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The Children's Pilgrimage

by L. T. Meade · English · Gutenberg #6899 · 466,377 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Children's Pilgrimage

Author: L. T. Meade


        
Release date: November 1, 2004 [eBook #6899]
                Most recently updated: March 19, 2014

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6899

Credits: Produced by Avinash Kothare, Tom Allen, Charles Franks and
        the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by
        Al Haines.


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




Produced by Avinash Kothare, Tom Allen, Charles Franks and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by
Al Haines.










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 be 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 were white from the storm of feeling within.

"You knew of this, you knew this of me all these years, and you never
told. You never told even _me_ until to-night," said Lydia presently,
raising a haggard face.

"I knew it, and I never told even you until to-night," repeated Jane.

"Why do you tell me to-night?"

"May I take away the supper, ma'am, or shall you want any more?"

"No, no! take it away, take it away! You _don't_ know what I have
suffered, girl; to be the cause, through my own carelessness, of the
death of the one creature I loved. And--and--yes, I will tell the
truth--I had heard rumors; yes, I had heard rumors, but I would not
heed them. I was fearless of illness myself, and I wanted a new gown
fitted. Oh! my lamb, my pretty, pretty lamb!"

"Well, ma'am, nobody ever suspected it was you, and 'tis many years ago
now. You don't fret. Good-night, ma'am!"

Lydia gave a groan, and Jane, outside the door, shook her own hand at
herself.

"Ain't I a hard-hearted wretch to see her like that and not try to
comfort? Well, I wonder if Jesus was there would He try a bit of
comforting? But I'm out of all patience. Such feeling for a child as is
dead and don't need it, and never a bit for a poor little living child,
who is, by the same token, as like that poor Mercy as two peas is like
each other."

Jane felt low-spirited for a minute or two, but by the time she
returned to the empty kitchen she began to cheer up.

"I did it well. I think I'll get the purse back," she said to herself.

She sat down, put out the light, and prepared to wait patiently.

For an hour there was absolute stillness, then there was a slight stir
in the little parlor. A moment later Lydia Purcell, candle in hand,
came out, on her way to her bedroom. Jane slipped off her shoes, glided
after her just far enough to see that she held a candle in one hand and
a brandy bottle in the other.

"God forgive me for driving her to it, but I had to get the purse,"
muttered Jane to herself. "I'm safe to get the purse now."




CHAPTER XV.

GOING ON PILGRIMAGE.


It was still quite the middle of the night when a strong light was
flashed into Cecile D'Albert's eyes, and she was aroused from a rather
disturbed sleep by Jane, who held up the Russia-leather purse in
triumph.

"Here it is, Cecile," she said, "here it is. I guess Jesus Christ heard
your bit of a prayer real wonderful quick, my lamb."

"Oh, Jane! He did not answer me once," said Cecile, starting up and too
surprised and bewildered to understand yet that her lost purse was
really hers again. "He never heard me, Jane; I suppose He was asleep,
for I did ask Him so often to let me have my purse back."

"There wasn't much sleep about Him," said Jane; "the Lord don't never
slumber nor sleep; and as to not answering, what answer could be
plainer than yer purse, Cecile? Here, you don't seem to believe it,
take it in yer hand and count."

"My own purse; Lovedy's own purse," said Cecile, in rather a slow, glad
voice. The sense of touch had brought to her belief. She opened her
eyes wide and looked hard at Jane. Then a great light of beauty, hope,
and rapture filled the lovely eyes, and the little arms were flung
tight round the servant's honest neck.

"Dear, dear Jane, I do love you. Oh! _did_ Aunt Lydia really give the
purse back?"

"You have got the purse, Cecile, and you don't ask no questions. Well,
there, I don't mind telling you. She had it in her hand when she
dropped asleep; she wor sleeping very sound, it was easy to take the
purse away."

"My own and Lovedy's purse," repeated Cecile. "Oh, Jane! it seems too
good of Jesus to give it back to me again."

"Aye, darling, He'll give you more than that if you ask Him, for you're
one o' those as He loves. But now, Cecile, we ha' a deal to do before
morning. You open the purse, and see that all the money is safe."

Cecile did as she was bid, and out fell the fifteen sovereigns and the
four Bank of England notes.

"'Tis all there, Jane," she said, "even to the little bit of paper
under the lining."

"What's that, child?"

"I don't know, there's some writing on it, but I can't read writing."

"Well, but I can, let me read it, darling."

Cecile handed the paper to her, and Jane read aloud the following words:

"'This purse contains fifty-five pounds. Forty pounds in Bank of
England ten-pound notes, for my dear and only child, Lovedy Joy;
fifteen pounds in gold for my stepdaughter, Cecile D'Albert. To be
spent by her in looking for my daughter, and for no other use whatever.

"'Signed by me, Grace D'Albert, on this ninth day of September, 18--'

"Cecile," said Jane suddenly, "you must let me keep this paper. I will
send it back to you if I can, but you must let me keep it for the
present. What I did to-night might have got me into trouble. But this
will save me, if you let me keep it for a bit."

"Yes, Jane, you must keep it; it only gives directions; I know all
about them down deep in my heart."

"And now, little one, I'm sorry to say there's no more sleep for you
this night. You've got to get up; you and Maurice and Toby have all
three of you to get up and be many, many miles away from here before
the morning, for if Lydia found you in the house in the morning, you
would not have that purse five minutes, child, and I don't promise as I
could ever get it back again."

"I always meant to go away," said Cecile quietly. "I did not know it
would come so soon as to-night, but I'm quite ready. Me and Maurice and
Toby, we'll walk to London. I have got half a sovereign that Mr.
Preston gave to Maurice. We'll go to London first, and then to France.
Yes, Jane, I'm quite ready. Shall I wake Maurice, and will you open the
door to let us out?"

"I'll do more than that, my little lamb; and ain't it enough to break
one's heart to hear the poor innocent, and she taking it so calm and
collected-like? Now, Cecile, tell me have you any friends in London?"

"I once met a girl who sat on a doorstep and sang," answered Cecile. "I
think she would be my friend, but I don't know where she lives."

"Then she ain't no manner of good, deary. Jane Parsons can do better
for you than that. Now listen to what I has got to say. You get up and
dress, and wake Maurice and get him dressed, and then you, Maurice, and
Toby slip downstairs as soft as little mice; make no noise, for ef
_she_ woke it 'ud be all up with us. You three come down to the
kitchen, and I'll have something hot for you to drink, and then I'll
have the pony harnessed to the light cart, and drive you over to F---
in time to catch the three o'clock mail train. The guard'll be good to
you for he's a friend of mine, and I'll have a bit of a note writ, and
when you get to London the guard'll put you in a cab, and you'll drive
to the address written on the note. The note is to my cousin, Annie
West, what was Jones. She's married in London and have one baby, and
her heart is as good and sweet and soft as honey. She'll keep you for a
week or two, till 'tis time for you to start into France. Now be quick
up, deary, and hide that purse in yer dress, werry safe."

"Oh, Jane, what a beautiful, beautiful plan! And will Maurice's
half-sovereign help us all that much?"

"The half-sovereign won't have nothing to say to it; 'tis Jane Parsons'
own work, and her own money shall pay it. You keep that half-sovereign
for a rainy day, Cecile."

"That's what Mr. Preston said when he gave it," echoed Cecile. And then
the kind-hearted servant hurried downstairs to complete her
arrangements.

"Maurice," said Cecile, stooping down and waking her little brother.
"Get up, Maurice, darling; 'tis time for us to commence our journey."

"Oh, Cecile!" said the little fellow, "in the very middle of the night,
and I'm so sleepy."

"For Toby's sake, Maurice, dear."

"Toby shall have no yard of rope, wicked Aunt Lydia," said Maurice at
these words, starting up and rubbing his brown eyes to try and open
them. Ten minutes later the three little pilgrims were in the kitchen
being regaled with cake and hot coffee, which even Toby partook of with
considerable relish.

Then Jane, taking a hand of each little child, led them quietly out,
and without any noise they all--even Toby--got into the light cart, and
were off, numberless twinkling stars looking down on them. Lydia
Purcell, believing she had the purse in her hand, was sleeping the
sleep of the sin-laden and unhappy. She thought that broken and
miserable rest worth the money treasure she believed she had secured.
She little guessed that already it had taken to itself wings, and was
lying against the calm and trustful heart of a little child; but the
stars knew, and they smiled on the children as they drove away.

Jane, when they got to the railway station, saw the guard, with whom,
indeed, she was great friends, and he very gladly undertook to see to
the children, and even to wink at the rule about dogs, and allow Toby
to travel up to London with them. What is more, he put them into a
first-class carriage which was empty, and bade them lie down and never
give anything a thought till they found themselves in London.

"Do you think Jesus the Guide is doing all this for us?" asked Cecile
in a whisper, with her arms very tight around Jane's neck.

"Yes, darling, 'tis all along His doing."

"Oh! how easy He is making the first bit of our pilgrimage!" said
Cecile.

The whistle sounded. The train was off, and Jane found herself standing
on the platform with tears in her eyes. She turned, once more got into
the light cart, and drove quickly back to Warren's Grove.




CHAPTER XVI.

"LYDIA'S RESOLVE."


Lydia Purcell had hitherto been an honest woman. Now, in resolving to
keep the purse, she but yielded to a further stage of that insidious
malady which for so long had been finding ample growth in her moral and
spiritual nature. She did not, however, know that the purse was
Cecile's. The child's agony, and even terror, she put down with
considerable alacrity to an evil conscience. How would it be possible
for all that money to belong to a little creature like Cecile?

Lydia's real thought with regard to the Russia-leather purse was that
it belonged to old Mrs. Bell--that it had been put into the little tin
box, and, unknown to anyone, had got swept away as so much lumber in
the attic. Cecile, poking about, had found it, and had made up her mind
to keep it: hence her distress.

Lydia had really many years ago lost a purse, about which the servants
on the farm had heard her talk. It darted into her head to claim this
purse, full of all its sweet treasure, as her own lost property. There
was foundation to her tale. The servants would have no reason not to
believe her.

Mrs. Bell's heir was turning her out. She would avenge herself in this
way on him. She would keep the money which he might lawfully claim.
Thus she would once more lay by a nest-egg for a rainy day.

Sitting in her own room, the door locked behind her, and counting the
precious money, Lydia had made up her mind to do this. It was so easy
to become a thief--detection would be impossible. Yes; she knew in her
heart of hearts she was stealing, but looking at the delightful color
of the gold--feeling the crisp banknotes--she did not think it very
wrong to steal.

She was in an exultant frame of mind when she went down to supper. When
Jane appeared she was glad to talk to her.

She little knew that Jane was about to open the sore, sore place in her
heart, to probe roughly that wound that seemed as if it would never
heal.

When Jane left her, she was really trembling with agitation and terror.
Another, then, knew her secret. If that was so, it might any day be
made plain to the world that she had caused the death of the only
creature she loved.

Lydia was so upset that the purse, with its gold and notes, became for
the time of no interest to her.

There was but one remedy for her woes. She must sleep. She knew, alas!
that brandy would make her sleep.

Just before she laid her head on her pillow, she so far remembered the
purse as to take it out of her pocket, and hold it in her hand. She
thought the feel of the precious gold would comfort her.

Jane found it no difficult task to remove the purse from her nerveless
fingers. When she awoke in the morning, it was gone.

Lydia had, however, scarcely time to realize her loss, scarcely time to
try if it had slipped under the bedclothes, before Jane Parsons, with
her bonnet and cloak still on, walked into the room. She came straight
up to the bed, stood close to Lydia, and spoke:

"You will wonder where I have been, and what I have been doing? I have
been seeing the children, Cecile and Maurice D'Albert, and their dog
Toby, off to London. Before they went, I gave the leather purse back to
Cecile. It was not your purse, nor a bit like it. I took it out of your
hand when you were asleep. There were forty pounds in banknotes,
ten-pound banknotes, in the purse, and there were fifteen pounds in
gold. Your sister Mrs. D'Albert had given this money to Cecile. You
know your own sister's writing. Here it is. That paper was folded under
the lining of the purse; you can read it. The purse is gone, and the
children are in London before now. You can send a detective after them
if you like."

With these last words, Jane walked out of the room.

For nearly an hour Lydia stayed perfectly still, the folded paper in
her hand. At the end of that time she opened the paper, and read what
it contained. She read it three times very carefully, then she got up
and dressed, and came downstairs.

When Jane brought her breakfast into the little parlor, she said a few
words:

"I shall send no detective after those children; they and their purse
may slip out of my life, they were never anything to me."

"May I have the bit of paper with the writing on it back?" asked Jane
in reply.

Lydia handed it to her. Then she poured herself out a cup of coffee,
and drank it off.






SECOND PART.

"FINDING THE GUIDE."



  "As often the helpless wanderer,
    Alone in a desert land,
  Asks the guide his destined place of rest,
    And leaves all else in his hand."




CHAPTER I.

"LOOKING FOR THE OLD COURT."


When Jane Parsons left the children, and they found themselves in that
comfortable first-class railway carriage on their way to London,
Maurice and Toby, with contented sighs, settled themselves to resume
their much-disturbed sleep. But Cecile, on whom the responsibility
devolved, sat upright without even thinking of slumbering. She was a
little pilgrim beginning a very long pilgrimage. What right had she to
think of repose? It was perfectly natural for Maurice and Toby to shut
their eyes and go off into the land of dreams; they were only following
in her footsteps, doing trustfully just what she told them. But for the
head of the pilgrim band, the "Great Heart" of the little party, such a
pleasant and, under other circumstances, desirable course was
impossible.

When the train had first moved off she had taken the precious purse,
which hitherto she had held in her hand, and restored it to its old
hiding place in the bosom of her frock. Had she but known it, her
treasure was safe enough there, for no one could suspect so
poor-looking a child of possessing so large a sum of money. After doing
this Cecile sat very upright, gravely watching, with her sweet
wide-open blue eyes, the darkness they rushed through, and the
occasional lights of the sleepy little stations which they passed. Now
and then they stopped at one of these out-of-the-way stations, and then
a very weary-looking porter would come yawning up, and there would be a
languid attempt at bustle and movement, and then the night mail would
rush on again into the winter's night. Yes, it was mid-winter now, and
bitterly cold. The days, too, were at their very shortest, for it was
just the beginning of December, and by the time they reached Victoria,
not a blink of real light from the sky had yet come.

Maurice felt really cross when he was awakened a second time in what
seemed like the middle of the night, and even long-suffering Toby
acknowledged to himself that it was very unpleasant.

But Cecile's clear eyes looked up with all kinds of thanks into the
face of the big guard as he put them into a cab, and gave the cabby
directions where to drive them to.

"A sweet child, bless her," he said to himself, as he turned away. The
cabby had been desired to drive the children to Mrs. West's home, and
the address Jane had written out was in his hand. The guard, too, had
paid the fare; and Cecile was told that in about half an hour they
would all find themselves in snug quarters.

"Will they give us breakfast in 'snug quarters'?" asked Maurice, who
always took things literally. "I wonder, Cecile, if 'snug quarters'
will be nice?"

Alas! poor little children. When the cab at last drew up at the door in
C---- Street, and the cabby got down and rang the bell, and then
inquired for Mrs. West, he was met by the discouraging information that
Mrs. West had left that address quite a year ago. No, they could not
tell where she had gone, but they fancied it was to America.

"What am I to do now with you two little tots, and that 'ere dawg?"
said the cabby, coming up to the cab door. "There ain't no Mrs. West
yere. And that 'ere young party"--with a jerk of his thumb at the
slatternly little individual who stood watching and grinning on the
steps--"her says as Mrs. West have gone to 'Mericy. Ain't there no one
else as I can take you to, little uns?"

"No, thank you," answered Cecile. "We'll get out, please, Cabby. This
is a nice dry street. Me, and Maurice, and Toby can walk a good bit.
You couldn't tell us though, please, what's the nearest way from here
to France?"

"To France! Bless yer little heart, I knows no jography. But look yere,
little un. Ha'n't you no other friends as I could take you to? I will,
and charge no fare. There! I'll be generous for the sake of that pretty
little face."

But Cecile only shook her head.

"We don't know nobody, thank you, Cabby," she said, "except one girl,
and I never learned where her home was. We may meet her if we walk
about, and I want very badly, very badly, indeed, to see her again."

"Well, my dear, I'm feared as I must leave you, though I don't like to."

"Oh, yes! and thank you for the drive." Here Cecile held out her little
hand to the big rough cabby, and Maurice instantly followed her
example; but Toby, who in his heart of hearts saw no reason for this
excessive friendliness, stood by without allowing his tail to move a
quarter of an inch. Then the little party turned the corner and were
lost to view.

"They aren't at all snug quarters, Cecile," said Maurice, in a
complaining tone.

"Oh, darling!" answered Cecile, "they aren't so bad. See, the sun is
coming out, and it will be quite pleasant to walk, and we're back in
London again. We know London, you must not forget, Maurice. And,
Maurice, me and you have got to be very brave now. We have a great,
great deal before us. We have got something very difficult but very
splendid to do. We have got to be very brave, Maurice, and we must not
forget that we are a little French boy and girl, and not disgrace
ourselves before the English children."

"And has Toby got to be brave too?" asked Maurice.

"Yes, Toby is always brave, I think. Now, Maurice, listen to me. The
first thing we'll do is to get some breakfast. I have got all your
half-sovereign. You don't forget your half-sovereign. We will spend a
little, a very little, of that on some breakfast, and then afterward we
will look for a little room where we can live until I find out from
someone the right way to go to France."

The thought of breakfast cheered Maurice up very much, and when a few
moments later the two children and the dog found themselves standing
before a coffee-stall, and Maurice had taken two or three sips of his
sweet and hot coffee and had attacked with much vigor a great hunch of
bread and butter, life began once more to assume pleasant hues to his
baby mind. Cecile paid for the coffee and bread and butter with her
half sovereign; and though the man at the coffee stall looked at it
very hard, and also looked at her, and tested the good money by
flinging it up and down on the stall several times and even taking it
between his teeth and giving it a little bite, he returned the right
change, saying, as he did so, "Put that away careful, young un, or
you're safe to be robbed." But again the poor look of the little group
proved their safeguard. For Cecile and Maurice in their hurry had come
away in their shabbiest clothes, and Cecile's hat was even a little
torn at the brim, and Maurice's toes were peeping out of his worn
little boots, and his trousers were patched. This was all the better
for Cecile's hidden treasure, and as she was a wise little girl, she
took the hint given her by the coffee-man, and not only hid her money,
but next time she wanted anything offered very small change. This was
rendered easy, for the man at the coffee-stall had given her mostly
sixpences and pence.

The sun was now shining brilliantly. The day was frosty and bright;
there would be a bitter night further on, but just now the air was
fresh and invigorating. The children and dog, cheered and warmed by
their breakfast, stepped along gayly, and Cecile began to think that
going on pilgrimage was not such a bad thing.

Having no one to consult, Cecile was yet making up her plans with rare
wisdom for so young a child. They would walk back to the part of London
that they knew. From there they would make their inquiries, those
inquiries which were to land them in France. In their old quarters,
perhaps in their old home, they might get lodgings.

Walking straight on, Cecile asked every policeman she met to direct
them to Bloomsbury, but whether the police were careless and told them
wrong, whether the distance was too great, or whether Cecile's little
head was too young to remember, noon came, and noon passed, and they
were still far, far away from the court where their father and
stepmother had died.




CHAPTER II.

"A NIGHT'S LODGINGS."


Soon after noon, Cecile, Maurice, and Toby sat down to shelter and rest
themselves on a step under the deep porch of an old church. The wind
had got up, and was very cold, and already the bright morning sky had
clouded over.

There was a promise of snow in the air and in the dull sky, and the
children shivered and drew close to each other.

"We won't mind looking any longer for our old court to-day, Maurice,"
said Cecile. "As soon as you are rested, darling, we'll go straight and
get a night's lodging. I am afraid we must do it as cheap as possible,
but you shan't walk any more to-day."

To all this Maurice, instead of replying in his usual grumbling
fashion, laid his head on his sister's lap, and dropped off into a
heavy sleep. His pretty baby face looked very white as he slept, and
when Cecile laid her hand on his cheek it was cold.

She felt a fresh dread coming over her. Was Maurice too completely a
baby boy to go on such a long and weary pilgrimage? And oh! if this was
the case, what should she do? For they had nothing to live on. There
seemed no future at all before the little girl but the future of
finding Lovedy.

Cecile buried her head in her hands, and again the longing rose up
strong, passionate, fervent, that Jesus, the good Guide, would come to
her. He had come once. He was in the dark room last night. He answered
her though He made no sound, though, listen as she would, she could not
hear the faintest whisper from His lips. Still He was surely there.
Jane had said so, and Jane knew Him well; she said it was He who had
sent back her purse. Suppose she met Him in the street to-day, and He
knew her? Suppose He came out of the church behind them? Or suppose,
suppose He came to her again in the dark in that "lodging for the
night," where they must go? Cecile wished much that Jesus would come in
the daylight; she wanted to see His face, to look into His kind eyes.
But even to feel that He would be with her in the dark was a great
comfort in her present desolation.

Cecile was aroused from her meditations by something very soft and warm
rubbing against her hand. She raised her eyes to encounter the honest
and affectionate gaze of Toby.

Toby's eyes were bright, and he was wagging his tail, and altogether
seeming as if he found life agreeable. He gamboled a little when Cecile
looked at him, and put his forepaws on her lap. Toby meant nothing by
this but to please and cheer his little mistress. He saw she was down
and tired, and he was determined to put a bold face on things, and to
get a bit of sunshine, even on this December afternoon, into his own
honest eyes, if it would come nowhere else. Generally Cecile was the
brightest of the party; now Toby was determined to show her that he was
a dog worth having in adversity.

She did think so. Tears sprang to her own blue eyes. She threw her arms
round Toby's neck and gave him a great hug. In the midst of this caress
the dog's whole demeanor changed; he gave a quick spring out of
Cecile's embrace, and uttered an angry growl. A girl was approaching by
stealthy steps at the back of the little party.

The moment she heard Toby's bark she changed her walk to a quick run
and threw herself down beside Cecile with an easy hail-fellow-well-met
manner.

"Well, you're a queer un, you ere," she said, looking up pertly in
Cecile's face, "a-hugging of that big dawg, and a-sitting on the church
steps of St. Stephen's on the werry bitterest evening that has come
this year yet. Ha'n't you no home, now, as you sits yere?"

"No; but I am going to look out for a night's lodging at once,"
answered Cecile.

"For you and that ere little un, and the dawg?"

"Yes, we must all three be together whatever happens. Do you know of a
lodging, little girl?"

"My name's Jessie--Jessie White. Yes, I knows where I goes myself. 'Tis
werry warm there. 'Tis a'most _too_ warm sometimes."

"And is it cheap?" asked Cecile. "For me, and Maurice, and Toby, we
have got to do things _very_ cheap. We shall only be a day or two in
London, and we must do things _very_, very cheap while we stay."

"Oh! my eyes! hasn't we all to do things cheap? What does you say to a
penny? A penny is wot I pays for a share of a bed, and I s'pose as you
and that ere little chap could have one all to yerselves for tuppence,
and the dawg, he ud lie in for nothink. I calls tuppence uncommon cheap
to be warm for so many hours."

"Tuppence?" said Cecile. "Two pennies for Maurice and me and Toby. Yes,
I suppose that is cheap, Jessie White. I don't know anything about
prices, but it does not sound dear. We will go to your lodgings if you
will tell us the right street, and I hope it is not far away, for
Maurice is very tired."

"No, it ain't far, but you can't go without me; you would not get in
nohow. Now, I works in the factory close by, and I'm just out for an
hour for my dinner. I'll call for you yere, ef you like, at five
o'clock, and take you straight off, and you can get into bed at once.
And now s'pose as we goes and has a bit of dinner? I has tuppence for
my dinner. I did mean to buy a beautiful hartificial flower for my hat
instead, but somehow the sight of you three makes me so starved as I
can't stand it. Will you come to my shop and have dinner too?"

To this proposition Cecile, Maurice (who had awakened), and Toby all
eagerly agreed; and in a moment or two the little party found
themselves being regaled at the ragged girl's directions with great
basins of hot soup and hunches of bread. She took two basins of soup,
and two hunches of bread herself. But though Maurice and Cecile wished
very much for more, Cecile--even though it was to be paid for with
their own money--felt too timid to ask again, and the strange girl
appeared to think it impossible they could want more than one supply.

"I'm off now," she said to Cecile, coming up to her and wiping her
mouth.

"Yes; but where are we to meet you for the lodging?" asked the little
girl anxiously--"Maurice is _so_ tired--and you promised to show us.
Where shall we get the lodging for the night?"

The girl gave a loud rude laugh.

"'Tis in Dean Street," she said. "Dean Street's just round the
corner--'tis number twenty. I'll turn up if I ha' money."

"But you said we could not get in without you," said Cecile.

"Well, what a bother you ere! I'll turn up if I can. You be there at
the door, and if I can I'll be there too." Then she nodded violently,
and darted out of the shop.

Cecile wondered why she was in such a hurry to go, and at the change in
her manner, but she understood it a little better when she saw that the
ragged girl had so arranged matters that Cecile had to pay for all the
dinners!

"I won't never trust ragged girls like that again," was her wise mental
comment; and then she, Maurice, and Toby recommenced their weary
walking up and down. Their dinner had once more rested and refreshed
them, and Cecile hoped they might yet find the old court in Bloomsbury.
But the great fatigue of the morning came back a little sooner in the
short and dull winter's afternoon, and the child discovered now to her
great distress that she was lagging first. The shock and trouble she
had gone through the day before began to tell on her, and by the time
Maurice suddenly burst into tears her own footsteps were reeling.

"I think you're unkind, Cecile," said the little boy, "and I don't
believe we are ever, ever going to find our old court, or the lodgings
for the night."

"There's a card up at this house that we're passing," said Cecile.
"I'll ask for a lodging at this very house, Maurice."

She rang the bell timidly, and in a moment or so a pert girl with a
dirty cap on her head came and answered it.

"Please," said Cecile, raising her pretty anxious little face, "have
you got a lodging for the night for two little children and a dog? I
see a card up. We don't mind its being a very small lodging, only it
must be cheap."

The girl burst out laughing, and rude as the ragged girl's laugh had
been, this struck more painfully, with a keener sense of ridicule, on
Cecile's ear.

"Well, I never," said the servant-maid at last; "_you_ three want a
lodging in this yere house? A night's lodging she says, for her and the
little un and the dog she says, and she wants it cheap, she says. Go
further afield, missy, this house ain't for the likes of you," and then
the door was slammed in Cecile's face.

"Look, look," said Maurice excitedly, "there's a crowd going in there;
a great lot of people, and they're all just as ragged as me and you and
Toby. Let's go in and get a bed with the ragged people, Cecile."

Cecile raised her eyes, then she exclaimed joyfully:

"Why, this is Dean Street, Maurice. Yes, and that's, that's number
twenty. We can get our night's lodging without that unkind ragged girl
after all."

Then the children, holding each other's hands, and Toby keeping close
behind, found themselves in the file of people, and making their way
into the house, over the door of which was written:

"CHEAP LODGINGS FOR THE NIGHT FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN."

Early as the hour was, the house seemed already full from attic to
cellar. Cecile and Maurice were pushed into a good-sized room about
halfway up the first flight of stairs.

At the door of this room a woman stood, who demanded pennies of
everyone before they were allowed to enter the room.

Cecile had some slight difficulty in getting hers out of the bosom of
her frock; she did so with anxiety, and some effort at concealment,
which was observed by two people:

One was a red-faced, wicked-looking girl of about sixteen; the other
was a pale woman, who turned her worn faded brown eyes, with a certain
look of pathos in them, on the little pair.

The moment the people got into the room, there was a scramble for the
beds, which were nothing better than wooden boards, with canvas bags
laid on them, and a second piece of canvas placed for covering. But bad
and comfortless as these beds looked, without either pillow or bolster,
they were all eagerly coveted, and all soon full. Two and even three
got into each, and those who could not get accommodation in that way
were glad to throw themselves on the floor, as near to a great stove,
which burned hot and red, as possible.

It would have fared very badly with Cecile and Maurice were it not for
the woman who noticed them at the door. But as they were looking round
bewildered, and Toby was softly licking Cecile's hand, the little girl
felt a touch from this woman.

"I ha' my own bed laid ready in this corner, and you are both welcome
to share it, my little dears."

"Oh! they may come with me. I has my corner put by too," said the
red-faced girl, who also came up.

"Please, ma'am, we'll choose your bed, if Toby may sleep with us," said
Cecile, raising her eyes, and instinctively selecting the right company.

The woman gave a faint, sad smile, the girl turned scowling away, and
the next moment Maurice found himself curled up in the most comfortable
corner of the room. He was no longer cold, and hard as his bed was, he
was too tired to be particular, and in a moment he and Toby were both
sound asleep.

But Cecile did not sleep. Weary as she was, the foul air, the fouler
language, smote painfully on her ears. The heat, too, soon became
almost unbearable, and very soon the poor child found herself wishing
for the cold streets in preference to such a night's lodging.

There was no chance whatever of Jesus coming to a place like this, and
Cecile's last hope of His helping her vanished.

The strong desire that He would come again and do something wonderful,
as He had done the day before, had been with her for many dreary hours;
and when this hope disappeared, the last drop in her cup of trouble was
full, and poor, brave, tired little pilgrim that she was, she cried
long and bitterly. The pale woman by her side was long ago fast asleep.
Indeed silence, broken only by loud snores, was already brooding over
the noisy room. Cecile was just beginning to feel her own eyes
drooping, when she was conscious of a little movement. There was a gas
jet turned down low in the room, and by its light she could see that
unpleasant red-faced girl sitting up in bed. She was not only sitting
up, but presently she was standing up, and then the little girl felt a
cold chill of fear coming over her. She came up to the bedside.

Cecile almost thought she must scream, when suddenly the pale woman,
who had appeared so sound asleep, said quietly:

"Go back to yer bed at once, Peggie Jones. I know what you're up to."

The girl, discomfited, slunk away; and for ten minutes there was
absolute silence. Then the woman, laying her hand on Cecile's shoulder,
said very softly:

"My dear, you have a little money about you?"

"Yes," answered the child.

"I feared so. You must come away from here at once. I can protect you
from Peggie. But she has accomplices who'll come presently. You'd not
have a penny in the morning. Get up, child, you and the little boy.
Why, 'twas the blessed Jesus guided you to me to save. Come, poor
innocent lambs!"

There was one thing the woman had said which caused Cecile to think it
no hardship to turn out once more into the cold street. She rose quite
quietly, her heart still and calm, and took Maurice's hand, and
followed the woman down the stairs, and out once again.

"Now, as you ha' a bit of money, I'll get you a better lodging than
that," said the kind woman; and she was as good as her word, and took
the children to a cousin of her own, who gave them not only a tiny
little room, and a bed which seemed most luxurious by contrast, but
also a good supper, and all for the sum of sevenpence.

So Cecile slept very sweetly, for she was feeling quite sure again that
Jesus, who had even come into that dreadful lodging to prevent her
being robbed, and to take care of her, was going to be her Guide after
all.




CHAPTER III.

IN THE CORNER BEHIND THE ORGAN.


The next morning the children got up early. The woman of the house, who
had taken a fancy to them, gave them a good breakfast for fourpence
apiece, and Toby, who had always hitherto had share and share alike,
was now treated to such a pan of bones, and all for nothing, that he
could not touch the coffee the children offered him.

"Now," said Mrs. Hodge, "that ere dawg has got food enough and plenty
for the whole day. When a dawg as isn't accustomed to it gets his fill
o' bones 'tis wonderful how sustaining they is."

"And may we come back again here to-night, ma'am?" asked Cecile eagerly.

But here a disappointment awaited them. Mrs. Hodge, against her will,
was obliged to shake her head. Her house was a popular one. The little
room the children had occupied was engaged for a month from to-night.
No--she was sorry--but she had not a corner of her house to put them
in. It was the merest chance her being able to take them in for that
one night.

"It is a pity you can't have us, for I don't think you're a wicked
woman," said Maurice, raising his brown eyes to scan her face solemnly.

Mrs. Hodge laughed.

"Oh! what a queer, queer little baby boy!" she said, stooping down to
kiss him. "No, my pet; it 'ud be a hard heart as 'ud be wicked to you."

But though Mrs. Hodge was sorry, she could not help the children, and
soon after ten o'clock they once more stepped out into the streets. The
sun was shining, and Maurice's spirits were high. But Cecile, who had
the responsibility, felt sad and anxious. She was footsore and very
tired, and she knew no more than yesterday where or how to get a
night's lodging. She saw plainly that it would not do, with all that
money about her, to venture into a penny lodging; and she feared that,
even careful as they were, the ten shillings would soon be spent; and
as to her other gold, she assured herself that she would rather starve
than touch it until they got to France. The aim and object then of her
present quest must be to get to France.

Where was France? Her father said it lay south. Where was south? The
cabby, when she asked him, said he could not tell her, for he did not
know jography. What was jography? Was it a thing, or a person? Whoever
or whatever it was, it knew the way to France, to that haven of her
desire. Cecile must then endeavor to find jography. But where, and how?
A church door stood open. Some straggling worshipers came out. The
children stood to watch them. The door still remained open. Taking
Maurice's hand, Cecile crept into the silent church; it felt warm and
sheltered. Toby slipped under one of the pews; Cecile and Maurice sat
side by side on a hassock. Maurice was still bright and not at all
sleepy, and Cecile began to think it a good opportunity to tell him a
little of the life he had before him.

"Maurice," she said, "do you mind having to walk a long way, having to
walk hundreds and hundreds of miles, and do you mind having to keep on
walking for days and weeks?"

"Yes," said Maurice. "I don't like walking; I'd rather go back to our
old court."

"But you'd like to pick flowers--pretty, pretty flowers growing by the
waysides; and there'd be lots of sunshine all day long. It would not be
like England, it would be down South."

"Is it warm down South?" asked Maurice.

"Why, Maurice, of course, that was where our father lived and where our
own, own mother died; 'tis lovely, lovely down South."

"Then I don't mind walking, Cecile; let's set of South at once."

"Oh! I wish--I wish we could, darling. We have very little money,
Maurice; 'tis most important for me and you and Toby to go to France as
soon as possible. But I don't know the way. The cabby said something
about Jography. If Jography is a person, _he_ knows the way to France.
I should like to find Jography, and when we get to France, I have a
hope, a great hope, that Jesus the Guide will come with us. Yes, I do
think He will come."

"That's Him as you said was in the dark in our attic?"

"Yes, that's the same; and do you know He came into the dark of that
other dreadful attic again last night, and 'twas He told the woman to
take us out and give us those much nicer lodgings. Oh, Maurice! I _do_
think, yes, I do think, after His doing that, that He has quite made up
His mind to take us to France."

Maurice was silent. His baby face looked puzzled and thoughtful.
Suddenly he sprang to his feet. His eyes were bright. He was possessed
with an idea.

"Cecile," he said, "let's get back to our old court. Do you know that
back of our old court there's a square, and in that square a lovely,
lovely garden? I have often stood at the rails and wanted to pick the
flowers. There are heaps of them, and they are of all colors. Cecile,
p'raps that garden is South. I should not mind walking in there all
day. Let's go back at once and try to find it."

"One moment, one moment first, Maurice," said Cecile. She, too, had a
thought in her head. "You and Toby stay here. I'll be back in a
moment," she exclaimed.

Behind the organ was a dark place. In this short winter's day it looked
like night.

The idea had darted into Cecile's head that Jesus might be there. She
went to the dark corner; yes, it was very gloomy. Peer hard as she
would, she could not see into all its recesses. Jesus might be there.
No one had ever taught her to kneel, but instinctively she fell on her
knees and clasped her hands.

"Jesus," she said, "I think you're here. I am most grateful to you,
Jesus the Guide, for what you did for me and Maurice and Toby the last
two nights. Jesus the Guide, will you tell me how to find Jography and
how to get to France? and when we go there will you guide us? Please
do, though it isn't the New Jerusalem nor the Celestial City. But I
have very important business there, Jesus, very important. And Maurice
is so young, he's only a baby boy, and he'll want you to carry him part
of the way. Will you, who are so very good, come with us little
children, and with Toby, who is the dearest dog in the world? And will
you tell some kind, kind woman to give us a lodging for the night in a
safe place where I won't be robbed of my money?"

Here, while Cecile was on her knees still praying, a wonderful thing
happened. It might have been called a coincidence, but I, who write the
story of these little pilgrims, think it was more; for into Cecile's
dark corner, unperceived by her, a man had come, and this man began to
fill the great organ with wind, and then in a moment the whole church
began to echo with sweet sounds, and in the midst of the music came a
lull, and then one voice rose triumphant, joyful, and reassuring on the
air.

"Certainly, I will be with thee," sang the voice, "I will be with thee,
I will be with thee."




CHAPTER IV.

THE WOMAN WITH THE KINDEST FACE.


Cecile went back to where she had left Maurice sitting on the church
hassock, and, taking his hand, said to him, "Come."

Her little, worn face was bright and some of the sweetness of the music
she had been listening to had got into her blue eyes.

"Come, Maurice," said Cecile. "I know now what to do. Everything will
be quite right now. I have told Jesus all about it, and Jesus the Guide
has answered me, and said He would come with us. Did you hear that
wonderful, lovely music? That was Jesus answering me. And, Maurice, I
asked Him to let us find a kind woman who will help us to a night's
lodging, and I know He will do that too."

"A kind woman?" said Maurice. "The kindest woman I ever saw is coming
up the church steps this minute."

Cecile looked in the direction in which Maurice pointed.

A woman, with a pail in one hand and a large sweeping brush in the
other, was not only coming up the steps, but had now entered the church
door. Cecile and Maurice stood back a little in the shadow. The woman
could not see them, but they could gaze earnestly at her. She was a
stout woman with a round face, rosy cheeks, and bright, though small
and sunken, brown eyes. Her eyes had, however, a light in them, and her
wide lips were framed in smiles. She must have been a women of about
fifty, but her broad forehead was without a wrinkle. Undoubtedly she
was very plain. She had not a good feature, not even a good point about
her ungainly figure. Never in her youngest days could this woman have
been fair to see, but the two children, who gazed at her with beating
hearts, thought her beautiful. Goodness and loving-kindness reigned in
that homely face; so triumphantly did they reign, these rare and
precious things, that the little children, with the peculiar
penetration of childhood, found them out at once.

"She's a _lovely_ woman," pronounced Maurice. "I'm quite sure she has
got a night's lodging. I'll run and ask her."

"No, no, she might not like it," whispered the more timid Cecile.

But just then Toby, who had been standing very quiet and motionless
behind Maurice, perceived a late, late autumn fly, sailing lazily by,
within reach of his nose. That fly was too much for Toby; he made a
snap at it, and the noise which ensued roused the woman's attention.

"Oh! my little Honies," she said, coming forward, "we don't allow dogs
in the church. Even a nice dog like that is against the rules. I'm very
sorry, my loves, but the dog must go out of church."

"Don't Jesus like dogs then?" asked Maurice.

"And please, ma'am," suddenly demanded Cecile, before the woman had
time to answer Maurice, "_is_ that Jesus the Guide playing the
beautiful music up there?"

"That, my dears! You shock me! That is only Mr. Ward the organist. He's
practicing for tomorrow. To-morrow's Sunday, you know. Why, you _are_ a
queer little pair."

"We're going on a pilgrimage," said Maurice. "We're going South; and
Cecile has been talking a great deal lately to Jesus the Guide; and she
asked Him just now to find us a woman with a kind face to give us a
night's lodging, and we both think you are quite lovely. Will you give
us a night's lodging, ma'am?"

"Will I? Hark to the baby! Well, I never! And are you two little
orphans, dears?"

"Yes," said Cecile, "our father is dead, and our mother, and our
stepmother, and we have no one to care for us, except Jane Parsons, and
we can't stay with Jane any longer, for if we did, we should only be
sent to the Union."

"And we couldn't go to the Union, though there _are_ good fires there,"
interrupted Maurice, "because of Toby. If we went to the Union, our dog
Toby would get a yard of rope, that would be murder. We can never,
never, never go to the Union on account of murdering Toby."

"So we came away." continued Cecile. "Jane Parsons sent us to London
with the guard yesterday. We are not English, we are foreign; me and
Maurice are just a little French boy and girl, and we are going back to
France, if we can find Jography to tell us how. But we want a night's
lodging first. Will you give us a night's lodging, ma'am? We can pay
you, please, ma'am."

"Oh, yes, I've no doubt you can pay me well, and I'm like to want yer
bit of money, and I suppose you want to bring Toby too."

"Yes and Toby too," said Maurice.

"Well, I never did hear the like, never. John, I say, John, come here."

The man addressed as John came forward with great strides.

He was a tall man about double the height of his stout wife.

"John, honey," said the little stout woman, "yere's the queerest story.
Two mites, all alone, with only a dog belonging to them; father dead,
mother dead, and they asks ef that's Jesus playing the organ, and they
wants a night's lodging, and I have the kindest face. Hark to the
rogues! and will I give it to 'em? What say you, John?"

"What say _you_, Molly? Have you room for 'em, old girl?"

"The house is small," said the woman, "but there _is_ the little closet
back of our bedroom, and Susie's mattress lying vacant. I could make
'em up tidy in that little closet."

The man laughed, and chucked his wife under the chin.

"Where's the use o' asking me," he said, "when you knows as you _can't_
say no to no waif nor stray as hever walked?"

He went away, for he was employed just then in blowing the organ, and
the organist was beckoning to him, so the woman turned to the children.

"My name is Mrs. Moseley, darlings, and ef you're content with a werry
small closet for you and yer dog, why, yer welcome, and I'll promise as
it shall be clean. Why, ef that'll do for the night's lodging, you
three jest get back into the church pew, and hide Toby well under the
seat, and I'll have done my work in about an hour, and then we'll go
back home to dinner."




CHAPTER V.

A HOUSE WITHOUT A DOOR.


The children in their wanderings the day before, and again this
morning, had quite unknown to themselves traveled quite away from
Bloomsbury, and when they entered the church, and sat down in that pew,
and hid Toby underneath, they were in the far-famed East-End quarter of
the great town. They knew nothing of this themselves, though Cecile did
think the houses very poor and the people very dirty. They were,
therefore, doubly fortunate in coming across Mrs. Moseley.

Mrs. Moseley was sextoness to the very new and beautiful church in Mile
End. Her husband was a policeman at present on night duty, which
accounted for his being at leisure to blow the organ in the church.
This worthy couple had a little grave to love and tend, a little grave
which kept their two hearts very green, but they had no living child.
Mrs. Moseley had, however, the largest of mother's hearts--a heart so
big that were it not for its capacity of acting mother to every
desolate child in Mr. Danvers' parish, it must have starved. Now, she
put Cecile and Maurice along with twenty more into that big heart of
hers, and they were a truly fortunate little pair when she took them
home.

Such a funny home was hers, but so clean when you got into it.

It was up a great many pairs of stairs, and the stairs at the top were
a good deal broken, and were black with use, and altogether
considerably out of repair. But the strangest part, though also the
most delightful to Maurice and Cecile in their funny new home, was the
fact that it had no door at all.

When you got to the top and looked for the door, you were confronted
with nothing but a low ceiling over your head, and a piece of rope
within reach of your hand. If you pulled the rope hard enough, up would
suddenly jump two or three boards, and then there was an opening big
enough for you to creep into the little kitchen.

Yes, it was the queerest entrance into the oddest little home. But when
once you got there how cozy it all was!

The proverbial saying, "eating off the floor," might have been
practiced on those white boards. The little range shone like a looking
glass, and cups and saucers were ranged on shelves above it. In the
middle of the floor stood a bright and thick crimson drugget. The
window, dormer though it was, was arranged quite prettily with crimson
curtains, while some pots of sweet-smelling herbs and flowers stood on
its ledge. There were two or three really good colored prints on the
white-washed walls and several illuminated texts of Scripture. The
little deal table, too, was covered with a crimson cloth.

A canary bird hung in a cage in the window, and it is not too much to
say that this poor bird, born and bred in the East End, was thoroughly
happy in his snug home. A soft-furred gray cat purred before the little
range. The bedroom beyond was as clean and neat as the kitchen, and the
tiny room where Cecile, Maurice and Toby were to sleep, though nearly
empty at present, would, Mrs. Moseley assured them, make a sleeping
chamber by no means to be despised by and by.

When they got into the house, Maurice ran all over it in fearless
ecstasies. Cecile sat on the edge of a chair, and Toby, after sniffing
at the cat, decided to make friends with her by lying down in the
delicious warmth by her side.

"What's yer name, dear heart?" asked Mrs. Moseley to the rather
forlorn-looking little figure seated on the edge of a chair.

"Cecile, please, ma'am."

"Cecil! That sounds like a boy's name. It ain't English to give boy
names to little girls. But then you're foreign, you say--French, ain't
it? I once knew a girl as had lived a long time in France and loved it
dearly. Well, well, but here's dinner ready; the potatoes done to a
turn, and boiled bacon and greens. Now, where's my good man? We won't
wait for him, honey. Come, Maurice, my man, I don't doubt but you're
rare and hungry."

"Yes," answered Maurice; "me and Cecile and Toby are very hungry. We
had bad food yesterday; but I like this dinner, it smells good."

"It will eat good too, I hope. Now, Cecile, why don't you come?"

Cecile's face had grown first red and then pale.

"Please," she said earnestly, "that good dinner that smells so
delicious may be very dear. We little children and our dog we have got
to be most desperate careful, please, Mrs. Moseley, ma'am. We can't eat
that nice dinner if 'tis dear."

"But s'pose 'tis cheap," said Mrs. Moseley; "s'pose 'tis as cheap as
dirt? Come, my love, this dinner shan't cost you nothink; come and eat.
Don't you see that the poor little man there is fit to cry?"

"And nothink could be cheaper than dirt," said Maurice, cheering up.
"I'm so glad as this beautiful, delicious dinner is as cheap as dirt."

"Now we'll say grace," said Mrs. Moseley.

She folded her hands and looked up.

"Lord Jesus, bless this food to me and to Thy little ones, and use us
all to Thy glory."

Her eyes were shut while she was speaking; when she opened them she
felt almost startled by the look Cecile had given her. A look of
wonder, of question, of appeal.

"You want to ask me some'ut, dear?" she said gently to the child.

"Oh, yes! oh, yes!"

"Well, I'm very busy now, and I'll be busy all the afternoon. But we
has tea at six, and arter tea my man 'ull play wid Maurice, and you
shall sit at my knee and ask me what you like."




CHAPTER VI.

CECILE GIVES HER HEART.


It was thus, sitting at Mrs. Moseley's knee in that snug kitchen, that
Cecile got her great question answered. It was Mrs. Moseley who
explained to the longing, wondering child, what Jesus the Guide would
do, who Jesus the Guide really was. It was Mrs. Moseley who told Cecile
what a glorious future she had before her, and how safe her life down
in this world really was.

And Cecile listened, half glad, half sorry, but, if the truth must be
known, dimly understanding. For Cecile, sweet as her nature was had
slow perceptions.

She was eight years old, and in her peculiar, half English, half
foreign life, she had never before heard anything of true religion. All
the time Mrs. Moseley was speaking, she listened with bright eyes and
flushed cheeks. But when the sweet old story came to an end, Cecile
burst into tears.

"Oh! I'm glad and I'm sorry," she sobbed; "I wanted a real, real guide.
I'm glad as the story's quite true, but I wanted someone to hold my
hand, and to carry Maurice when he's ever so tired. I'm glad and sorry."

"But I'm not sorry," said Maurice, who was lying full length on the
hearth-rug, and listening attentively. "I'm glad, I am--and I'd like to
die; I'd much rather die than go south."

"Oh, Maurice!" said Cecile.

"Yes, Cecile. I'd much rather die. I like what that kind woman says
about heaven, and I never did want to walk all that great way. Do Jesus
have little boys as small as me in heaven, Mrs. Moseley, ma'am?"

"Lord bless the child. Yes, my sweet lamb. Why, there's new-born babes
up there; and I had a little un, he wor a year younger nor you. But
Jesus took him there; it near broke my heart, but he went there."

"Then I'll go too," said Maurice. "I'll not go south; I'll go to
heaven."

"Bless the bonnie children both," said Mrs. Moseley softly under her
breath. She laid her hand on Cecile's head, who was gazing at her
little brother in a sort of wonder and consternation. Then the good
woman rose to get supper.

The next day ushered in the most wonderful Sunday Cecile had ever
spent. In the first place, this little girl, who had been so many years
of her little life in our Christian England, went to church. In her
father's time, no one had ever thought of so employing part of their
Sunday. The sweet bells sounded all around, but they fell on unheeding
ears. Cecile's stepmother, too, was far too busy working for Lovedy to
have time for God's house, and when the children went down to Warren's
Grove, though Lydia Purcell regularly Sunday after Sunday put on her
best bonnet, and neat black silk gown, and went book in hand into the
simple village church, it had never occurred to her to take the orphan
children with her. Therefore, when Mrs. Moseley said to Cecile and
Maurice:

"Now come and let me brush your hair, and make you tidy for church,"
they were both surprised and excited. Maurice fretted a little at the
thought of leaving Toby behind, but, on the whole, he was satisfied
with the novelty of the proceeding.

The two children sat very gravely hand in hand. The music delighted
them, but the rest of the service was rather above their comprehension.

Cecile, however, listened hard, taking in, in her slow, grave way, here
a thought and there an idea.

Mrs. Moseley watched the children as much as she listened to the
sermon, and as she said afterward to her husband, she felt her heart
growing full of them.

The rest of the Sunday passed even more delightfully in Maurice's
estimation. Mrs. Moseley's pudding was pronounced quite beyond praise
by the little hungry boy, and after dinner Moseley showed him pictures,
while Mrs. Moseley amused Cecile with some Bible stories.

But a strange experience was to come to the impressionable Cecile later
in the day.

Quite late, when all the light had faded, and only the lamps were lit,
and Maurice was sound asleep in his little bed in Mrs. Moseley's small
closet, that good woman, taking the little girl's hand, said to her:

"When we go to church we go to learn about Jesus. I took you to one
kind of church this morning. I saw by yer looks, my little maid, as you
were trying hard to understand. Now I will take you to another kind of
church. A church wot ain't to call orthodox, and wot many speaks
against, and I don't say as it ha'n't its abuses. But for all that,
when Molly Moseley wants to be lifted clean off her feet into heaven,
she goes there; so you shall come to-night with me, Cecile."

All religious teaching was new to Cecile, and she gave her hand quite
willingly to her kind friend.

They went down into the cold and wet winter street, and presently,
after a few moments' quick walking, found themselves in an immense,
square-built hall. Galleries ran round it, and these galleries were
furnished with chairs and benches. The whole body of the hall was also
full of seats, and from the roof hung banners, with texts of Scripture
printed on them, and the motto of the Salvation Army:

_"Fire and Blood."_

Cecile, living though she had done in its very midst had never heard of
this great religious revival. To such as her, poor little ignorant lost
lamb, it preached, but hitherto no message had reached her. She
followed Mrs. Moseley, who seated herself on a bench in the front row
of a gallery which was close to the platform. The space into which she
and Cecile had to squeeze was very small, for the immense place was
already full to overflowing.

"We'll have three thousand to-night, see if we don't," said a
thin-faced girl, bending over to Mrs. Moseley.

"Oh, ma'am!" said another, who had a very worn, thin, but sweet face,
"I've found such peace since I saw you last. I never could guess how
good Jesus would be to me. Why, now as I'm converted, He never seems to
leave my side for a minute. Oh! I do ache awful with this cough and
pain in my chest, but I don't seem to mind it now, as Jesus is with me
all day and all night."

Another, nudging her, here said:

"Do you know as Black Bess ha' bin converted too?"

"Oh, praise the Lord!" said this girl, sinking back on her seat, being
here interrupted by a most violent fit of coughing.

The building filled and filled, until there was scarcely room to stand.
A man passing Mrs. Moseley said:

"'Tis a glorious gathering, all brought together by prayer and faith,
all by prayer and faith."

Mrs. Moseley took Cecile on her lap.

"They'll sing in a moment, darling, and 'twill be all about your Guide,
the blessed, blessed Jesus." And scarcely were the words out of her
mouth, when the whole vast building rang again to the words:

  "Come, let us join our cheerful songs:
  Hallelujah to the Lamb who died on Mount Calvary.
  Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah! Amen."

Line after line was sung exultantly, accompanied by a brass band.

Immediately afterward a man fell on his knees and prayed most earnestly
for a blessing on the meeting.

Then came another hymn:

  "I love thee in life, I love thee in death;
  If ever I love thee, my Jesus, 'tis now."

This hymn was also sung right through, and then, while a young sergeant
went to fetch the colors, the whole great body of people burst into
perfectly rapturous singing of the inspiriting words:

  "The angels stand on the Hallelujah strand,
  And sing their welcome home."

"Oh! Maurice would like that," whispered Cecile as she leant up against
Mrs. Moseley. She never forgot the chorus of that hymn, it was to come
back to her with a thrill of great comfort in a dark day by and by.
Mrs. Moseley held her hand firmly; she and her little charge were
looking at a strange sight.

There were three thousand faces, all intensely in earnest, all bearing
marks of great poverty, many of great and cruel hardship--many, too,
had the stamp of sin on their brows. That man looked like a drunken
husband; that woman like a cruel mother. Here was a lad who made his
living by stealing; here a girl, who would sink from this to worse. Not
a well-dressed person in the whole place, not a soul who did not belong
to the vast army of the very poor. But for all that, there was not one
in this building who was not getting his heart stirred, not one who was
not having the best of him awakened into at least a struggling life,
and many, many poor and outcast as they were, had that indescribable
look on their worn faces which only comes with "God's peace."

A man got up to speak. He was pale and thin, and had long, sensitive
fingers. He shut his eyes, clenched his hand, and began:

"Bless thy word, Lord." This he repeated three times.

The people caught it up, they shouted it through the galleries, all
over the building. He waved his hand to stop them, then opening his
eyes, he began:

"I want to tell you about _Jesus_. Jesus is here tonight, He's down in
this hall, He's walking about, He's going from one to another of you,
He's knocking at your hearts. Brothers and sisters, the Lord Jesus is
knocking at your hearts. Oh! I see His face, and 'tis very pale, 'tis
very sad, 'tis all burdened with sadness. What makes it so sad? _Your
sins_, your great, awful _black_ sins. Sometimes He smiles, and is
pleased. When is that? That is when a young girl, or a boy, or even a
little child, opens the door of the heart, and He can take that heart
and make it His own, then the Lord Jesus is happy. Now, just listen! He
is talking to an old woman, she is very old, her face is all wrinkled,
her hands shake, she _must_ die soon, she can't live more than a year
or so, the Lord Jesus is standing by her, and talking to her. He is
saying, 'Give me thy heart, give me thy heart.'

"She says she is so old and so wicked, she has been a bad wife, a bad
mother, and bad friend; she is an awful drunkard.

"'Never mind,' says Jesus, 'Give me thy heart, I'll forgive thee, poor
sinner; I'll make that black heart white.'

"Then she gives it to Him, and she is happy, and her whole face is
changed, and she is not at all afraid to die.

"Now, do you see that man? He is just out of prison. What was he in
prison for? For beating his wife. Oh! what a villain, what a coward!
How cruel he looks! Respectable people, and kind people, don't like to
go near him, they are afraid of him. What a strong, brutal face he has!
But the blessed Jesus isn't afraid. See, He is standing by this bad
man, and He says, 'Give me thy heart.'

"'Oh! go away,' says the man; 'do go away, my heart is too bad.'

"I'll not go away without thy heart,' says Jesus; ''tis not too bad for
me.'

"And then the man, just because he can't help it, gives this heart, and
hard as stone it is, to Jesus, and Jesus gives it back to him quite
soft and tender, and there's no fear that _he_ will beat his wife again.

"Now, look where Jesus is; standing by the side of a little child--of a
little, young, tender child. That little heart has not had time to grow
hard, and Jesus says, 'Give it to Me. I'll keep it soft always. It
shall always be fit for the kingdom of heaven;' and the little child
smiles, for she can't help it, and she gives her baby heart away at
once. Oh! how glad Jesus is! What a beautiful sight! look at her face;
is not it all sunshine? I think I see just such a little child there in
front of me."

Here the preacher paused, and pointed to Cecile, whose eyes, brilliant
with excitement, were fixed on his face. She had been listening,
drinking in, comprehending. Now when the preacher pointed to her, it
was too much for the excitable child, she burst into tears and sobbed
out:

"Oh! I give my heart, I give my heart."

"Blessings on thee, sweet lamb," came from several rough but kindly
voices.

Mrs. Moseley took her in her arms and carried her out. She saw wisely
that she could bear no more.

As they were leaving the hall, again there came a great burst of
singing:

  "I love Jesus, Hallelujah!
  I love Jesus; yes, I do.
  I love Jesus, He's my Saviour;
  Jesus smiles and _loves me too_."




CHAPTER VII.

"SUSIE."


Cecile had never anything more to say to the Salvation Army. What lay
behind the scenes, what must shock a more refined taste, never came to
her knowledge. To her that fervent, passionate meeting seemed always
like the very gate of heaven. To her the Jesus she had long been
seeking had at last come, come close, and entered into her heart of
hearts. She no longer regretted not seeing Him in the flesh; nay, a
wonderful spiritual sight and faith seemed born in her, and she felt
that this spiritual Christ was more suited to her need. She got up
gravely the next morning; her journey was before her, and the Guide was
there. There was no longer the least reason for delay, and it was much
better that she, Maurice, and Toby should start for France, while they
had a little money that they could lawfully spend. When she had got up
and dressed herself, she resolved to try the new powerful weapon she
had got in her hand. This weapon was prayer; the Guide who was so near
needed no darkness to enable Him to listen to her. She did not kneel,
she sat on the side of her tiny bed, and, while Maurice still slept,
began to speak aloud her earnest need:

"Jesus, I think it is hotter that me, and Maurice, and Toby should go
to France while we have a little money left. Please, Jesus, if there is
a man called Jography, will you help us to find him to-day, please?"
Then she paused, and added slowly, being prompted by her new and great
love, "But it must be just as you like, Jesus." After this prayer,
Cecile resolved to wait in all day, for if there was a man called
Jography, he would be sure to knock at the door during the day, and
come in and say to Cecile that Jesus had sent him, and that he was
ready to show her the way to France. Maurice, therefore, and Toby, went
out together with Mrs. Moseley, and Cecile stayed at home and watched,
but though she, watched all day long, and her heart beat quickly many
times, there was never any sound coming up the funny stairs; the rope
was never pulled, nor the boards lifted, to let in any one of the name
of Jography. Cecile, instead of having her faith shaken by this, came
to the wise resolution that Jography was not a man at all. She now felt
that she must apply to Mrs. Moseley, and wondered how far she dare
trust her with her secret.

"You know, perhaps, ma'am," she began that evening, when Moseley had
started on his night duty, and Maurice being sound asleep in bed, she
found herself quite alone with the little woman, "You know, perhaps,
ma'am, that we two little children and our dog have got to go on a very
long journey--a very, very long journey indeed."

"No, I don't know nothink about it, Cecile," said Mrs. Moseley in her
cheerful voice. "What we knows, my man and me, is, that you two little
mites has got to stay yere until we finds some good orphan school to
send you to, and you has no call to trouble about payment, deary, for
we're only too glad and thankful to put any children into our dead
child's place and into Susie's place."

"But we can't stay," said Cecile; "we can't stay, though we'd like to
ever so. I'm only a little girl. But there's a great deal put on me--a
great, great care. I don't mind it now, 'cause of Jesus. But I mustn't
neglect it, must I?"

"No, darling: Only tell Mammie Moseley what it is."

"Oh! May I call you that?"

"Yes; for sure, love. Now tell me what's yer care, Cecile, honey."

"I can't, Mammie, I can't, though I'd like to. I had to tell Jane
Parsons. I had to tell her, and she was faithful. But I think I'd
better not tell even you again. Only 'tis a great care, and it means a
long journey, and going south. It means all that much for me, and
Maurice, and Toby."

"Going south? You mean to Devonshire, I suppose, child?"

"I don't know. Is there a place called Devonshire there, ma'am? But we
has to go to France--away down to the south of France--to the Pyrenees."

"Law, child! Why, you don't never mean as you're going to cross the
seas?"

"Is that the way to France, Mammie Moseley? Oh! Do you _really_ know
the way?"

"There's no other way that I ever hear tell on, Cecile. Oh, my dear,
you must not do that!"

"But it's just there I've got to go, ma'am; and me and Maurice are a
little French boy and girl. We'll be sure to feel all right in France;
and when we get to the Pyrenees we'll feel at home. 'Tis there our
father lived, and our own mother died, and me and Maurice were born
there. I don't see how we can help being at home in the Pyrenees."

"That may be, child; and it may be right to send a letter to yer
people, and if they wants you two, and will treat you well, to let you
go back to them. But to have little orphans like you wandering about in
France all alone, ain't to be thought on, ain't to be thought on,
Cecile."

"But whether my people write for me and Maurice or not, ma'am, I must
go," said Cecile in a low, firm voice. "I must, because I promised--I
promised one that is dead."

"Well, my darling, how can I help you if you won't _conwide_ in me? Oh,
Cecile! you're for all the world just like what Susie was; only I hopes
as you won't treat us as bad."

"Susie was the girl who slept in our little bedroom," said Cecile. "Was
she older than me, ma'am? and was she yer daughter, ma'am?"

"No, Cecile. Susie was nothink to me in the flesh, though, God knows, I
loved her like a child of my own. God never gave me a bonnie girl to
love and care for, Cecile. I had one boy. Oh! I did worship him, and
when Jesus tuk him away and made an angel of him, I thought I'd go near
wild. Well, we won't talk on it. He died at five years old. But I don't
mind telling you of Susie."

"Oh! please, Mammie!"

"It was a year or more after my little Charlie wor tuk away," said Mrs.
Moseley. "My heart wor still sore and strange. I guessed as I'd never
have another baby, and I wor so bad I could not bear to look at
children. As I wor walking over Blackfriars Bridge late one evening I
heard a girl crying. I knew by her cry as she was a very young girl,
nearly a child; and, God forgive me! for a moment I thought as I'd
hurry on, and not notice her, for I did dread seeing children. However,
her cry was very bitter, and what do you think it was?

"'Oh, Mammie, Mammie, Mammie!'

"I couldn't stand that; it went through me as clean as a knife. I ran
up to her and said: 'What's yer trouble, honey?'

"She turned at once and threw her arms round me, and clung to me,
nearly in convulsions with weeping.

"'Oh! take me to my mother,' she sobbed. 'I want my mother.'

"'Yes, deary, tell me where she lives,' I said.

"But the bonnie dear could only shake her head and say s

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