with his young wife. And
when a distant cousin, who had long desired the little property, came
and offered to buy it, D'Albert sold the home of his ancestors. The
cousin gave him a small sum of money down for the pretty chateau and
vineyard, and agreed to pay the rest in yearly instalments, extending
over twelve years.

With money in his purse, and secure in a small yearly property for
at least some years to come, D'Albert came to England. He had been in
London once for a fortnight, when quite a little lad; and it came
into his head that the English children looked healthy and happy, and
he thought it might give him pleasure to bring up his little son and
daughter as English children. He took the baby of three months, and
the girl of a little over two years, to England; and, in a poor and
obscure corner of the great world of London, established himself with
his babies. Poor man! the cold and damp English climate proved
anything but the climate of his dreams. He caught one cold, then
another, and after two or three years entered a period of confirmed
ill-health, which was really to end in rapid consumption. His
children, however, throve and grew strong. They both inherited their
young mother's vigorous life. The English climate mattered nothing to
them, for they remembered no other. They learned to speak the English
tongue, and were English in all but their birth. When they were
babies their father stayed at home, and nursed them as tenderly as
any woman, allowing no hired nurse to interfere. But when they were
old enough to be left, and that came before long, Cecile growing
_so_ wise and sensible, so dependable, as her father said,
D'Albert went out to look for employment.

He was, as I have said, a man of some culture for his class. As he
knew Spanish fluently, he obtained work at a school, as teacher, of
Spanish, and afterward he further added to his little income by
giving lessons on the guitar. The money too came in regularly from
the French chateau, and D'Albert was able to put by, and keep his
children in tolerable comfort.

He never forgot his young wife. All the love he had to bestow upon
woman lay in her Pyrenean grave. But nevertheless, when Cecile was
six years old, and Maurice four, he asked another woman to be his
wife. His home was neglected; his children, now that he was out so
much all day, pined for more care. He married, but not loving his
wife, he did not add to his happiness. The woman who came into the
house came with a sore and broken heart. She brought no love for
either father or children. All the love in her nature was centered on
her own lost child. She came and gave no love, and received none,
except from Cecile. Cecile loved everybody. There was that in the
little half-French, half-Spanish girl's nature--a certain look in her
long almond-shaped blue eyes, a melting look, which could only be
caused by the warmth of a heart brimful of loving kindness. Woe be to
anyone who could hurt the tender heart of this little one! Cecile's
stepmother had often pained her, but Cecile still loved on.

Two years after his second marriage D'Albert died. He died after a
brief fresh cold, rather suddenly at the end, although he had been
ill for years.

To his wife he explained all his worldly affairs, He received fifty
pounds a year from his farm in France. This would continue for the
next few years. There was also a small sum in hand, enough for his
funeral and present expenses. To Cecile he spoke of other things than
money--of his early home in the sunny southern country, of her
mother, of little Maurice. He said that perhaps some day Cecile could
go back and take Maurice with her to see with her own eyes the sunny
vineyards of the south, and he told her what the child had never
learned before, that she had a grandmother living in the Pyrenees, a
very old woman now, old and deaf, and knowing not a single word of
the English tongue. "But with a loving heart, Cecile", added her
father, "with a loving mother's heart. If ever you could find your
grandmother, you would get a kiss from her that would be like a
mother's kiss."

Shortly after Maurice D'Albert died, and the children lived on with
their stepmother. Without loving them, the second Mrs. D'Albert was
good to her little stepchildren. She religiously spent all their
father's small income on them, and when she died, she had so arranged
money matters that her sister Lydia would be well paid with the fifty
pounds a year for supporting them at her farm in the country.

This fifty pounds still came regularly every half-year from the
French farm. It would continue to be paid for the next four years,
and the next half-year's allowance was about due when the children
left London and went to the farm in Kent.

The few days that immediately followed Mrs. D'Albert's death were
dull and calm. No one loved the poor woman well enough to fret really
for her. The child she had lost was far away and knew nothing, and
Lydia Purcell shed few tears for her sister. True, Cecile cried a
little, and went into the room where the dead woman lay, and kissed
the cold lips, registering again, as she did so, a vow to find
Lovedy, but even Cecile's loving heart was only stirred on the
surface by this death. The little girl, too, was so oppressed, so
overpowered by the care of the precious purse of money, she lived
even already in such hourly dread of Aunt Lydia finding it, that she
had no room in her mind for other sensations; there was no place in
the lodgings in which they lived to hide the purse of bank notes and
gold. Aunt Lydia seemed to be a woman who had eyes in the back of her
head, she saw everything that anyone could see; she was here, there,
and everywhere at once. Cecile dared not take the bag from inside the
bosom of her frock, and its weight, physical as well as mental,
brought added pallor to her thin cheeks. The kind young doctor, who
had been good to Mrs. D'Albert, and had written to her sister to come
to her, paid the children a hasty visit. He noticed at once Cecile's
pale face and languid eyes.

"This child is not well," he said to Lydia Purcell. "What is wrong,
my little one?" he added, drawing the child forward tenderly to sit
on his knee.

"Please, I'm quite well," answered Cecile, "'tis only as father did
say as I was a very dependable little girl. I think being dependable
makes you feel a bit old--don't it, doctor?"

"I have no doubt it does," answered the doctor, laughing. And he
went away relieved about the funny, old-fashioned little foreign
girl, and from that moment Cecile passed out of his busy and useful
life.

The next day the children, Toby, and Aunt Lydia went down to the
farm in Kent. Neither Cecile, Maurice, nor their town-bred dog had
ever seen the country, to remember it before, and it is not too much
to say that all three went nearly wild with delight. Not even Aunt
Lydia's sternness could quench the children's mirth when they got
away into the fields, or scrambled over stiles into the woods.
Beautiful Kent was then rich in its autumn tints. The children and
dog lived out from morning to night. Provided they did not trouble
her, Lydia Purcell was quite indifferent as to how the little
creatures committed to her care passed their time. At Cecile's
request she would give her some broken provisions in a basket, and
then never see or think of the little trio again until, footsore and
weary after their day of wandering, they crept into their attic
bedroom at night.

It was there and then, during those two delicious months, before the
winter came with its cold and dreariness, that Cecile lost the look
of care which had made her pretty face old before its time. She was a
child again--rather she was a child at last. Oh! the joy of gathering
real, real flowers with her own little brown hands. Oh! the delight
of sitting under the hedges and listening to the birds singing.
Maurice took it as a matter of course; Toby sniffed the country air
solemnly, but with due and reasonable appreciation; but to Cecile
these two months in the country came as the embodiment of the
babyhood and childhood she had never known.

In the country Cecile was only ten years old.

When first they had arrived at the old farm she had discovered a
hiding place for her purse. Back of the attic, were she had and
Maurice and Toby slept, was a little chamber, so narrow--running so
completely away into the roof--that even Cecile could only explore it
on her hands and knees.

This little room she did examine carefully, holding a candle in her
hand, in the dead of night, when every soul on the busy farm was
asleep.

Woe for Cecile had Aunt Lydia heard a sound; but Aunt Lydia Purcell
slept heavily, and the child's movements were so gentle and careful
that they would scarcely have aroused a wakeful mouse. Cecile found
in the extreme corner of this tiny attic in the roof an old broken
wash-hand-stand lying on its back. In the wash-hand-stand was a
drawer, and inside the drawer again a tidy little tin box. Cecile
seized the box, sat down on the floor, and taking the purse from the
bosom of her frock, found that it fitted it well. She gave a sigh of
relief; the tin box shut with a click; who would guess that there was
a purse of gold and notes inside!

Now, where should she put it? Back again into the old drawer of the
old wash-stand? No; that hiding place was not safe enough. She
explored a little further, almost lying down now, the roof was so
near her head. Here she found what she had little expected to see--a
cupboard cunningly contrived in the wall. She pushed it open. It was
full, but not quite full, of moldy and forgotten books. Back of the
books the tin box might lie hidden, lie secure; no human being would
ever guess that a treasure lay here.

With trembling hands she pushed it far back into the cupboard,
covered it with some books, and shut the door securely.

Then she crept back to bed a light-hearted child. For the present
her secret was safe and she might be happy.




CHAPTER VI.

MERCY BELL.


The farm in Kent, called Warren's Grove, belonged to an old lady.
This lady was very old; she was also deaf and nearly blind. She left
the management of everything to Lydia Purcell, who, clever and
capable, was well equal to the emergency. There was no steward or
overseer of the little property, but the farm was thoroughly and
efficiently worked. Lydia had been with Mrs. Bell for over twenty
years. She was now trusted absolutely, and was to all intents and
purposes the mistress of Warren's Grove. This had not been so when
first she arrived; she had come at first as a sort of upper servant
or nurse. The old lady was bright and active then. She had a son in
Australia, and a bonnie grandchild to wake echoes in the old place
and keep it alive. This grandchild was a girl of six, and Lydia was
its nurse. For a year all went well; then the child, partly through
Lydia's carelessness, caught a malignant fever, sickened, and died.
Lydia had taken her into an infected house. This knowledge the woman
kept to herself. She never told either doctor or grandmother--she
dared not tell--and the grief, remorse, and pain changed her whole
nature.

Before the death of little Mercy Bell, Lydia had been an ordinary
young woman. She had no special predisposition to evil. She was a
handsome, bold-looking creature, and where she chose to give love,
that love was returned. She had loved her pretty little charge, and
the child had loved her and died in her arms. Mrs. Bell, too, had
loved Lydia, and Lydia was bright and happy, and looked forward to a
home of her own some day.

But from the moment the grave had closed over Mercy, and she felt
herself in a measure responsible for her death, all was changed in
the woman. She did not leave her situation; she stayed on, she served
faithfully, she worked hard, and her clever and well-timed services
became more valuable day by day. But no one now loved Lydia, not even
old Mrs. Bell, and certainly she loved nobody. Of course the natural
consequences followed--the woman, loving neither God nor man, grew
harder and harder. At forty-five, the age she was when the children
came to Warren's Grove, she was a very hard woman indeed.

It would be wrong, however, to say that she had _no_ love; she
loved one thing--a base thing--she loved money. Lydia Purcell was
saving money; in her heart she was a close miser.

She was not, however, dishonest; she had never stolen a penny in her
life, never yet. Every farthing of the gains which came in from the
well-stocked and prosperous little farm she sent to the county bank,
there to accumulate for that son in Australia, who, childless as he
was, would one day return to find himself tolerably rich. But still
Lydia, without being dishonest, saved money. When old Mrs. Bell, a
couple of years after her grandchild's death, had a paralytic stroke,
and begged of her faithful Lydia, her dear Lydia, not to leave her,
but to stay and manage the farm which she must give up attending to,
Lydia had made a good compact for herself.

"I will stay with you, Mistress Bell," she had replied, addressing
the old dame in the fashion she loved. "I will stay with you, and
tend you, and work your farm, and you shall pay me my wages."

"And good wages, Lydia--good wages they must be," replied the old
lady.

"They shall be fair wages," answered Lydia. "You shall give me a
salary of fifty pounds a year, and I will have in the spring every
tenth lamb, and every tenth calf, to sell for myself, and I will
supply fowl and eggs for our own use at table, and all that are over
I will sell on my own account."

"That is fair--that is very fair," said Mrs. Bell.

On these terms Lydia stayed and worked. She studied farming, and the
little homestead throve and prospered. And Lydia too, without ever
exceeding by the tenth of an inch her contract, managed to put by a
tidy sum of money year by year. She spent next to nothing on dress;
all her wants were supplied. Nearly her whole income, therefore, of
fifty pounds a year could go by untouched; and the tenth of the
flock, and the money made by the overplus of eggs and poultry, were
by no means to be despised.

Lydia was not dishonest, but she so far looked after her own
interests as to see that the hen-houses were warm and snug, that the
best breeds of poultry were kept up, and that those same birds should
lay their golden eggs to the tune of a warm supper. Lydia, however,
though very careful, was not always very wise. Once a quarter she
regularly took her savings to the bank in the little town of F--t,
and on one of these occasions she was tempted to invest one hundred
pounds of her savings in a very risky speculation. Just about the
time that the children were given into her charge this speculation
was pronounced in danger, and Lydia, when she brought Cecile and
Maurice home, was very anxious about her money.

Now, if Mrs. D'Albert did not care for children, still less did
Lydia Purcell. It was a strange fact that in both these sisters their
affection for all such little ones should lie buried in a lost
child's grave. It was true that, as far as she could tell, Mrs.
D'Albert's love might be still alive. But little Mercy Bell's small
grave in the churchyard contained the only child that Lydia Purcell
could abide. That little grave was always green, and remained, summer
and winter, not quite without flowers. But though she clung
passionately to Mercy's memory, yet, because she had been unjust to
this little one, she disliked all other children for her sake.

It had been great pain and annoyance to Lydia to bring the orphan
D'Alberts home, and she had only done so because of their money; for
she reflected that they could live on the farm for next to nothing,
and without in the least imagining herself dishonest, she considered
that any penny she could save from their fifty pounds a year might be
lawfully her own.

Still the children were unpleasant to her, and she wished that her
sister had not died so inopportunely.

As the two children sat opposite to her in the fly, during their
short drive from the country station to the farm, Lydia regarded them
attentively.

Maurice was an absolutely fearless child. No one in all his little
life had ever said a cross word to Maurice, consequently he
considered all the people in the world his slaves, and treated them
with lofty indifference. He chattered as unreservedly to Lydia
Purcell as he did to Cecile or Toby, and for Maurice in consequence
Lydia felt no special dislike; his fearlessness made his charm. But
Cecile was different. Cecile was unfortunate enough to win at once
this disagreeable woman's antipathy. Cecile had timid and pleading
eyes. Her eyes said plainly, "Let me love you."

Now, Mercy's eyes too were pleading; Mercy's eyes too had said, "let
me love you," Lydia saw the likeness between Mercy and Cecile at a
glance, and she almost hated the little foreign girl for resembling
her lost darling.

Old Mrs. Bell further aggravated her dislike; she was so old and
invalidish now that her memory sometimes failed.

The morning after the children's arrival, she spoke to Lydia.

"Lydia, that was Mercy's voice I heard just now in the passage."

"Mercy is dead," answered Lydia, contracting her brows in pain.

"But, Lydia, I _did_ hear her voice."

"She is dead, Mistress Bell. That was another child."

"Another child! Let me see the other child."

Lydia was obliged to call in Cecile, who came forward with a sweet
grave face, and stood gently by the little tremulous old woman, and
took her hand, and then stooped down to kiss her.

Cecile was interested in such great age, and kept saying to herself,
"Perhaps my grandmother away in the Pyrenees is like this very old
woman," and when Mrs. Bell warmly returned her soft little caress,
Cecile wondered to herself if this was like the mother's kiss her
father and told her of when he was dying.

But when Cecile had gone away, Mrs. Bell turned to Lydia and said in
a tone of satisfaction:

"How much our dear Mercy has grown."

After this nothing would ever get the idea out of the old lady's
head that Cecile was Mercy.




CHAPTER VII.

A GUIDE TO THE PYRENEES.


I have said, for the first two months of Cecile's life in the
country she was a happy and light-hearted child. Her purse of money
was safe for the present. Her promise lay in abeyance. Even her dead
step-mother, anxious as she was to have Lovedy found, had counseled
Cecile to delay her search until she was older. Cecile, therefore,
might be happy. She might be indeed what she was--a child of ten.
This happiness was not to last. Clouds were to darken the life of
this little one; but before the clouds and darkness came, she was to
possess a more solid happiness--a happiness that, once it found
entrance into such a heart as hers, could never go away again.

The first beginning of this happiness was to come to Cecile through
an unexpected source--even through the ministrations of an old,
partly blind, and half-simple woman.

Mrs. Bell from the first took a fancy to Cecile, and liked to have
her about her. She called her Mercy, and Cecile grew accustomed to
the name and answered to it. This delusion on the part of poor old
Mrs. Bell was great torture to Lydia Purcell, and when the child and
the old woman were together she always left them alone.

One afternoon Mrs. Bell said abruptly:

"Mercy, I thought--or was it a dream?--I thought you were safe away
with Jesus for the last few years."

"No, Mistress Bell," answered Cecile in her slow and grave tones,
"I've only been in London these last few years."

"Now you're puzzling me," said Mrs. Bell in a querulous voice, "and
you know I hate being puzzled. Lydia Purcell, too, often puzzles me
lately, but you, Mercy, never used to. Sit down, child, and stitch at
your sampler, and I'll get accustomed to the sight of you, and not
believe that you've been away with my blessed Master, as I used to
dream."

"Is your blessed Master the same as Jesus that you thought I had
gone to live with?" asked Cecile, as she pulled out the faded sampler
and tried to work the stitches.

"Yes, my darling, He's my light and my stay, the sure guide of a
poor old woman to a better country, blessed be His holy Name!"

"A guide!" said Cecile. This name attracted her--a guide would be
so useful by and by when she went into a foreign land to look for
Lovedy. "Do you think as He'd guide me too, Mistress Bell?"

"For sure, deary, for sure. Don't He call a little thing like you
one of His lambs? 'Tis said of Him that He carries the lambs in His
arms. That's a very safe way of being guided, ain't it, Mercy?"

"Yes, ma'am. Only I hope as He'll take you in His arms too, Mistress
Bell, for you don't look as though you could walk far. And will He
come soon, Mistress?"

"I don't say as 'twill be long, Mercy. I'm very old and very feeble,
and He don't ever leave the very old and feeble long down here."

"And is the better country that the blessed Master has to guide you
to, away in France, away in the south of France, in the Pyrenees?"
asked Cecile with great excitement and eagerness.

But Mrs. Bell had never even heard of the Pyrenees. She shook her
old head and frowned.

"Tis called the Celestial City by some," she said, "and by some
again the New Jerusalem, but I never yet heard anyone speak of it by
that other outlandish name. Now you're beginning your old game of
puzzling, Mercy Bell."

Cecile bent over her work, and old Mrs. Bell dozed off to sleep.

But the words the old woman had spoken were with Cecile when later
in the day she went out to play with Maurice and Toby; were with her
when she lay down to sleep that night. What a pity Jesus only guided
people to the Celestial City and to the New Jerusalem! What a pity
that, as He was so very good, He did not do more! What a pity that He
could not be induced to take a little girl who was very young, and
very ignorant, but who had a great care and anxiety on her mind, into
France, even as far as, if necessary, to the south of France! Cecile
wondered if He could be induced to do it. Perhaps old Mrs. Bell, who
knew Him so well, would ask Him. Cecile guessed that Jesus must have
a very kind heart. For what did that girl say who once sat upon a
doorstep, and sang about him?

  "I am so glad Jesus loves even me."

That girl was as poor as Cecile herself. Nay, indeed, she was much
poorer. How white was her thin face, how ragged her shabby gown! But
then, again, how triumphant was her voice as she sang! What a happy
light filled her sunken eyes!

There was no doubt at all that Jesus loved this poor girl; and if He
loved her, why might He not love Cecile too? Yes, He surely had a
great and loving heart, capable of taking in everybody; for Cecile's
stepmother, though she was not _very_ nice, had smiled when that
little story of the poor girl on the doorstep had been told to her;
had smiled and seemed comforted, and had repeated the words, "Jesus
loves even me," softly over to herself when she was dying.

Cecile, too, now looking back over many things, remembered her own
father. Cecile's father, Maurice D'Albert, was a Roman Catholic by
birth. He was a man, however, out of whose life religion had slipped.

During his wife's lifetime, and while he lived on his little farm in
the Pyrenees, he had done as his neighbors did, gone to confession,
and professed himself a good Catholic; but when trouble came to him,
and he found his home in the bleaker land of England, there was found
to be no heart in his worship. He was an amiable, kind-hearted man,
but he forgot the religious part of life. He went neither to church
nor chapel, and he brought up his children like himself, practically
little heathens. Cecile, therefore, at ten years old was more
ignorant than it would be possible to find a respectable English
child. God, and heaven, and the blessed hope of a future life were
things practically unknown to her.

What fragmentary ideas she had gleaned in her wanderings about the
great city with her little brother were vague and unformed. But even
Cecile, thinking now of her father's deathbed, remembered words which
she had little thought of at the time.

Just before he breathed his last, he had raised two feeble hands,
and placed one on her head, and one on Maurice's, and said in a
faltering, failing voice:

"If the blessed and adorable Jesus be God, may He guide you, my
children."

These were his last words, and Cecile, lying on her little bed
to-night, remembered them vividly.

Who was this Jesus who was so loving, and who was so willing to
guide people? She must learn more about Him, for if _He_ only
promised to go with her into France, then her heart might be light,
her fears as to the success of her great mission might be laid to rest.

Cecile resolved to find out all she could about Jesus from old Mrs.
Bell.

The next morning, immediately after breakfast, Aunt Lydia called the
little girl aside, and gave her as usual a basket of broken provisions.

"There is a good piece of apple-tart in the basket this morning,
Cecile, and a bottle of fresh milk. Don't any of you three come
worriting me again before nightfall; there, run away quickly, child,
for I'm dreadful busy and put out to-day."

For a brief moment Cecile looked eagerly and pityingly into the hard
face. There was love in her gentle eyes, and, as they filled with
love, they grew so like Mercy's eyes that Lydia Purcell almost
loathed her. She gave her a little push away, and said sharply:

"Get away, get away, do," and turned her back, pretending to busy
herself over some cold meat.

Cecile went slowly and sought Maurice. She knew there would be no
dinner in store for her that day. But what was dinner compared to the
knowledge she hoped to gain!

"Maurice, dear," she said, as she put the basket into his hand,
"this is a real lovely day, and you and Toby are to spend it in the
woods, and I'll come presently if I can. And you might leave a little
bit of dinner if you're not very hungry, Maurice. There's lovely
apple-pie in the basket, and there's milk, but a bit of bread will do
for me. Try and leave a little bit of bread for me when I come."
Maurice nodded, his face beaming at the thought of the apple-pie and
the milk. But Toby's brown eyes said intelligently:

"We'll keep a little bit of _every_thing for you, Cecile, and
I'll take care of Maurice." And Cecile, comforted that Toby would
take excellent care of Maurice, ran away into old Mrs. Bell's room.

"May I sit with you, and may I do a little bit more of Mercy's
sampler, please, Mistress Bell?" she asked.

The old lady, who was propped up in the armchair in the sunshine,
received her in her usual half-puzzled half-pleased way.

"There, Mercy, child, you've grown so queer in your talk that I
sometimes fancy you're half a changeling. May you sit with your
grandam? What next? There, there, bring yer bit of a stool, and get
the sampler out, and do a portion of the feather-stitch. Mind ye're
careful, Mercy, and see as you count as you work."

Cecile sat down willingly, drew out the faded sampler, and made
valiant efforts to follow in the dead Mercy's finger marks. After a
moment or two of careful industry, she laid down her work and spoke:

"Mistress Bell, when 'ull you be likely to see Jesus next, do you
think?"

"Lawk a mercy, child! ain't you near enough to take one's breath
away. Do you want to kill your old grandam, Mercy? Why, in course I
can't see my blessed Saviour, the Lord Jesus, till I'm dead."

"Oh!" said Cecile, with a heavy sigh, "I did think as He lived down
yere, and that He came in and out to see you sometimes, seeing as you
love Him so. You said as He was a guide. How can He be a guide when
He's dead?"

"A guide to the New Jerusalem and the Celestial City," murmured old
Mrs. Bell, beginning to wander a little. "Yes, yes, my blessed Lord
and faithful and sure guide."

"But how can He be a guide when He's dead?" questioned Cecile.

"Mercy, child, put in another feather in yer sampler, and don't
worry an old woman. The Lord Jesus ain't dead--no, no; He died once,
but He rose--He's alive for evermore. Don't you ask no strange
questions, Mercy, child."

"Oh! but I must--I must," answered Cecile, now grown desperate. She
threw her sampler on the floor, rose to her feet, and confronted the
old woman with her eyes full of tears. "Whether I'm Mercy or not
don't matter, but I'm a very, very careworn little girl--I'm a little
girl with a deal, a great deal of care on my mind--and I want Jesus
most terrible bad to help me. Mistress Bell, dear Mistress Bell, when
you die and see Jesus, won't you ask Him, won't you be certain sure
to ask Him to guide me too?"

"Why, my darling, He's sure to guide you. There ain't no fear, my
dear life. He's sure, sure to take my Mercy, too, to the Celestial
City when the right time comes."

"But I don't want Him to take me to the Celestial City. I haven't
got to look for nobody in the Celestial City. 'Tis away to France,
down into the south of France I've got to go. Will you ask Jesus to
come and guide me down into the Pyrenees in the south of France,
please, Mistress Bell?"

"I don't know nothing of no such outlandish place," said old Mrs.
Bell, once more irritated and thrown off her bearings, and just at
this moment, to Cecile's serious detriment, Lydia Purcell entered.

Lydia was in one of her worst tempers, and old Mrs. Bell, rendered
cross for the moment, spoke unadvisedly:

"Lydia, I do think you're bringing up the child Mercy like a regular
heathen. She asks me questions as 'ud break her poor father, my son
Robert's heart ef he was to hear. She's a good child, but she's
_that_ puzzling. You bid her mind her sampler, and not worry an
old woman, Lydia Purcell."

Lydia's eyes gazed stormily at Cecile.

"I'll bid her see and do what she's told," she said, going up to the
little girl and giving her a shake. "You go out of the house this
minute, miss, and don't let me never see you slinking into this yere
room again without my leave." She took the child to the door and shut
it on her.

Mrs. Bell began to remonstrate feebly. "Lydia, don't be harsh on my
little Mercy," she began. "I like to have her along o' me. I'm mostly
alone, and the child makes company."

"Yes, but you have no time for her this morning, for, as I've told
you a score of times already to-day, Mr. Preston is coming," replied
Lydia.

Now Mr. Preston was Mrs. Bell's attorney, and next to her religion,
which was most truly real and abiding in her poor old heart, she
loved her attorney.




CHAPTER VIII.

"THE UNION."


Lydia had just then plenty of cause for anxiety; for that kind of
anxiety which such a woman would feel. She was anxious about the gold
she had been so carefully saving, putting by here a pound and there a
pound, until the bank held a goodly sum sufficient to support her in
comfort in the not very distant day when her residence in Warren's
Grove would come to an end.

Whenever Mrs. Bell died, Lydia knew she must look out for a fresh
home, and that day could surely now not be very distant.

The old woman had seen her eighty-fifth birthday. Death must be near
one so feeble, who was also eighty-five years of age. Lydia would be
comfortably off when Mrs. Bell died, and she often reflected with
satisfaction that this money, as she enjoyed it, need trouble her
with no qualms of conscience--it was all the result of hard work, of
patient industry. In her position she could have been dishonest, and
it would be untrue to deny that the temptation to be dishonest when
no one would be the wiser, when not a soul could possibly ever know,
had come to her more than once. But she had never yet yielded to the
temptation. "No, no," she had said to her own heart, "I will enjoy my
money by and by with clean hands. It shall be good money. I'm a hard
woman, but nothing mean nor unclean shall touch me." Lydia made these
resolves most often sitting by Mercy's grave. For week after week did
she visit this little grave, and kept it bright with flowers and
green with all the love her heart could ever know.

But all the same it was about this money which surely she had a
right to enjoy, and feel secure and happy in possessing, that Lydia
was so anxious now.

She had ground for her fears. As I said before Lydia Purcell had
once done a foolish thing. Now her folly was coming home to her. She
had been tempted to invest two hundred pounds in an unlimited
company. Twenty per cent. she was to receive for this money. This
twenty per cent. tempted her. She did the deed, thinking that for a
year or two she was safe enough.

But this very morning she had been made uneasy by a letter from Mr.
Preston, her own and Mrs. Bell's man of business.

He knew she had invested this money. She had done so against his will.

He told her that ugly rumors were afloat about this very company.
And if it went, all Lydia's money, all the savings of her life would
be swept away in its downfall.

When he called, which he did that same morning, he could but confirm
her fears.

Yes, he would try and sell out for her. He would go to London for
the purpose that very day.

Lydia, anxious about her golden calf, the one idol of her life, was
not a pleasant mistress of the farm. She was never particularly kind
to the children; but now, for the next few days, she was rough and
hard to everyone who came within her reach.

The dairymaid and the cook received sharp words, which, fortunately
for themselves, they were powerful enough to return with interest.
Poor old Mrs. Bell cowered lonely and sad by her fireside. Now and
then she asked querulously for Mercy, but no Mercy, real or
imaginary, ever came near her; and then her old mind would wander off
from the land of Beulah, where she really lived, right across to the
Celestial City at the other side of the river. Mrs. Bell was too old
and too serene to be rendered really unhappy by Lydia's harsh ways!
Her feet were already on the margin of the river, and earth's
discords had scarcely power to touch her.

But those who did suffer, and suffer most from Lydia's bad temper,
were the children.

They were afraid to stay in her presence. The weather had suddenly
turned cold, wet, and wintry. Cecile dared not take Maurice out into
the sleet showers which were falling about every ten minutes. All the
bright and genial weather had departed. Their happy days in the woods
and fields were over, and there was nothing for them but to spend the
whole day in their attic bedroom. Here the wind howled fiercely. The
badly-fitting window in the roof not only shook, but let in plenty of
rain. And Maurice cried from cold and fright. In his London home he
had never undergone any real roughing. He wanted a fire, and begged
of Cecile to light one; and when she refused, the little spoiled
unhappy boy nearly wept himself sick. Cecile looked at Toby, and
shook her head despondingly, and Toby answered her with more than one
blink from his wise and solemn eyes.

Neither Cecile nor Toby would have fretted about the cold and
discomfort for themselves, but both their hearts ached for Maurice.

One day the little boy seemed really ill. He had caught a severe
cold, and he shivered, and crouched up now in Cecile's arms with
flushed cheeks. His little hands and feet, however, were icy cold.
How Cecile longed to take him down to Mrs. Bell's warm room. But she
was strictly forbidden to go near the old lady.

At last, rendered desperate, she ventured to do for Maurice what
nothing would have induced her to do for herself. She went
downstairs, poked about until she found Lydia Purcell, and then in a
trembling voice begged from her a few sticks and a little coal to
build a fire in the attic bedroom.

Lydia stared at the request, then she refused it.

"That grate would not burn a fire even if you were to light it," she
said partly in excuse.

"But Maurice is so cold. I think he is ill from cold, and you don't
like us to stay in the kitchen," pleaded the anxious little sister.

"No, I certainly can't have children pottering about in my way
here," replied Lydia Purcell. "And do you know, Cecile--for if you
don't 'tis right you should--all that money I was promised for the
care of you and your brother, and the odious dog, has never come. You
have been living on me for near three months now, and not a blessed
sixpence have I had for my trouble. That uncle, or cousin, or whoever
he is, in France, has not taken the slightest notice of my letter.
There's a nice state of things--and you having the impudence to ask
for a fire up in yer very bedroom. What next, I wonder?"

"I can't think why the money hasn't come," answered Cecile,
puckering her brows; "that money from France always did come to the
day--always exactly to the day, it never failed. Father used to say
our cousin who had bought his vineyard and farm was reliable. I can't
think, indeed, why the money is not here long ago, Mrs. Purcell."

"Well, it han't come, child, and I have got Mr. Preston to write
about it, and if he don't have an answer soon and a check into the
bargain, out you and Maurice will have to go. I'm a poor woman
myself, and I can't afford to keep no beggar brats. That'll be worse
nor a fire in your bedroom, I guess, Cecile."

"If the money don't come, where'll you send us, Mrs. Purcell,
please?" asked Cecile, her face very pale.

"Oh! 'tis easy to know where, child--to the Union, of course."

Cecile had never heard of the Union.

"Is it far away? and is it a nice place?" she asked innocently.

Lydia laughed and held up her hands.

"Of all the babies, Cecile D'Albert, you beat them hallow," she
said. "No, no, I'll tell you nothing about the Union. You wait till
you see it. You're so queer, maybe you'll like it. There's no saying
--and Maurice'll get his share of the fire. Oh, yes, he'll get his
share."

"And Toby! Will Toby come too?" asked Cecile.

"Toby! bless you, no. There's a yard of rope for Toby. He'll be
managed cheaper than any of you. Now go, child, go!"




CHAPTER IX.

"THE ADVENT OF THE GUIDE."


Cecile crept upstairs again very, very slowly, and sat down by
Maurice's side.

"Maurice, dear," she said to her little brother, "I ha' no good
news for you. Aunt Lydia won't allow no fire, and you must just get
right into bed, and I'll lie down and put my arms round you, and Toby
shall lie at your feet. You'll soon be warm then, and maybe if you're
a very good boy, and don't cry, I'll make up a little fairy tale for
you, Maurice."

But Maurice was sick and very miserable, and he was in no humor even
to be comforted by what at most times he considered the nicest treat
in the world--a story made up by Cecile.

"I hate Aunt Lydia Purcell," he said; "I hate her, Cecile."

"Oh, don't! Maurice, darling. Father often said it was wrong to hate
anyone, and maybe Aunt Lydia does find us very expensive. Do you
know, Maurice, she told me just now that our cousin in France has
never sent her any money all this time? And you know how reliable our
cousin always was; and Aunt Lydia says if the money does not come
soon, she will send us away, quite away to another home. We are to go
to a place called 'The Union.' She says it is not very far away, and
that it won't be a bad home. At least, you will have a fire to warm
yourself by there, Maurice."

"Oh!" said Maurice excitedly, "don't you _hope_ our cousin in
France won't send the money, Cecile? Couldn't you write, or get
someone to write to him, telling him not to send the money?"

"I don't know writing well enough to put it in a letter, Maurice,
and, besides, it would not be fair to Aunt Lydia, after her having
such expense with us all these months. Don't you remember that
delicious apple pie, Maurice, and the red, red apples to eat with
bread in the fields? 'Tis only the last few days Aunt Lydia has got
really unkind, and perhaps we are very expensive little children.
Besides, Maurice, darling, I did not like to tell you at first, but
there is one dreadful, dreadful thing about the Union. However nice a
home it might be for you and me, we could not take Toby with us,
Maurice. Aunt Lydia said Toby would not be taken in."

"Then what would become of our dog?" asked Maurice, opening his
velvety brown eyes very wide.

"Ah! that I don't understand. Aunt Lydia just laughed, and said Toby
should have a yard of rope, and 'twould be cheaper than the Union. I
can't in the least find out what she meant."

But here Maurice got very red, so red, down below his chin, and into
his neck, and even up to the roots of his hair, that Cecile gazed at
him in alarm, and feared he had been taken seriously ill.

"Oh, Cecile!" he gasped. "Oh! oh! oh!" and here he buried his head
on his sister's breast.

"What is it, Maurice? Maurice, speak to me," implored his sister.
"Maurice, are very ill? Do speak to me, darling?"

"No, Cecile, I'm not ill," said the little boy, when he could find
voice after his agitation. "But, oh! Cecile, you must never be angry
with me for hating Aunt Lydia again. Cecile, Aunt Lydia is the
dreadfullest woman in all the world. _Do_ you know what she
meant by a yard of rope?"

"No, Maurice; tell me," asked Cecile, her face growing white.

"It means, Cecile, that our dog--our darling, darling Toby--is to be
hung, hung till he dies. Our Toby is to be murdered, Cecile, and Aunt
Lydia is to be his murderer. That's what it means."

"But, Maurice, how do you know? Maurice, how can you tell?"

"It was last week," continued the little boy, "last week, the day
you would not come out, Toby and me were in the wood, and we came on
a dog hanging to one of the trees by a bit of rope, and the poor dog
was dead, and a big boy stood by. Toby howled when he saw the dog,
and the big boy laughed; and I said to him, 'What is the matter with
the poor dog?' And the dreadful boy laughed again, Cecile, and he
said, 'I've been giving him a yard of rope.'

"And I said, 'But he's dead.'

"And the boy said, 'Yes, that was what I gave it him for.' That boy
was a murderer, and I would not stay in the wood all day, and that is
what Aunt Lydia will be; and I hate Aunt Lydia, so I do."

Here Maurice went into almost hysterical crying, and Cecile and Toby
had both as much as they could do for the next half hour to comfort
him.

When he was better, and had been persuaded to get into bed, Cecile
said:

"Me and you need not fret about Toby, Maurice, for our Toby shan't
suffer. We won't go into no Union wherever it is, and if the money
don't come from France, why, we'll run away, me and you and Toby."

"We'll run away," responded Maurice with a smile, and sleepy after
his crying fit, and comforted by the warmth of his little bed, he
closed his eyes and dropped asleep. His baby mind was quite happy
now, for what could be simpler than running away?

Cecile sat on by her little brother's side, and Toby jumped into her
lap. Toby had gone through a half hour of much pain. He had witnessed
Maurice's tears, Cecile's pale face, and had several times heard his
own name mentioned. He was too wise a dog not to know that the
children were talking about some possible fate for him, and, by their
tones and great distress, he guessed that the fate was not a pleasant
one. He had his anxious moments during that half hour. But when
Maurice dropped asleep and Cecile sat droopingly by his side,
instantly this noble-natured mongrel dog forgot himself. His mission
was to comfort the child he loved. He jumped on Cecile's lap, thereby
warming her. He licked her face and hands, he looked into her eyes,
his own bright and moist with a great wealth of canine love.

"Oh, Toby," said the little girl, holding him very tight, "Toby! I'd
rather have a yard of rope myself than that you should suffer."

Toby looked as much as to say:

"Pooh, that's a trivial matter, don't let's think of it," and then
he licked her hands again.

Cecile began to wonder if it would not be better for them not to
wait for that letter from France. There was no saying, now that Aunt
Lydia was really proved to be a wicked woman, what she might do, if
they gave her time after the letter arrived. Would it not be best for
Cecile, Maurice, and Toby to set off at once on that mission into
France? Would it not be wisest, young as Cecile was, to begin the
great search for Lovedy without delay? The little girl thought she
had better secure her purse of money, and set off at once. But oh!
she was so ignorant, so ignorant, and so young. Should she, Maurice,
and Toby go east, west, north, or south? She had a journey before
her, and she did not know a step of the way.

"Oh, Toby," she said again to the watchful dog, "if only I had a
guide. I do want a guide so dreadfully. And there is a guide called
Jesus, and He loves everybody, and He guides people and little
children, and perhaps dogs like you, Toby, right across to the New
Jerusalem and the Celestial City. But I want Him to guide us into the
south of France. He's so kind He would take us into his arms when we
were tired and rest us. You and me, Toby, are strong, but Maurice is
only a baby. If Jesus would guide us, He would take Maurice into His
arms now and then. But Mistress Bell says she never heard of Jesus
guiding anybody into the south of France, into the Pyrenees. Oh, how
I wish He would!"

"Yes," answered Toby, by means of his expressive eyes, and wagging
his stumpy tail, "I wish He would."

That night when Cecile and Maurice were asleep, and all the house
was still, a messenger of kingly aspect came to the old farm.

Had Cecile opened her eyes then, and had she been endowed with power
to tear away the slight film which hides immortal things from our
view, she would have seen the Guide she longed for. For Jesus came
down, and in her sleep took Mrs. Bell across the river. Without a
pang the old pilgrim entered into rest, and no one knew in that
slumbering household the moment she went home.

But I think--it may be but a fancy of mine--still I think Jesus did
more. I think He went up still higher in that old farmhouse. I think
He entered an attic bedroom and bent over two sleeping children, and
smiled on them, and blessed them, and said to the anxious heart of
one, "Certainly I will be with thee. I will guide My little lamb
every step of the way."

For Cecile looked so happy in her childish slumbers. Every trace of
care had left her brow. The burden of responsibility was gone from
her heart.

I think, before He left the room, Jesus stooped down and gave her a
kiss of peace.




CHAPTER X.

"TOPSY-TURVY."


It may have seemed a strange thing, but, nevertheless, it was a
fact, that one who appeared to make no difference to anybody while
she was alive should yet be capable of causing quite a commotion the
moment she was dead.

This was the case with old Mrs. Bell. For years she had lived in her
pleasant south room, basking in the sun in summer, and half sleeping
by the fire in winter. She never read; she spoke very little; she did
not even knit, and never, by any chance, did she stir outside those
four walls. She was in a living tomb, and was forgotten there. The
four walls of her room were her grave. Lydia Purcell, to all intents
and purposes, was mistress of all she surveyed.

But from the moment it was discovered that Mrs. Bell was dead--from
the moment it was known that the time had come to shut her up in four
much smaller walls--the aspect of everything was changed. She was no
longer a person of no importance.

No importance! Her name was in everybody's mouth. The servants
talked of her. The villagers whispered, and came and asked to look at
her; and then they commented on the peaceful old face, and one or two
shed tears and inwardly breathed a prayer that their last end might
be like hers.

The house was full of subdued bustle and decorous excitement; and
all the bustle and all the excitement were caused by Mrs. Bell.

Mrs. Bell, who spent her days from morning to night alone while she
was living, who had even died alone! It was only after death she
seemed worth consideration.

Between the day of death and the funeral, Mr. Preston, the lawyer,
came over to Warren's Grove many times. He was always shut up with
Lydia Purcell when he came, though, had anyone listened to their
conversation, they would have found that Mrs. Bell was the subject of
their discourse.

But the strange thing, the strangest thing about it all, was that
Lydia Purcell and Mrs. Bell, from the moment Mrs. Bell was dead,
appeared to have changed places. Lydia, from ruling all, and being
feared by all, was now the person of no account. The cook defied her;
the dairymaid openly disobeyed her in some important matter relating
to the cream; and the boy whose business it was to attend to Lydia's
own precious poultry, not only forgot to give them their accustomed
hot supper, but openly recorded his forgetfulness over high tea in
the kitchen that same evening; and the strange thing was that Lydia
looked on, and did not say a word. She did not say a word or blame
anybody, though her face was very pale, and she looked anxious.

The children noticed the changed aspect of things, and commented
upon them in the way children will. To Maurice it was all specially
surprising, as he had scarcely been aware of Mrs. Bell's existence
during her lifetime.

"It must be a good thing to be dead, Cecile," he said to his little
sister, "people are very kind to you after you are dead, Cecile. Do
you think Aunt Lydia Purcell would give me a fire in our room after
I'm dead?"

"Oh, Maurice! don't," entreated Cecile, "you are only a little baby
boy, and you don't understand."

"But I understood about the yard of rope," retorted Maurice slyly.

Yes, Cecile owned that Maurice had been very clever in that respect,
and she kissed him, and told him so, and then, taking his hand, they
ran out.

The weather was again fine, the short spell of cold had departed,
and the children could partly at least resume their old life in the
woods. They had plenty to eat, and a certain feeling of liberty which
everyone in the place shared. The cook, who liked them and pitied
them, supplied them with plenty of cakes and apples, and the
dairymaid treated Maurice to more than one delicious drink of cream.

Maurice became a thoroughly happy and contented little boy again,
and he often remarked to himself, but for the benefit of Cecile and
Toby, what a truly good thing it was that Mrs. Bell had died. Nay, he
was even heard to say that he wished someone could be always found
ready to die, and so make things pleasant in a house.

Cecile, however, looked at matters differently. To her Mrs. Bell's
death was a source of pain, for now there was no one at all left to
tell her how to find the guide she needed. Perhaps, however, Mrs.
Bell would talk to Jesus about it, for she was to see Jesus after she
was dead.

Cecile used to wonder where the old woman had gone, and if she had
found the real Mercy at last.

One day, as Jane, the cook, was filling the children's little
basket, Cecile said to her:

"Has old Mrs. Bell gone into the Celestial City?"

"No, no, my dear, into heaven," replied the cook; "the blessed old
lady has gone into heaven, dear."

Cecile sighed. "She always _spoke_ about going to the Celestial
City and the New Jerusalem," she said.

Now the dairymaid, who happened to be a Methodist, stood near. She
now came forward.

"Ain't heaven and the New Jerusalem jest one and the same, Jane
Parsons? What's the use of puzzling a child like that? Yes, Miss
Cecile, honey, the old lady is in heaven, or the New Jerusalem, or
the Celestial City, which you like to call it. They all means the
same."

Cecile thanked the dairymaid and walked away. She was a little
comforted by this explanation, and a tiny gleam of light was entering
her mind. Still she was very far from the truth.

The halcyon days between Mrs. Bell's death and her funeral passed
all too quickly. Then came the day of the funeral, and the next
morning the iron rule of Lydia Purcell began again. Whatever few
words she said to cook, dairymaid, and message-boy, they once more
obeyed her and showed her respect. And there was no more cream for
Maurice, nor special dainties for the little picnic basket. That same
day, too, Lydia and Mr. Preston had a long conversation.

"It is settled then," said the lawyer, "and you stay on here and
manage everything on the old footing until we hear from Mr. Bell. I
have telegraphed, but he is not likely to reply except by letter. You
may reckon yourself safe not to be disturbed out of your present snug
quarters for the winter."

"And hard I must save," said Lydia; "I have but beggary to face when
I'm turned out."

"Some of your money will be secured," replied the lawyer. "I can
promise you at least three hundred."

"What is three hundred to live on?"

"You can save again. You are still a young woman."

"I am forty-five," replied Lydia Purcell. "At forty-five you don't
feel as you do at twenty-five. Yes, I can save; but somehow there's
no spirit in it."

"I am sorry for you," replied the lawyer. Then he added, "And the
children--the children can remain here as long as you stay."

But at the mention of the children, the momentary expression of
softness, which had made Lydia's face almost pleasing, vanished.

"Mr. Preston," she said, rising, "I will keep those children, who
are no relations to me, until I get a letter from France. If a check
comes with the letter, well and good; if not, out they go--out they
go that minute, sure as my name is Lydia Purcell. What call has a
Frenchman's children on me?"

"Where are they to go?" asked Mr. Preston.

"To the workhouse, of course. What is the workhouse for but to
receive such beggar brats?"

"Well, I am sorry for them," said the lawyer, now also rising and
buttoning on his coat. "They don't look fit for such a life; they
look above so dismal a fate. Poor little ones! That boy is very
handsome, and the girl, her eyes makes you think of a startled fawn.
Well, good-day, Mrs. Purcell. I trust there will be good news from
France."

Just on the boundary of the farm Mr. Preston met Maurice. Some
impulse, for he was not a softhearted man himself, made him stop,
call the pretty boy to his side, and give him half a sovereign.

"Ask your sister to take care of it for you, and keep it, both of
you, my poor babes, for a rainy day."




CHAPTER XI.

A MONTH TO PREPARE.


Mr. Preston's visits were now supposed to have ceased. But the next
afternoon, when Lydia was busy in the dairy, he came again to the farm.

He came now with both important and unpleasant tidings.

The heir in Australia had telegraphed: "He was not coming back to
England. Everything was to be sold; farm and all belongings to it
were to be got rid of as quickly as possible."

Lydia clasped her hands in dismay at these tidings. No time for any
more saving, no time for any more soft living, for the new owners of
Warren's Grove would be very unlikely to need her services.

"And there is another thing, Mrs. Purcell," continued the lawyer,
"which I confess grieves me even more than this. I have heard from
France. I had a letter this morning."

"There was no check in it, I warrant," said Lydia.

"No, I am sorry to tell you there was no check in it. The children's
cousin in France refuses to pay any more money to them. He says their
father is dead, and the children have no claim; besides, the vineyard
has been doing badly the last two years, and he considers that he has
given quite enough for it already; in short, he refuses to allow
another penny to these poor little orphans."

"But my sister Grace, the children's stepmother, said there was a
regular deed for this money," said Lydia. "She had it, and I believe
it is in an old box of hers upstairs. If there is a deed, could not
the man be forced to pay, Mr. Preston?"

"We could go to law with him, certainly; but the difficulty of a
lawsuit between a Frenchman and an English court would be immense;
the issue would be doubtful, and the sum not worth the risk. The man
owes four fifties, that is two hundred pounds; the whole of that sum
would be expended on the lawsuit. No; I fear we shall gain nothing by
that plan."

"Well, of course I am sorry for the children," said Lydia Purcell,
"but it is nothing to me. I must take steps to get them into the
workhouse at once; as it is, I have been at considerable loss by them."

"Mrs. Purcell, believe me, that loss you will never feel; it will be
something to your credit at the right side of the balance some day.
And now tell me how much the support of the little ones costs you
here."

Lydia considered, resting her chin thoughtfully on her hand.

"They have the run of the place," she said. "In a big place like
this 'tis impossible, however careful you may be, not to have odds
and ends and a little waste; the children eat up the odds and ends.
Yes; I suppose they could be kept here for five shillings a week each."

"That is half a sovereign between them. Mrs. Purcell, you are sure
to remain at Warren's Grove for another month; while you are here I
will be answerable for the children; I will allow them five shillings
a week each--you understand?"

"Yes, I understand," said Lydia, "and I'm sure they ought to be
obliged to you, Mr. Preston. But should I not take steps about the
workhouse?"

"I will take the necessary steps when the time comes. Leave the
matter to me."

That evening Lydia called Cecile to her side.

"Look here, child, you have got a kind friend in Mr. Preston. He is
going to support you both here for a month longer. It is very good of
him, for you are nothing, either of you, but little beggar brats, as
your cousin in France won't send any more money."

"Our cousin in France won't send any more money!" repeated Cecile.
Her face grew very pale, her eyes fell to the ground; in a moment she
raised them.

"Where are we to go at the end of the month, Aunt Lydia Purcell?"

"To the workhouse."

"You said before it was to the Union."

"Yes, child, yes; 'tis all the same."

But here Maurice, who had been busy playing with Toby and apparently
not listening to a single word, scrambled up hastily to his feet and
came to Cecile's side.

"But Cecile and me aren't going into no Union, wicked Aunt Lydia
Purcell!" he said.

"Heity-teity!" said Lydia, laughing at his little red face and
excited manner.

The laugh enraged Maurice, who had a very hot temper.

"I hate you, Aunt Lydia Purcell!" he repeated, "I hate you! and I'm
not going to be afraid of you. You said you'd give our Toby a yard of
rope; if you do you'll be a murderer. I think you're so wicked,
you're one already."

Those words, striking at some hidden, deep-seated pain in Lydia's
heart, caused her to wince and turn pale. She rose from her seat,
shaking her apron as she did so. But before she left the room she
cast a look of unutterable aversion on both the children.

Cecile now knew what she had before her. She, Maurice, and Toby had
just a month to prepare--just a month to get ready for the great task
of Cecile's life. At the end of a month they must set forth--three
pilgrims without a guide. Cecile felt that it was a pity this long
journey which they must take in secret should begin in the winter.
Had she the power of choice, she would have put off so weary a
pilgrimage until the days were long and the weather mild. But there
was no choice in the matter now; just when the days were shortest and
worst, just at Christmas time, they must set out. Cecile was a very
wise child for her years. Her father had called her dependable. She
was dependable. She had thought, and prudence, and foresight. She
made many schemes now. At night, as she lay awake in her attic
bedroom, in the daytime, as she walked by Maurice's side, she
pondered them. She had two great anxieties,--first, how to find the
way; second, how to make the money last. Fifteen pounds her
stepmother had given her to find Lovedy with. Fifteen pounds seemed
to such an inexperienced head as Cecile's a very large sum of money
--indeed, quite an inexhaustible sum. But Mrs. D'Albert had assured her
that it was not a large sum at all. It was not even a large sum for
one, she said, even for Cecile herself. To make it sufficient she
must walk a great deal, and sleep at the smallest village inns, and
eat the plainest food. And how much shorter, then, would the money
go, if it had to supply two with food and the other necessities of
the journey? Cecile resolved that, if possible, they would not touch
the money laid in the Russia-leather purse until they really got into
France. Her present plan was to walk to London. London was not so
very far out of Kent, and once in London, the place where she had
lived all, or almost all her life, she would feel at home. Cecile
even hoped she might be able to earn a little money in London, money
enough to take Maurice and Toby and herself into France. She had not
an idea how the money was to be earned, but even if she had to sweep
a crossing, she thought she could do it. And, for their walk into
London, there was that precious half sovereign, which kind Mr.
Preston had given Maurice, and which Cecile had put by in the same
box which held the leather purse. They might have to spend a shilling
or two of that half sovereign, and for the rest, Cecile began to
consider what they could do to save now. It was useless to expect
such foresight on Maurice's part. But for herself, whenever she got
an apple or a nut, she put it carefully aside. It was not that her
little teeth did not long to close in the juicy fruit, or to crack
the hard shell and secure the kernel. But far greater than these
physical longings was her earnest desire to keep true to her solemn
promise to the dead--to find, and give her mother's message and her
mother's gift to the beautiful, wayward English girl who yet had
broken that mother's heart.




CHAPTER XII.

THE CUPBOARD IN THE WALL.


But poor Cecile had greater anxieties than the fear of her journey
before her.

Mrs. D'Albert--when she gave her that Russia-leather purse--had said
to her solemnly, and with considerable fear:

"Keep it from Lydia Purcell. Let Lydia know nothing about it, for
Lydia loves money so well that no earthly consideration would make
her spare you. Lydia would take the money, and all my life-work, and
all your hope of finding Lovedy, would be at an end."

This, in substance, was Mrs. D'Albert's speech; and Cecile had not
been many hours in Lydia Purcell's company without finding out how
true those words were.

Lydia loved money beyond all other things. For money she would sell
right, nobleness, virtue. All those moral qualities which are so
precious in God's sight Lydia would part with for that possession
which Satan prizes--money.

Cecile, when she first came to Warren's Grove, had put her treasure
into so secure and out-of-the-way a hiding place that she felt quite
easy about it. Lydia would never, never think of troubling her head
about that attic sloping down to the roof, still less would she poke
her fingers into the little secret cupboard where the precious purse
lay.

Cecile's mind therefore was quite light. But one morning, about a
week after Mrs. Bell's funeral, as she and Maurice were preparing to
start out for their usual ramble, these words smote on her ears with
a strange and terrible sense of dread.

"Jane," said Lydia, addressing the cook, "we must all do with a cold
dinner to-day, and not too much of that, for, as you write a very
neat hand, I want you to help me with the inventory, and it has got
to be begun at once. I told Mr. Preston I would have no agent
pottering about the place. 'Tis a long job, but I will do it myself."

"What's an inkin-dory?" asked Maurice, raising a curious little face
to Jane.

"Bless yer heart, honey," said Jane, stooping down and kissing him,
"an inventory you means. Why, 'tis just this--Mrs. Purcell and me--we
has got to write down the names of every single thing in the house
--every stick, and stone, and old box, and even, I believe, the names
of the doors and cupboards. That's an inventory, and mighty sick
we'll be of it."

"Come, Jane, stop chattering," said Lydia. "Maurice, run out at
once. You'll find me in the attics, Jane, when you've done. We'll get
well through the attics to-day."

Aunt Lydia turned on her heel, and Maurice and Cecile went slowly
out. Very slow, indeed, were Cecile's footsteps.

"How dull you are, Cecile!" said the little boy.

"I'm not very well," said Cecile. "Maurice," she continued suddenly,
"you go and play with Toby, darling. Go into the fields, and not too
far away; and don't stay out too late. Here's our lunch. No, I don't
want any. I'm going to lie down. Yes, maybe I'll come out again."

She ran away before Maurice had even time to expostulate. She was
conscious that a crisis had come, that a great dread was over her,
that there might yet be time to take the purse from its hiding place.

An inventory meant that every box was looked into, every cupboard
opened. What chance then had her purse in its tin box in a forgotten
cupboard? That cupboard would be opened at last, and her treasure
stolen away. Aunt Lydia was even now in the attics, or was she? Was
there any hope that Cecile might be in time to rescue the precious
purse?

She flew up the attic stairs, her heart beating, her head giddy. Oh!
if she might be in time!

Alas! she was not. Aunt Lydia was already in full possession of
Cecile's and Maurice's attic. She was standing on tiptoe, and taking
down some musty books from a shelf.

"Go away, Cecile," she said to the little girl, "I'm very busy, and
I can't have you here; run out at once."

"Please, Aunt Lydia, I've such a bad headache," answered poor
Cecile. This was true, for her agitation was so great she felt almost
sick. "May I lie down on my bed?" she pleaded.

"Oh, yes, child! if your head is bad. But you won't get much quiet
here, for Jane and I have our work cut out for us, and there'll be
plenty of noise."

"I don't mind a noise, if I may lie down," answered Cecile thankfully.

She crept into her bed, and lay as if she was asleep. In reality,
with every nerve strung to the highest tension, sleep was as
impossible for her as though such a boon had never been granted to
the world. Whenever Aunt Lydia's back was turned, her eyes were
opened wide. Whenever Aunt Lydia looked in her direction, the poor
little creature had to feign the sleep which was so far away. As long
as it was only Maurice's and Cecile's attic, there was some rest.
There was just a shadowy hope that Aunt Lydia might go downstairs for
something, that five minutes might be given her to snatch her
treasure away.

Lydia Purcell, however, a thoroughly clever woman, was going through
her work with method and expedition. She had no idea of leaving the
attics until she had taken a complete and exhaustive list of what
they contained.

Cecile began to count the articles of furniture in her little
bedroom. Alas! they were not many. By the time Jane appeared, a
complete list of them was nearly taken.

"Jane, go into that little inner attic, and poke out the rubbish,"
said Aunt Lydia, "poke out every stick and stone, and box. Don't
overlook a thing. I'll be with you in a minute."

"Nasty, dirty little hole," remarked Jane. "I'll soon find what it
contains; not sixpence worth, I'll warrant."

But here the rack of suspense on which poor Cecile was lying became
past endurance, the child's fortitude gave way.

Sitting up in bed, she cried aloud in a high-pitched, almost
strained voice, her eyes glowing, her cheeks like peonies:

"Oh! not the little cupboard in the wall. Oh! please--oh! please,
not the little cupboard in the wall."

"What cupboard? I know of no cupboard," exclaimed Aunt Lydia.

Jane held up her hands.

"Preserve us, ma'am, the poor lamb must be wandering, and look at
her eyes and hands."

"What is it, Cecile? Speak! what is it, you queer little creature?"
said Aunt Lydia, in both perplexity and alarm, for the child was
sobbing hard, dry, tearless sobs.

"Oh, Aunt Lydia! be merciful," she gasped. "Oh! oh! if you find it
don't keep it. 'Tisn't mine, 'tis Lovedy's; 'tis to find Lovedy. Oh!
don't, don't, don't keep the purse if you find it, Aunt Lydia Purcell."

At the word "purse" Aunt Lydia's face changed. She had been feeling
almost kind to poor Cecile; now, at the mention of what might contain
gold, came back, sweeping over her heart like a fell and evil wind,
the love of gold.

"Jane," she said, turning to her amazed handmaiden; "this wicked,
silly child has been hiding something, and she's afraid of my finding
it. Believe me, I will look well into the inner attic. She spoke of a
cupboard. Search for a cupboard in the wall, Jane."

Jane, full of curiosity, searched now with a will. There was but a
short moment of suspense, then the sliding panel fell back, the
little tin box was pulled out, and Cecile's Russia-leather purse was
held up in triumph between Jane's finger and thumb.

There was a cry of pleasure from Aunt Lydia. Cecile felt the attic
growing suddenly dark, and herself as suddenly cold. She murmured
something about "Lovedy, Lovedy, lost now," and then she sank down, a
poor unconscious little heap, at Aunt Lydia's feet.




CHAPTER XIII.

ON THE ROAD TO THE CELESTIAL CITY.


When Cecile awoke from the long swoon into which she had sunk, it
was not to gaze into the hard face of Lydia Purcell. Lydia was
nowhere to be seen, but bending over her, with eyes full of
compassion, was Jane. Jane, curious as she was, felt now more sorrow
than curiosity for the little creature struck down by some mysterious
grief.

At first the child could remember nothing.

"Where am I?" she gasped, catching hold of Jane's hand and trying to
raise herself.

"In yer own little bed, honey. You have had a faint and are just
coming round; you'll be all right in a minute or two. There, just one
tiny sup more wine and I'll get you a nice hot cup of tea."

Cecile was too weak and bewildered not to obey. She sipped the wine
which Jane held to her lips, then lay back with a little sigh of
relief and returning consciousness.

"I'm better now; I'm quite well now, Jane," she murmured in a
thankful voice.

"Yes, honey, you are a deal better now," answered Jane, stooping
down and kissing her. "And now never don't you stir a bit, and don't
worry about nothing, for Jane will fetch you a nice cup of tea, and
then see how pleasant you'll feel."

The kind-hearted girl hurried away, and Cecile was left alone in the
now quiet attic.

What thing had happened to her? What weight was at her heart? She
had a desire, not a keen desire, but still a feeling that it would
give her pleasure to be lying in the grave by her father's side. She
felt that she did not much care for anyone, that anything now might
happen without exciting her. Why was not her heart beating with love
for Maurice and Toby? Why had all hope, all longing, died within her?
Ah! she knew the reason. It came back to her slowly, slowly, but
surely. All that dreadful scene, all those moments of suspense too
terrible even to be borne, they returned to her memory.

Her Russia-leather purse of gold and notes were gone, the fifteen
pounds she was to spend in looking for Lovedy, the forty pounds she
was to give as her dead mother's dying gift to the wandering girl,
had vanished. Cecile felt that as surely as if she had flung it into
the sea, was that purse now lost. She had broken her promise, her
solemn, solemn promise to the dead; everything, therefore, was now
over for her in life.

When Jane came back with the nice hot tea, Cecile received it with a
wan smile. But there was such a look of utter, unchildlike despair in
her lovely eyes that, as the handmaiden expressed it, telling the
tale afterward, her heart went up into her mouth with pity.

"Cecile," said the young woman, when the tea-drinking had come to an
end, "I sees by yer face, poor lamb, as you remembers all about what
made you drop down in that faint. And look you here, my lamb, you've
got to tell me, Jane Parsons, all about it; and what is more, if I
can help you I will. You tell Jane all the whole story, honey, for it
'ud go to a pagan's heart to see you, and so it would; and you
needn't be feared, for she ain't anywheres about. She said as she
wanted no dinner, and she's safe in her room a-reckoning the money in
the purse, I guess."

"Oh, Jane!" said little Cecile, "the purse! the Russia-leather
purse! I think I'll die, since Aunt Lydia Purcell has found the
Russia-leather purse."

"Well, tell us the whole story, child. It do seem a wonderful thing
for a bit of a child like you to have a purse of gold, and then to
keep it a-hiding. I don't b'lieve as you loves gold like Miss Purcell
do; it don't seem as if you could have come by so much money wrong,
Cecile."

"No, Jane, I didn't come by it wrong. Mrs. D'Albert, my stepmother,
gave me that Russia-leather purse, with all the gold and notes in it,
when she was dying. I know exactly how much was in it, fifteen pounds
in gold, and forty pounds in ten-pound Bank of England notes. I can't
ever forget what was in that dreadful purse, as my stepmother told me
I was never to lose until I found Lovedy."

"And who in the name of fortune is Lovedy, Cecile? You do tell the
queerest stories I ever listened to."

"Yes, Jane, it is a very queer tale, and though I understand it
perfectly myself, I don't suppose I can get you to understand."

"Oh, yes! my deary, I'm very smart indeed at picking up a tale. You
tell me all about Lovedy, Cecile."

Thus admonished, Cecile did tell her tale. All that long sad story
which the dying woman had poured into the child's listening ears was
now told again to the wondering and excited cook. Jane listened with
her mouth open and her eyes staring. If there was anything under the
sun she dearly, dearly loved, it was a romance, and here was one
quite unknown in her experience. Cecile told her little story in
childish and broken words--words which were now and then interrupted
by sobs of great pain--but she told it with the power which
earnestness always gives.

"I'll never find Lovedy now; I've broken my promise--I've broken my
promise," she said in conclusion.

"Well," answered Jane, drawing a long breath when the story was
over, "that is interesting, and the queerest bit of a tale I ever set
my two ears to listen to. Oh, yes! I believes you, child. You ain't
one as'll tell lies--and that I'm gospel sure on. And so yer poor
stepmother wanted you not to let Lydia Purcell clap her eyes on that
purse. Ah, poor soul! she knew her own sister well."

"Yes, Jane, she said I'd never see it again if Aunt Lydia found it
out. Oh, Jane! I did think I had hid the purse so very, very secure."

"And so you had, deary--real beautiful, and if it hadn't been for
that horrid inventory, it might ha' lain there till doomsday. But now
do tell me, Cecile--for I am curious, and that I won't go for to deny
--suppose as you hadn't lost that purse, however 'ud a little mite
like you go for to look for Lovedy?"

"Oh, Jane! the purse is lost, and I can never do it now--never until
I can earn it all back again my own self. But I'd have gone to France
--me and Maurice and Toby had it all arranged quite beautiful--we
were going to France this very winter. Lovedy is quite safe to be in
France; and you know, Jane, me and Maurice ain't little English
children. We are just a little French boy and girl; so we'd be sure
to get on well in our own country, Jane."

"Yes, yes, for sure," said Jane, knowing nothing whatever of France,
but much impressed with Cecile's manner; "there ain't no doubt as
you're a very clever little girl, Cecile, and not the least bit
English. I dare say, young as you are, that you would find Lovedy,
and it seems a real pity as it couldn't be."

"I wanted the guide Jesus very much to go with us," said Cecile,
raising her earnest eyes and fixing them on Jane's face. "If
_He_ had come, we'd have been sure to find Lovedy. For me and
Maurice, we are very young to go so far by ourselves. Do you know
anything about that guide, Jane? Mistress Bell said when she was
alive, that He took people into the New Jerusalem and into the
Celestial City. But she never heard of His being a guide to anybody
into France. I think 'tis a great, great pity, don't you?"

Now Jane was a Methodist. But she was more, she was also a Christian.

"My dear lamb," she said, "the blessed Lord Jesus'll guide you into
France, or to any other place. Why, 'tis all on the road to the
Celestial City, darling."

"Oh! is it? Oh! would He really, really be so kind and beautiful?"
said Cecile, sitting up and speaking with sudden eagerness and hope.
"Oh, dear Jane! how I love you for telling me this! Oh! if only I had
my purse of gold, how surely, how surely I should find Lovedy now."

"Well, darling, there's no saying what may happen. You have Jane
Parsons for your friend anyhow, and what is more, you have the Lord
Jesus Christ. Eh! but He does love a little faithful thing like you.
But see here, Cecile, 'tis getting dark, and I must run downstairs;
but I'll send you up a real good supper by Maurice, and see that he
and Toby have full and plenty. You lie here quite easy, Cecile, and
don't stir till I come back to you. I'll bring you tidings of that
purse as sure as my name's Jane, and ef I were you, Cecile, I'd just
say a bit of a prayer to Jesus. Tell Him your trouble, it'll give you
a power of comfort."

"Is that praying? I did not know it was that."

"That is praying, my poor little lamb; you tell it all straight away
to the loving Jesus."

"But He isn't here."

"Oh, yes, darling! He'll be very nigh to you, I guess, don't you be
frightened."

"Does Jesus the guide come in the dark?"

"He'll be with you in the dark, Cecile. You tell Him everything, and
then have a good sleep."




CHAPTER XIV.

WHAT JANE PARSONS KNEW.


When, a couple of hours later, Maurice, very tired and fagged after
his long day's ramble, came upstairs, followed by Toby, and thrust
into Cecile's hand a great hunch of seed-cake, she pushed it away,
and said in an earnest, impressive whisper:

"Hush!"

"Oh, why?" asked Maurice; "you have been away all the whole day,
Cecile; and Toby and me had no one to talk to, and now when I had
such a lot to tell you, you say 'Hush' Why do you say 'Hush' Cecile?"

"Oh, Maurice! don't talk, darling, 'tis because Lord Jesus the guide
is in the room, and I think He must be asleep, for I have prayed a
lot to Him, and He has not answered. Don't let's disturb Him,
Maurice; a guide must be so tired when he drops asleep."

"Where is He?" asked Maurice; "may I light a candle and look for Him?"

"No, no, you mustn't; He only comes to people in the dark, so Jane
says. You lie down and shut your eyes."

"If you don't want your cake, may I eat it then?"

"Yes, you may eat it. And, Toby, come into my arms, dear dog."

Maurice was soon in that pleasant land of a little child's dreams,
and Toby, full of most earnest sympathy, was petting and soothing
Cecile in dog fashion.

Meanwhile, Jane Parsons downstairs was not idle.

Cecile's story, told after Cecile's fashion, had fired her honest
heart with such sympathy and indignation that she was ready both to
dare and suffer in her cause.

Jane Parsons had been brought up at Warren's Grove from the time she
was a little child. Her mother had been cook before her, and when her
mother got too old, Jane, as a matter of course, stepped into her
shoes. Active, honest, quiet, and sober, she was a valuable servant.
She was essentially a good girl, guided by principle and religion in
all she did.

Jane had never known any other home but Warren's Grove, and long as
Lydia Purcell had been there, Jane was there as long.

Now she was prepared--prepared, if necessary--to give up her home.
She meant, as I said, to run a risk, for it never even occurred to
her not to help Cecile in her need. Let Lydia Purcell quietly pocket
that money--that money that had been saved and hoarded for a purpose,
and for such a purpose! Let Lydia spend the money that had, as Jane
expressed it, a vow over it! Not if her sharp wits could prevent it.

She thought over her plan as she bustled about and prepared the
supper. Very glum she looked as she stepped quickly here and there,
so much so that the dairymaid and the errand-boy chaffed her for her
dull demeanor.

Jane, however, hasty enough on most occasions, was too busy now with
her own thoughts either to heed or answer them.

Well she knew Lydia Purcell, equally well she knew that to tell
Cecile's tale would be useless. Lydia cared for neither kith nor kin,
and she loved money beyond even her own soul.

But Jane, a clever child once, a clever woman now, had not been
unobservant of some things in Lydia's past, some things that Lydia
supposed to be buried in the grave of her own heart. A kind-hearted
girl, Jane had never used this knowledge. But now knowledge was
power. She would use it in Cecile's behalf.

Ever since the finding of the purse, Lydia had been alone.

In real or pretended indignation, she had left Cecile to get out of
her faint as best she could. For six or seven hours she had now been
literally without a soul to speak to. She was not, therefore,
indisposed to chat with Jane--who was a favorite with her--when that
handmaid brought in a carefully prepared little supper, and laid it
by her side.

"That's a very shocking occurrence, Jane," she began.

"Eh?" said Jane.

"Why, that about the purse. Who would have thought of a young child
being so depraved? Of course the story is quite clear. Cecile poking
about, as children will, found the purse; but, unlike a child, hid
it, and meant to keep it. Well, to think that all this time I have
been harboring, and sheltering, and feeding, and all without a
sixpence to repay myself, a young thief! But wait till I tell Mr.
Preston. See how long he'll keep those children out of the workhouse
after this! Oh! no wonder the hardened little thing was in a state of
mind when I went to search the attics!"

"Heaven give me patience!" muttered Jane to herself. Aloud she said,
"And who, do you think, the money belongs to, ma'am?"

"I make no doubt whose it is, Jane," said Lydia Purcell quietly and
steadily. "It is my own. This is my purse. It is the one poor old
Mrs. Bell lost so many years ago. You were a child at the time, but
there was some fuss made about it. I am short of money now, sadly
short! and I count it a providence that this, small as it is, should
have turned up."

"You mean to keep it then?" said Jane.

"Why, yes, I certainly do. You don't suppose I will hand it over to
that little thief of a French girl? Besides, it is my own. Is it
likely I should not know my own purse?"

"Is there much money in it?" asked Jane as quietly as before.

"No, nothing to make a fuss about. Only a few sovereigns and some
silver. Nothing much, but still of value to a hard-working woman."

"After that lie, I'll not spare her," muttered Jane to herself.
Aloud she said, "I was only a child of ten years or so, but I
remember the last time poor Mistress Bell was in that attic."

"Indeed. And when was that?" asked Lydia.

"I suppose it was then as she dropped the purse, and it got swept
away in all the confusion that followed," continued Jane, now placing
herself in front of Lydia, and gazing at her.

Lydia was helping herself to another mutton-chop, and began to feel
a little uncomfortable.

"When was Mrs. Bell last in the attics?" she said.

"I was with her," continued Jane. "I used to play a good bit with
Missie Mercy in those days, you remember, ma'am? Mrs. Bell was poking
about, but I was anxious for Mercy to come home to go on with our
play, and I went to the window. I looked out. There was a fine view
from that 'ere attic window. I looked out, and I saw--"

"What?" asked Lydia Purcell. She had laid down her knife and fork
now, and her face had grown a trifle pale.

"Oh! nothing much. I saw you, ma'am, and Missie Mercy going into
that poor mason's cottage, him as died of the malignant fever. You
was there a good half hour or so. It was a day or two later as poor
Missie sickened."

"I did not think it was fever," said Lydia. "Believe me, believe me,
Jane, I did not know it certainly until we were leaving the cottage.
Oh! my poor lamb, my poor innocent, innocent murdered lamb!"

Lydia covered her face with her hands; she was trembling. Even her
strong, hard-worked hands wer