A Child Shall Lead Them: The House that Jack Built; and Another Moses, by Mary E. Ropes │ Project Gutenberg

THERE it stood, at the corner of the street, the finest public-house in the populous neighbourhood of this London suburb. There it stood, with its plate-glass windows, and grand swinging doors, and brilliant lights at night, and the air of warmth and welcome and cheer, that, like the will-o'-the-wisp of the treacherous marsh, lured many a foolish wayfarer to ruin.

The place was kept by a man called John Drinkrow, to whom it had been bequeathed by his father, who had borne the same name. For a period of thirty years, John Drinkrow, the elder, had successfully carried on the business; then he died, leaving a considerable fortune, as well as the public-house itself, to his only son. During his long life, thrifty Jack (as he had been familiarly named) had laid claim to a sort of respectability upon which he had prided himself not a little. He had always gone to church once every Sunday, had paid his way punctually, and, though so much drinking went on under his very eyes, he himself was known to be very abstemious. He put his son to a good school, and it was not until the lad was sixteen that he suffered him to return home and join him in the daily work of the "business," as he complacently termed it.

John the younger, grew up resembling his father in some things. Like him he was perfectly sober, and proud of his respectability; but the thriftiness that had characterised old Jack had turned to miserliness in the son, and the passion for hoarding had increased with every year, until at the time that our story commences, it was the ruling motive of the man's life. He had married at an early age; but after four years his wife had died, leaving two little boys, with just a year's difference between them.

The children grew up with but little care from any one; the elder, Tom, taking after his father in quietness, steadiness, and love of hoarding; the younger, Ratcliffe, turning out wild and dissipated, with many good impulses, but also with a passionate love of excitement and pleasure which led him into bad companionship and into various forms of self-indulgence. Though often absent during many hours, for which he never accounted, he was still supposed to be living at home; but his father's anger and threats had lately become more frequent, and Ratcliffe knew that, sooner or later, unless he reformed, he would have to quit the parental roof. In the fear of this, he often resolved to mend his ways; but mere resolutions with no principle to back them are weak things at best, and generally a pressing invitation from some boon companion, or a few words of ridicule, were sufficient to tempt him back to old haunts and old sins, and the resolutions would be broken.

John Drinkrow's hoarding propensities had prevented his educating his sons in a proper manner. Tom, however, had managed to pick up some knowledge by reading and study in over-hours; but poor Ratcliffe could do little more than read and write, and add up the score of the customers at the bar. Thus he was despised and sneered at by his better informed brother; and this state of feeling between the two young men added not a little to the family trouble and discord.

One evening John Drinkrow was busy with his accounts in the little back parlour. His elder son was serving the customers; the younger was out. The gaslight shone full upon the old man as he bent with passionate intentness over his work; it shone on the hard-worn face with its deep lines and furrows, on the keen watchful eye gloating over the week's gains—gains not a few, as the long column of figures plainly testified.

Suddenly the door opened and Ratcliffe entered, his face flushed, his gait somewhat unsteady. His father looked up, with no welcome but a frown on his dark countenance.

"Father," said the young man, approaching the table and laying one hand upon it as though to steady himself; "father, it's some time since you gave me anything, and I'm hard up."

John did not even glance at his son as the latter spoke; he went on adding up his figures and counting his gains.

"Yes, I did hear," replied he, in the unsympathetic, metallic voice which might have been borrowed from the chink of his beloved coin; "yes, I hear well enough; what of it?"

Ratcliffe's face flushed more deeply. "Why, father," he said, "it's ever so long since I came to you for tin; I think you might give me some without all this business. I'm sure you've got heaps and needn't grudge it. I wouldn't grudge a child of mine a sov. over and above his wages now and then, if I'd a strong-room and bags and bags full like you."

Now Ratcliffe was excited with drink and vexation, or he would never have dared to say all this; for if anything angered John Drinkrow, it was an allusion to his truly miserly and very unwise habit of keeping his money in coin stowed away in a strong box, in a little room expressly arranged for this purpose, and next to his own bedroom.

The words had hardly gone out of Ratcliffe's mouth before his father rose and pointed to the door. His menacing wrath was terrible to witness, and Ratcliffe, sobered by the sight, his momentary boldness gene, staggered away from the table as though struck by a sudden blow.

"Go," said the father; "you have long been a disgrace to your brother and me; and I'll bear the burden of a spendthrift no longer. Get you gone—where you will; living or dying, I'll have none of you! Get you gone!"

"But, father!" cried the young man, with a wild gesture of despair. "Father, if you only knew! Oh, 'do' hear me! Hear me out!"

The old man's face grew livid with anger; his eyes were ablaze with unholy fire. In his excitement he rose and advanced a step with his arm outstretched. The son recoiled once more, gave his father one look, half of dread, half of defiance, then opened the door and was gone; and this was the beginning of great troubles for Ratcliffe himself, and also for the master of "the house that Jack built."

CHAPTER II.

A WEEK had passed since Ratcliffe had been driven from his father's home, and his name had only once been mentioned between John and his elder son. This was on that first day when Tom had asked where his brother was, and had received the brief and not unwelcome reply, "He's gone, and he'll come back no more."

A week had passed, and now it was night—deep night. The house had been closed, and the miser had come up to his strong-room to count his gold. His gold was his life now; all natural tenderness and right feeling had been consumed out of his heart by this canker. For long enough the Bible, given him years ago by his wife, had remained unopened—unopened until that morning when, as he took it up to remove it to the bookshelves, it opened of its own accord, and his eye had caught the words, "The love of money is the root of all evil."

Down went the book on to the floor. Why had this silent messenger been sent thus to touch him where he felt it most? Yet he saw no warning in the solemn words; he tried not to feel the pricking of the conscience that was not yet quite dead, but had leaped up for a moment into the light of the great and awful truth as it flashed upon the man's unwilling intelligence.

"Well," said he, suddenly recovering himself, "this is the last time that I shall ever see anything in this book."

So saying, he raised the Bible once more (for he had dropped it in the first surprise that the reading of the text had occasioned him), looked at its cover, from which the silver clasp was gone, coldly estimated its money value as simply nothing; then, opening a window, he flung the volume out on to the dust-heap below.

"There," he had said, sullenly, as he closed the window, "that's the last I shall see of you, you printed lie! Catch me ever having another Bible in the house!"

But somehow, after he had left the room, and all through the day, the words had haunted him; and now again, when the shadows of night were about him, the brief sentence rang in his ears like the death knell of all faith and hope, "The love of money is the root of all evil;" and again other words that came to him like an avenging spirit out of the long ago, "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!"

But John Drinkrow would not yield to these memories. With the resolution of a stubborn nature, he strove against them. He did not think of the time when death must overtake him, swift, and silent, and unrelenting; of a future state where he must reap as he had sown; of that eternity whither we can carry nothing, but where the poor and the rich in this world's goods will be as though they were alike.

"No one can reproach me with dishonesty or drunkenness," said John, as he lighted the one meagre candle which he allowed himself, and buttoned his coat that he might not feel the damp chill of the fireless room. "I am better than most of my neighbours; I adulterate the beer less than many men would in my position, and I've never let my place get a bad name. Now that young scamp Ratcliffe is off, the house will be more respectable than ever. Tom will never ruin himself or me. He and I are of one mind in the matter of saving, and a very good mind it is."

Thus, like the Pharisee of our Lord's parable, this hard old man prided himself upon his supposed virtues, and grew yet harder in their contemplation, forgetting that it was the poor publican—broken-hearted, humble, contrite—who went down to his house justified.

Then the miser unlocked his safe and took out his bags of gold and laid them on the table, while into one less full than the rest, he poured the week's gains from a large leathern purse that he had brought up with him. And now his cold eyes began to kindle and to glitter; the unholy passion of avarice—of greed in its meanest form—flushed his wrinkled cheeks, and nerved his hands, and he fingered and counted the yellow heaps before him, whispering, "Mine! All mine!"

And upstairs, in his own room, Tom—true son of a miser—was following his father's example. Stingy as John Drinkrow was, he was obliged to pay Tom a salary for his services, and even a small share of the profits; and Tom's only pleasure consisted in escaping to his room and drawing out of his cashbox the bank-notes and sovereigns he had earned, and to which he was steadily adding.

"Now Ratcliffe is gone," said he to himself, "if anything happens to the old man, all that he leaves will be mine. I don't believe father will ever wish to see him again, but if he should seem as if he wanted him back, I will tell him what I have lately found out; and when he hears that Ratcliffe has been married on the sly, for ever so long, to a girl with no money, or next to none, and that this is what he has been doing with himself—let alone his gay life—the old gent will never forgive him, I'll be bound. And I shall mind it the less telling him all this, because of my having had a fancy for that girl myself once upon a time, and she wouldn't have anything to say to me. Ah! She waited for something better; and now she's got a treasure, and I wish her joy of him. But I owe them both a grudge for this, and I'll pay it some day."

These thoughts, and thoughts like these, were passing through Tom's mind when a loud knock came at his door. Hastily he swept his money into the box, and hid it under the bed; then he went to the door, and, drawing aside the bolt, opened it. To his surprise and horror there stood Ratcliffe, his face pale and haggard, and softened a little with what looked like penitence.

"Oh, Tom!" he said. "I managed to get in with my latch-key because I wanted a word with you—because I felt I must speak to you to-night." Here he paused and repressed the lump in his throat.

But Tom said nothing, and Ratcliffe, mastering his emotion, went on: "Did you hear what passed between father and me, Tom, the other night? I'd been drinking—more fool I!—and emptied my pockets; and then I came to him and asked him for money, and, stupid ass that I was, I said something about the lots of tin he had got put away. I shouldn't have done it, Tom, if I'd been sober, but never was any saying truer than this, 'When the wine's in, the wit's out.' Well, he rose up like a black tempest, and he told me to go. I tried to speak, but he shut me up, and at last, seeing him like this, I did go. But that's a week ago, and I am hoping he may have softened down a bit and changed his mind; and I came to-night, Tom, to ask you whether you would say a good word for me to the governor. You're a child after his own heart (if he's got one to be after), and he'd do a deal for your asking. And think, Tom, we're brothers—you and I—and you're rich, and I'm nigh upon starving, and my poor girl at home the same. Help me a little, just this once, and to-morrow say a good word for me to the old man, and tell him you think, if he will only take me back, that I'll work and be steady. Will you do this for me, Tom, old boy?" And Ratcliffe's eyes moistened in his earnest pleading, and he laid his hand upon his brother's shoulder.

Tom shook it off; not roughly, but coldly. "Look here, Ratcliffe," said he, in that quiet voice of his, which, though so low-toned, had no sweetness or softness in it, "you must know you've brought this on yourself. Your own bad habits have done it all. Now, is it fair that you should come here and beg from me what I've saved by hard work for ever so long, when you've thrown away more than I've got to bless myself with?" And Tom's voice grew yet colder and more metallic as he hardened his heart against his brother's entreaties.

"As for speaking to father, you ought to know how little good that would do you; when he makes up his mind, he never changes, and I should only get into trouble myself if I tried to persuade him to take you back. Besides—think, Ratcliffe—it wouldn't be long before he found out about that marriage of yours, just as I did, and then you'd be as badly off as you are now. No, no; you'd better keep clear of this house—and, for the matter of that, of father and me too. Here's five shillings for your present necessities, but don't you come again."

And Tom, with a mighty effort of will, took two half-crowns out of his pocket, and laid them on the table before his brother. He did not look at him while he did this, or he would have seen the sudden change in Ratcliffe's face—a change from humble, sorrowful penitence to defiant pride and anger.

The prodigal took the two silver coins, drew himself up to his full height, and, with a passionate gesture, flung them into the farthest corner of the room.

"There!" said he, in a husky voice. "We're brothers no more. I came to you for help that one brother might well give another; but I'm not quite crushed yet, and I'd sooner starve—and so would my Nan—than take from your hand the bread that would keep body and soul together after the words you've said to me to-night. Now I'm going; but mark what I say—my mood is changed, and some day you'll repent this night's work. I came here sorry I'd done wrong, and wanting to mend my ways, but you've turned me to flint!"

Tom had risen too, and as the money rolled away against the wall, and, after spinning a moment, lay flat on the floor, he listened intently, as if fearing that the noise would be heard. Then he said, "A little more, Master Ratcliffe, and you'd have had the governor up to see what's the matter. I'm sure I hope the housekeeper hasn't heard the row. Now go, if you 'are' going, and remember that you and I cannot be friends again."

Ratcliffe needed no second injunction; he fixed one look on his brother—a gaze of defiance, resentment, and menace; then he was gone, and Tom breathed freely once more. Hastily he shot home the bolt of his door, picked up the despised half-crowns and returned to his seat—not to reproach himself, but to try to calculate his gains, and to form some idea of the advantages which would come to him from his brother being disinherited.

Alas! That the interests of two immortal souls should be sacrificed to the love of gold! Alas! That the priceless jewel of eternal life, and the joy of Christ's free and blessed service, should be bartered for the tarnishing glitter—the metallic ring—of perishable money! In this one home were two men deliberately choosing the evil and throwing away the good, shutting their hearts against all right influences—love and charity, a forgiving spirit, pity, and sympathy, and bowing down, as it were, with an idolatrous homage, like the Israelites of old at the foot of Mount Horeb, to the golden calf of their hoarded wealth. And this was the "malt that lay in the house that Jack built."

CHAPTER III.

ON leaving his brother's room, Ratcliffe groped his way out of the house by the back door that led into the yard. He carefully locked it behind him, and was about to jump over the gate into the road, when the moon came suddenly from behind a cloud and shone full upon the yard and upon him. Like a guilty thing he shrank from the light, and had already placed one hand upon the top of the gate, when his eye was arrested by a small dark object that lay on the dust-heap in a corner. He made a step forward and picked it up; it was a book. This was all he saw, for the fickle moon retreated again behind the clouds, and all was dark once more, excepting for the flickering light of the lamp farther down the street.

Lightly he sprang over the gate, and, book in hand, made his way into the main road. A sharp walk of half an hour brought him into a side street, and at length to the door of a shabby cottage. He paused here and knocked. The door was instantly opened, and he entered.

"Ah, Nan, here I am, you see!" said the young man, trying to look careless and unconcerned, as he flung himself down into a seat.

But his wife's clear eyes were searchingly, questioningly fixed upon him, and, moving uneasily beneath their gaze, he said at last, "No, my girl; no good! I got in easily enough, thanks to my key and to my knowledge of the sliding panel and inside bolt, but Tom is as hard as a millstone, and won't say a good word for me to father, or help me properly himself. There's no help for it, my poor Nan, we're adrift, sure enough; and there's father and Tom as rich as anything, and won't stretch a hand to help us."

Ratcliffe paused, and looked again at his wife. Her young fair face was turned from him now, turned towards the corner of the room where stood a small trundle bed; and, following her eyes, his own rested on the tiny golden head of his child and hers.

The sight of the little one seemed to rouse him to fresh passion, and he exclaimed,—

"Nan, I went there to-night feeling humbled and sorry. I don't mind telling you this, because you've loved me and been patient with me—but I've come back a worse man than I went, for I believe I've turned as hard as Tom himself. And now I'll go no more to ask him for anything, but I know of something that shall keep us from starving, spite of father and Tom." And the young man's face darkened with a menacing scowl that made his wife shudder as she looked at him.

"Don't go and do anything wicked, dear," she said, gently; "better starve, or go into the workhouse, than commit sin. I wish, Ratcliffe, that you hadn't the burden of me and the child, and then you'd do well enough. I wish I had not let my heart tempt me into marrying you—you'd have been better off." And Nan stole to her husband's side, and softly passed an arm round his neck, pressing her smooth cheek to his.

At another time this loving caress would have touched and soothed him, but now, in his fierce mood, he hardly noticed it. Without a word he sprang up, and crushing his old cap again over his brows, he went out.

Nan looked after him in fear and wonder; then she stooped and picked up the book which he had held mechanically, and had dropped when he rose.

"What can this be?" she said to herself. "Why, how strange! It is a Bible. Where could Ratcliffe have found it?"

Drawing a chair to the table, she opened the book, glancing over some of the pages. They were discoloured and defaced, but most of the print was still legible. On the fly-leaf were the initials E. D., and underneath was written the text, "For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."

As she turned the leaves, her attention was caught by many underlined passages, some of which had been favourite ones of her own, and gradually the familiar words recalled old associations, and she found herself going back in thought to the events of the last few years.

"I wonder what my old priest-uncle would say," she mused, "if he saw me reading this. How angry he was at the idea of my marrying a Protestant. And I remember it was not until I assured him that I did not think Ratcliffe had much religion of any kind that he half consented to my having him. He did not know that at heart I was more than half a Protestant long before Ratcliffe came to court me."

And then there came vividly back to Nancy's recollections, how it was that she had first begun to doubt the faith in which she had been brought up. She remembered walking along the street one Sunday afternoon, and at the corner there was an open-air service going on. As she passed, the preacher was just closing his address, and Nancy, stopping for a moment to listen, had caught the following words:—

"Dear friends, dear fellow-sinners and fellow-sufferers, ye whose hearts are aching with their burden of guilt; ye the darkness of whose souls may be felt, so deep is it; ye whose doubts are honest, and whose helpless hands are ever reaching through the night and striving to grasp at truth, here is a rest for the burdened, a light for the darkened, a solving of all doubt, truth ready to be embraced; for all these are in my text, 'Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.'"

This had set the young girl thinking, and carefully studying a Bible which she bought for the purpose; and, though she said nothing to her uncle, she began to have a new faith and a new hope. Then Ratcliffe had come, and in spite of his wild ways she could not help loving him.

"Ah," sighed she now, as she laid the book down on the table, and began to turn her wedding-ring round and round her finger, "it was not surprising that uncle disapproved of the match, for he is such a staunch Romanist, and so, he says, were my parents; and also, he did not like my marrying into a family of which he knew so little. I remember we had been married some time before Ratcliffe told me that his relatives must not know of his altered circumstances. No wonder uncle was offended then; the idea that his niece was married to a man who would not acknowledge her to his own friends hurt his feelings, and I could not be surprised that he ceased writing to us, and that a coolness sprang up between him and Ratcliffe. And yet all my husband's relations were not quite strangers, for I recollect long ago meeting Tom Drinkrow in my cousin's house near London. It seemed to me at the time as if he rather wanted to make me like him; but one look at that cold, hard face was enough for me, and I soon showed him what I thought. What an age it seems since all this happened, yet it isn't quite four years ago.

"Poor uncle! He had very little satisfaction in either of his nieces, for Sister Susie married a sailor, and left the neighbourhood soon after I came to settle here. She wrote me that he had pretended to be a Roman Catholic just to get her, knowing that uncle would never have allowed his favourite niece to marry him otherwise. He had lived among Romanists in several countries, and knew their ways and the outward forms of their religion, or he could not have deceived uncle as he did. Poor Susie! She died soon after her baby's birth, and the little one only lived a week or two longer. As for her husband—Frank, as we used to call him—I suppose he went back to sea; strange I have never heard of him since: Only four years ago, yet how much has happened since then!" And Nancy glanced round the room till her eye rested on the crib where her child was lying.

She was still living over the past when her husband returned. His passion had given place to a deep sullenness, and he did not explain why he had gone out, or answer a single question that Nan put to him.

He only said in a surly tone, wholly different from that in which he usually addressed her, "Stop chattering, Nan, and get to bed. If you're not tired, I am."

And Nancy obediently did as she was told. She did not soon fall asleep, however; long after Ratcliffe was breathing heavily at her side, she was broad awake, and thinking sadly over the troubles of which their lot was full, and trying to find a way out of them.

At last, however, she was just dropping off into sleep, the tears yet wet on her cheeks, when her husband, turning uneasily in his feverish slumber, muttered with a groan, but in the strange unconscious voice of the sleep-talker, "Hist, don't tell her! Don't tell Nan; she'd never forgive me. But there; I can't see her starve for want of the gold—gold! Oh, those bags! So heavy; dragging me lower, lower still. No, they're not; gold's never too heavy; yes, they are; curse them! I'm going down, down, down to perdition. Save, oh save me!" And the young man awoke with a start and smothered cry, to find his wife's tender face bent over him in fear and anxiety.

"Nothing but a dream, my girl; nothing in the world but a dream!" said he. "Don't be afraid; I shall sleep quieter now."

Nan saw very little of her husband during the next few days, and what she saw caused her a strange, undefined uneasiness. On the evening of the fifth day he went out, saying, as he was about to close the door behind him, "Don't sit up for me, Nan; I've a little bit of business that may keep me late. Go to bed, and I'll let myself in with the key."

"Won't you tell me where you're going?" cried Nancy. "Ratcliffe, dear, do stay one moment and answer me."

But her words did not reach her husband's ear, for he was already gone, and the door was shut between them.

There was no sleep for the wife that night; her heart was full of foreboding fear. It was about three o'clock in the morning when she heard Ratcliffe's step outside the door, and the key turned in the lock.

Springing up at once, she struck a light which flashed full in the young man's face. It was deathly pale, and full of a ghastly expression of blended mental and physical pain.

"I've been in a bit of a row, Nan," he stammered, as he sank into a chair; "and I got a blow and a fall which hurt me a little, and I think I must have broken a blood-vessel, for I've thrown up a lot of blood. Don't look so frightened, child; I'm better now. I'll keep quiet for a day or two, and then I shall be all right." And he smiled a dreadful smile, a conscious, guilty, hopeless kind of smile, which struck terror to the heart of his poor wife.

"For God's sake, my darling," she cried, "tell me where you have been, and what you have done this night! No matter what it is, do tell me." And Nan threw her arms round her husband's neck and clung to him as though her embrace must bring to her a knowledge of the truth.

But he put her away, not roughly, but decidedly, saying, "I am very tired and faint, Nan, and I haven't the strength to talk. Help me to undress and get to bed."

So Nan obeyed without another word, and then lay down herself, her heart heavier than ever, and finding no outlet for its grief save in the plaintive cry of the Psalmist of old, "O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me."

Ah, loving heart of God! Did ever a child of Thine cry to Thee in affliction and pain, and receive no help and comfort? Never, oh never! Blessed be Thy Holy Name!

CHAPTER IV.

GREAT excitement and consternation were prevailing in — Street the next morning.

John Drinkrow had been absent for a couple of nights—called away to the north of England to a dying relative—and during his absence a strange event had taken place.

We might say here that attention to his relations' wishes was not John's invariable habit, but this kinsman was a rich man, and John thought that his presence at the bedside might influence the conditions of the will, and the consequent division of the property. Hence his venturing on a journey which, even by third-class in a cheap train, must have wrung the miser's heart by its expense.

But be this as it may, on the second night of his absence "the house that Jack built" was broken into by a band of practised housebreakers, and, as if guided by instinct, they took their way straight to the miser's strong-room, where, having the proper instruments for the execution of their wicked designs, they had succeeded in forcing open one box and in carrying off a small bag of gold.

They would doubtless have done more mischief, but the noise that they unavoidably made, awoke the old housekeeper, Mrs. Curr, who in her turn roused Tom.

Tom armed himself with a life-preserver, and came down from his room; but the burglars had already caught the alarm, and two of them made off; the third, more venturesome or more greedy than the rest, stayed a moment longer in the miser's room, and was met at the head of the stairs by Tom. The black-masked figure tried to slip by him, but Tom made a rush, and as the burglar tried to gain the stairs, Tom struck at him with his heavy weapon. The blow fell full on the back, between the shoulders, and the robber, what with the pain and shock of the blow, what with the blind haste with which he was trying to escape, fell half way down stairs. To this fall, however, he mainly owed his escape, for Tom, of course, followed in a somewhat less headlong manner, and meanwhile the thief had time to pick himself up and make for the back door by which he had entered. A moment later and his dark form was lost in the shadows of the night.

It would not have been wise to apply to the police, and thus to make public the private affairs of the miser; so Tom and his father—for the latter reached home that day—bore their trouble as they best might, and tried to make their possessions more secure by the fixing of an alarum, and by the addition of several modern appliances for further safety. But the loss the two men had sustained only strengthened still more their passion for hoarding, until at last John Drinkrow grudged himself even the necessaries of life; and Tom, though he grumbled at his father's meanness in the things that touched his own comfort, was almost as penurious in his way.

Poor Mrs. Curr, the housekeeper, had hard work sometimes to provide food for the little household with the meagre allowance supplied her. Since Ratcliffe had gone, John Drinkrow had reduced by one-quarter the money for the expenses, and it was harder than ever to arrange and economise.

For Ratcliffe was gone—gone for good; his father's home would be his no more; and only one of the three people whom he had left behind him at "the house that Jack built" missed him or wanted him back, and this was good Mrs. Curr, the kindest-hearted, most motherly body in the world. She had held her situation in John Drinkrow's family for some years, and had become really attached to Ratcliffe, who, with all his faults, had a warm heart, and seemed to be the only on capable of receiving or giving affection.

Mrs. Curr was not a woman of much education, but she had strong good sense and high principle. And when she found, after the quarrel between father and son, that Ratcliffe returned no more, and that no wonder or anxiety was expressed either by John or Tom, Mrs. Curr became first distressed, then indignant; and she resolved to find out why her favourite had been banished from his home, and whether he were not to come back shortly.

Accordingly, one evening, when she had carried her week's accounts to her master to look over and correct, as was his wont, she did not move away with her usual "Good night, sir," but stood in the doorway, almost filling it up with her portly figure.

John looked up. "What are you waiting for, Mrs. Curr?" said he, sharply. "You've got your money for next week; why don't you go?"

Mrs. Curr cleared her throat. Hers was a throat that required a good deal of clearing at times, and just now the process had an ominous sound.

"Please, sir," said she, at last, "I was jist a-goin' to ask you about Master Ratcliffe, and when you'll be a-expectin' of him home, for his room ought to be cleaned, and I'd be glad to know when we're to hev the pleasure of him back. I wouldn't hev him find his room other than a welcome home, which clean blinds cost but little, and is worth their weight in anything reasonable for the genteel effect they perduces. Why, sir," and Mrs. Curr again cleared that much enduring throat, "in the last situation as I lived in, my missus (which never would I have left her if so be she hadn't died)—my missis, she said to me allers, 'Curr, clean blinds is a mark of "genteelity," and folks as doesn't look after their winder drapery doesn't know what genteelity is, and—'"

"There—there," growled the miser; "hold your noise, Mrs. Curr. Who cares to hear about your mistress's sayings, or your stupid white blinds? Save yourself the trouble and me the expense of having any got up for my son's room, as he's not coming back any more; and listen, Mrs. Curr, I forbid you to mention his name to me again."

The old housekeeper drew herself up, while her cheeks turned the colour of her own cherry cap-ribbons. "Then, sir," she said, in a burst of honest indignation—"then, sir, you ought for to be ashamed of yourself; though, bein' as how I'm a sarvant, it's me that says it as shouldn't; but I can't see you turn agin' your own flesh and blood, and hold my tongue. God help us! Where should we be, I wonder, if our Father that's in heaven treated us as some fathers treat their children! Oh, master, master! I must have my say this once, and then you can send me away if you want to; but if poor Mr. Ratcliffe ain't jist the kind of lad as you wanted him to be, you oughtn't to forget he's been brought up without a mother; nor he wasn't never a child to be drove, but led, which you might have led him anywheres, if so be you'd have loved him. And though I know he's been and acted contrairy, and disobeyed God's command to obey his parents—which it's only one he's got, worse luck—there's a second command, which reads t'other way, 'Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.' And it's discouraged he's been, poor boy, as no one knows better than old Jemima Curr."

As the brave old woman uttered these last words, she cleared her throat once more, and braced herself to meet the thunderbolt of John Drinkrow's indignation, which she thought must fall at once now upon her devoted head. But, much to her amazement, it did not come. John had been astonished at his housekeeper's vehemence, and her fearless way of speaking fairly cowed him for the moment. Besides, he knew her worth from an economical point of view, and he could not afford to quarrel with her yet.

So while she waited, expecting her notice to leave, there was silence. Then the miser looked up, and said, quietly, "If that's all, I'll wish you good night, Mrs. Curr."

"Good night, sir," said the housekeeper, in a tone that showed her amazement, and then she trotted off to her own room, where, after thinking over what had passed, she made up her mind to take the first opportunity she could get of seeking out Ratcliffe, and of showing him by every means in her power that he was not forgotten by at least one of the inmates of "the house that Jack built."

CHAPTER V.

FOR some time Ratcliffe continued very ill; the bleeding from the lungs recurred at intervals, and he was extremely weak. Nor was this his wife's only or greatest source of anxiety. Though unable to do any work, he seemed to have money, which he gave her, a gold piece at a time, when she needed it for household expenses. Once when she ventured to ask how he had become possessed of it, he turned upon her almost fiercely, telling her to hold her tongue and not bother him; but she was very unhappy, for generally Ratcliffe was sullen and silent, sitting in his chair often for hours without speaking, and taking no notice even of his little girl, of whom he had always been devotedly fond. Nancy could see that a heavy burden was resting upon his heart, but she was not permitted to share it, and this was constant pain to her.

Things were in the condition we have described, when one evening a knock came at the door, and Nan, on going to open it, found there a dame with a portly figure and a round, good-humoured face; while a throat cleared itself noisily, and a big hearty voice said—

"Yes; do you want him, ma'am?" said Nancy, gently. "He's not at all well, but I'll tell him who's come, if you'll just give me your name; I dare say he will see you."

"I 'think' he will," replied the old woman, "if you'll have the goodness to tell him that it's Mrs. Curr. He and I was allers good friends."

Nan went to her husband, but returned in a moment, and asked the visitor to come in. Mrs. Curr did so, but when she saw Ratcliffe's pale face and drooping form, she came towards him with both hands outstretched and tears of pity in her kind eyes. He as eagerly rose to meet her, saying—

"Oh, Mrs. Curr, to think you have found me out, and come to see me! You were always my friend, weren't you? And you haven't gone and cast me off like the others, have you?"

"Bless your dear face, no, Master Ratcliffe. How's a body to cast-off a boy which many and many a time I've given you bread and treacle when you was a hungry, growing lad, and your father couldn't abide your eating so much? Ah, my poor lad, that bread and treacle has stuck to me—leastwise the remembrance of it has—and it ain't Jemima Curr as can stop lovin' when she once begins. But la! Master Ratcliffe, it were a tidy job to find you out; nor I don't think I ever should, not if I'd wandered from Dan to Beersheba—as the sayin' is—hadn't it have been for my old friends the greengrocers over the way. They told me you was here, and what was more surprisin', that you'd took upon yourself the state of matrimony; though, for the matter of that, any money 's better than that as your father and brother thinks so much of at home. And besides this, you won't mind my sayin' that I consider your wife a werry promisin' young woman, and speaks that gentle and sweet, as she might be a lady borned and brought up."

A faint smile rested for a moment on the young man's face, but it passed away, not, however, before it was broadly reciprocated on Mrs. Curr's own honest, full-blown countenance. There was a moment's silence, then the old housekeeper began again—

"You're not livin' now, sir, in the 'house that Jack built,' and maybe you haven't heard of the robbery that's been and took place. You'll hardly believe it, sir, but your father's strong-room was broke into, and a bag of gold carried off, and not one of the thieves caught, which three there was. Not but what one of them was as near nabbed as might be, escaping, as you may say, with the skin of his teeth; for Master Tom were after him, and—Bless my soul, Master Ratcliffe, what's the matter? Look here, Mrs. Ratcliffe! Here's your husband took bad; he's a-goin' to faint or somethink like it. Why, what a hinvalid he's become since he left the parential roof!"

Poor Ratcliffe! Apparently the excitement of seeing his old friend had been to much for him. Pale as death, he leant back in his chair, and did not recover for some time. When at last he did so, he turned to Mrs. Curr and said—

"I've been but a poor creature the last few days, but I shall be all right soon, no doubt. And Mrs. Curr, I rely on you not to tell my father and brother where I am, or that you have been to see me. Perhaps you know I was turned out by father, and since then, when I went to ask Tom to plead my cause with the old man, he said he wouldn't. So now they're my father and brother no longer, and I—I—" Here a cough interrupted poor Ratcliffe, and he stopped abruptly.

"Did I hear you say, sir," questioned she, "that you'd been to Master Tom since your father behaved that cruel to you? And did he send you off without trying to make matters smooth? Ain't that a shame, now? A shame it is indeed!"

The old woman's affectionate sympathy brought tears to Ratcliffe's eyes, and he could not trust himself to reply, except by a hearty shake of the hand as she bade him good night. A moment more and she was trundling down the street at her best pace, and in due time she reached home just at the hour when she had to dish up the meagre meal called supper by the miser and his son.

After supper Tom was about to go to the taproom, when the housekeeper said, "May I have a word with you please, Mr. Thomas?"

"Yes, if there are no customers," replied Tom, who was in rather a surly mood, and resented the idea of a conversation with Mrs. Curr, whom he had always detested for her invariable kindness to Ratcliffe.

The housekeeper peeped through the glass door; there happened to be no one at the bar just then.

"If you please, sir," said she, "bein' an old servant, would you hev any objectings to tell me about your brother, Mr. Ratcliffe? I've been waitin' and hopin' to see if anythink would turn up to make peace between him and master, and nothink hasn't been and turned up yet; which the neighbours is all askin' what's got him, and why; and please, sir, what am I to tell them?"

"It may be, sir, as you might hey seen him since he left home, and if so could you—"

But Tom interrupted her with more heat and vehemence than she had ever seen him display. "What's the matter with you to-night?" he exclaimed, rudely. "What have I to do with Ratcliffe? No, I've not set eyes on him since the day he took himself off; how should I when I haven't an idea where he lives? Of course I haven't seen him. What a question!"

This direct lie was too much for poor Mrs. Curr. She almost screamed with excitement; then she blurted out,—

"Mr. Thomas, there's nothink easier than to tell a lie, but it's another thing quite to make folks believe it. Now I happen to know that Master Ratcliffe came to you one night, to ask you to try and make things right with the master, and you wouldn't; and this were the last time you see him."

"And pray how did you hear this wonderful bit of news?" sneered Tom, white with rage. "You've been playing the spy, Mrs. Curr, if I'm not very much mistaken, and, mark my words, you'll suffer for this!"

"Don't you be a-threatenin' me!" said Mrs. Curr, now well on the defensive, and bristling like a porcupine. "But there, you can't do me no harm, except to get me sent off, and I shouldn't cry if I was, which the life here ain't of the pleasantest, more partic'lar since Master Ratcliffe went. And now perwisions is a-gettin' dearer, and I don't hey no more money to pay for 'em, I can hardly make both ends meet. Talk of Mother Hubbard! Why, 'my' cupboard is allers bare, for I never hev a bone as I could ask a respectable dog to haccept of, bein' as how the goodness is inwariable boiled out."

"Is this all you've got to say to me, Mrs. Curr?" asked Tom, coldly. "Because, if so, I can go and attend to my duties."

Mrs. Curr did not reply. She only looked at him, and almost through him, with her indignant eyes, and cleared her throat at him in her most aggressive manner.

This was too much for Tom, and he walked away, muttering to himself, "I'll serve her out for this—I'll lose her the place—worrying old hag that she is. I know what I'll say to my father, and he will turn her away at once. I'll serve her out yet."

CHAPTER VI.

"I'VE got my warning, and I'm to leave this day month," said Mrs. Curr one evening to her old friend, a tradesman's widow, Mrs. Moo by name, with whom she was taking a quiet cup of tea; "and to tell you the truth, my dear, it's some time as I've been expectin' of it, and so it comes quite nat'rel like, but—"

Here Mrs. Curr stopped even in the clearing of her throat, and stared at Mrs. Moo, whose face had suddenly undergone a most wonderful and comical change.

"Oh, my good soul," said Mrs. Moo, "no one ought to know this better than I; I've heard all about it."

"And, pray, how did you hear?" asked Mrs. Curr. "There's no one knows it yet, for I only heard it myself this morning."

"Well, Jemima, I knew it before," replied Mrs. Moo, laughing, and rather red in the face. "The truth is, I'm a-goin' to marry John Drinkrow, and he waited for my answer before giving you warning."

This was news indeed; and Mrs. Curr, with wide-open mouth and eyes, sat for several seconds unable to recover from the shock of this startling intelligence. At last she mastered her surprise sufficiently to blurt out—

"I say, Sairey Ann, you ain't a-goin' into it blindfolded, are you? You're aware as how he's a miser, which Mr. Tom ain't no better; and though young in years, he's the more spitefuller of the two."

"Yes, I know all about it," said Mrs. Moo, recovering her gravity; "but you see, Jemima, I'm very lonely since my old man died, and that's ten years come next Christmas. And then my son is always away at sea, poor lad! And as for John Drinkrow, and his son Tom too, I ain't afraid of them. I never yet saw the man as could come it over me."

"Well," remarked Mrs. Curr, "I've kep' house for them, and Master Ratcliffe that's gone, for many a long year, and I never found as I could make the old man or his eldest son turn one step from anythink as they'd a mind to do; and for skrimpiness, there ain't a family anywhere as can do on what they do; though I say it myself as cooks their wittles, and can't get much of 'em for myself arterwards. Now don't you laugh, Sairey Ann, for it's the truth, as I'm a livin' woman."

"My dear, I know it's the truth," replied Mrs. Moo; "but you won't frighten me. You must remember that you've been a servant at 'the house that Jack built,' while I shall be mistress. I mean to have my own way, and you'll see I shall." And Mrs. Moo took out her pocket-handkerchief and blew her big and rather crooked nose, with a defiant trumpet sound which spoke volumes.

"You see," continued she presently, "it's Tom that's set his father against you, Jemima; I suppose you angered him in some way, and he's as spiteful as a cat; and his father thought, I suppose, that it would be a savin' to have a housekeeper what he'd not have to pay wages to, and so he come to me. Well, we shall see. I remember John Drinkrow as he was years ago, when my old man and him was friends; he wasn't near so bad then, and I don't dislike him now, nor I don't doubt but what I'll be able to manage him, and the house too."

It was not possible that evening to carry the news to Ratcliffe and his wife, but as soon as she was able to go out again for an hour or two, Mrs. Curr set off to pay them a visit. She found Ratcliffe in bed, visibly weaker than he had been before, and terribly depressed. Nancy told her that once or twice he had rallied for a time, and seemed better, but that he changed again for the worse, and never made any real progress.

There was no sign of poverty, however, in the house, and Mrs. Curr, who had brought in her pocket some of her hardly-earned savings to meet any want that might present itself, did not find it necessary to offer help.

After telling the news of her own coming change of circumstances, and of John Drinkrow's proposed marriage, she said, clearing her throat vigorously, "And now, Master and Mrs. Ratcliffe, I am about, as you might say, to be turned out of house and home, and I should like, with your permission, to make a proposition. Will you let your spare room to me, and allow me to lodge here? I've got my savin's, and I'll pay you punctual, and then I can take my turn at anythink there is to do, and I'll try never to get in the way, and—"

"You dear old soul, of course you shall come, and we'll only be too glad," said Ratcliffe, his weary face lighting up as the housekeeper came forward and took his hand.

"And 'I' shall be very glad, too," said Nancy; "only I'm afraid we shan't be very pleasant people to live with, my husband being so ill, and our poor little Maida often fretful, through not being looked after as she ought to be; and I know I'm not the best manager in the world either."

"'Taint jest yet as I shall be wantin' to come," said Mrs. Curr; "my month ain't up for a fortnight yet, and by that time you'll be all right again, I hope."

After a little more conversation, Mrs. Curr took her leave, and Ratcliffe and his wife were left alone. The gloom had settled down again upon the young man's face, and this and its deadly pallor struck terror to the heart of his poor wife.

Each day that had gone by since that night that he had come home ill, had convinced her more and more fully that he had fallen into some great temptation, and received some terrible moral, as well as physical, shock. As she had sat by his side, listening to his laboured breathing, or ministering to his many wants, her heart had gone up in agonised supplication to God—anguished cries for help and light; for it was as if a black cloud rested upon her life, and she could see no sunshine beyond it. Once or twice she took up her Bible and offered to read aloud a few verses, but Ratcliffe stopped her with a sullen "None of that, Nancy," and she was obliged to close the sacred volume and put it out of sight.

Still, dark though these hours of trial seemed, they were, through their very darkness, and loneliness, and anxiety, teaching her to feel for the leading hand of her Heavenly Father, and to look, with ever-growing faith and love, to Him for sympathy and help. And He who sent His only begotten and well-beloved Son to suffer and die for a guilty world, for that Son's sake came near, to strengthen this suffering, struggling woman, whose heart was well-nigh broken with the terrible change that had come over her loved one—loved, oh how tenderly still, in spite of all his faults.

A short time after Mrs. Curr's second visit, Ratcliffe told his wife one day—told her briefly and bluntly—that his money was all gone. "Or at least," he added, "we have only just enough to pay our doctor's account."

To his surprise, however, Nan did not turn pale, or seem much surprised, or at all alarmed. For a long time past the money upon which they had been living had been a painful mystery to her, and, with a woman's penetration, she more than suspected something was wrong. And now, when her husband told her with lowering brow that his stock of gold was at an end, she felt, destitute as they were, as if one weight had been taken from her burdened heart.

"Well, dear," she replied simply, "I must try to get some work to do that will help to keep us; then Mrs. Curr's paying for our front room will be something gained, and I think, as we haven't run into debt, that we may be able to manage till you are about again."

Ratcliffe shook his head despondingly, but said nothing, and the subject was not resumed.

That night there came a low tap at the door, and when Nancy opened it there entered a young man, a year or two older perhaps than her husband, but with a face from which she shrank as from that of some loathsome reptile.

He came in and sat down by Ratcliffe's bed, and looked uneasily round the room, following, with his furtive eyes, first the little girl, who was toddling about and prattling in her pretty childish way, and then fixing his gaze suspiciously upon Nan, who had seated herself at the table, with some fine sewing.

"Nancy, leave this chap and me to ourselves for a quarter of an hour, and take the child with you."

A deeper shadow stole over the young wife's face as she obeyed, and Maida cried as her mother took her up and bore her away.

"Well, Rat., you don't look up to another game yet. That last little excursion 'pears to have done for you. And yet I came to tell you of a rare thing that's afloat, if you could take your part like a man."

"Can't you see what a poor wretch I am?" said he. "I can do nothing but lie here, and curse myself and you and the others. If it hadn't been for that night's work, I should have been a sound man now, instead of lying here coughing my life away."

"But you got your share of what we went in for," urged the stranger, "and that was what you wanted, wasn't it?"

"Hold your tongue," retorted Ratcliffe, "or tell me something I don't know, if you want to talk. What are you going to do, you and the fellows?"

The visitor rose. "No, no," said he, "you ain't a-goin' to join us, so I can't tell you nothin'! No tales allowed out of school, remember. Blabbin's dangerous to any one as isn't in the risk, so I'll wish you good evening." The stranger let himself out, and the air seemed purer for his absence.

"What did that man want, Ratcliffe dear?" asked Nancy, as, having put the child to bed, she began to busy herself with preparations for their simple evening meal. She waited for an answer, but none came, and with a heavy sigh she busied herself with her household duties, feeling that her husband must have terrible reasons for his sullen silence—a silence which he had now maintained upon several subjects for weeks past.

The time of Mrs. Curr's service at "the house that Jack built" had come to an end, and she packed up her things, received her wages, and took her leave, going straight to the house of Ratcliffe and his wife.

"Mr. Ratcliffe, I've giv' up service and I'm a-goin' to rest in my old age; and rest it'll be, if you'll let me take care of you sometimes, and have an eye on that bonny bairn of your'n with her golden head."

Somehow the old woman's genial disposition and genuine affection seemed to do more towards removing the cloud from his brow than anything else, and now he added, more cheerfully than he had spoken for long enough—

"It'll be a great pleasure for both Nan and me to have you here, and we bid you heartily welcome."

So Mrs. Curr took off her bonnet and put on her cap, unpacked her big box and her extended carpet-bag, and arranged to her satisfaction the pieces of furniture she had managed to purchase; and thus established herself in her new home.

And the very next day John Drinkrow brought his new wife home to "the house that Jack built," and in his old age recommenced married life.

CHAPTER VII.

IN spite of the devoted care of his wife and the added attention of Mrs. Curr, Ratcliffe's health grew steadily worse. Yet it was not for want of anything that he had been accustomed to have, for whatever self-denial Nancy felt it right to practise herself, her husband was not allowed to forego anything which had in the past been considered necessary. Early and late the busy little woman toiled. Always clever with her fingers, she had succeeded in obtaining some fancy work to do regularly, and whenever she was not actively employed in household matters, or in actual waiting upon Ratcliffe, her nimble hands would be earning money for the daily expenses.

As for Mrs. Curr, no one could well have been more kind and unselfish. She insisted upon paying a high rent for her room, on the plea that it had "a lively lookout," and was bigger than most of the bedrooms in such houses. Nor did her kindness end here. In a wonderfully delicate manner she would often contrive to provide some little delicacy for the invalid, or cheer him by the gift of a few cut flowers or a fragrant plant; until at last both he and Nancy used to hail with delight the sight of her round face, and even fairly to enjoy the ominous clearing of the throat, which always heralded her approach to their rooms from the upper regions.

One morning the doctor looked more grave than usual as he examined Ratcliffe's lungs. Again and again he applied the stethoscope. At last he said, "My good fellow, it's no use trying to deceive you, your chest is in a very bad state, and a change of air is positively necessary. I should recommend Devonshire if you can get as far, for I think that the air of some parts of that county is specially suited to your case."

Ratcliffe said nothing in reply, but a flush dyed his cheeks, which the medical man did not fail to see, and very wisely he changed the subject and chatted on about other things. Presently Nancy, who had been out of the room with little Maida, came back with a neat packet which she had prepared to give the doctor; it contained the payment in full of the account sent in for his late visits. She kept it in her hand until he rose to go, then, following him to the door, she said, "Please, sir, will you allow me to pay your account now? I think you will find this right. Thank you very much for being so patient with us and so attentive to my husband."

The doctor put back the hand and the parcel together. "No, Mrs. Drinkrow," said he, "I could not think of taking fees from you until your husband has shown more benefit from my treatment. I think that sea air and change of scene are the doctors for him now. Keep this to pay for them. No, not a word of thanks, if you please. Good morning," and the kind-hearted doctor raised his hat as respectfully as though he were saluting one of the high-born or wealthy of the land, and went his way with the music of Nan's trembling words, "God in heaven reward you, sir!" ringing in his ears.

And so it was arranged that with this money Ratcliffe and Nancy should go down to Devon. Father Francis, Nancy's priest-uncle, lived there, and she thought that if he knew the circumstances of the case, he would perhaps allow them, to lodge in his house, which was a comfortable cottage close to the sea, in the outskirts of one of the towns.

Nan accordingly wrote a letter to her uncle—wrote earnestly and humbly—asking this as a favour, and appealing to his love for her in former years, when, being left an orphan, she had lived under his protection. Almost by return of post an answer came granting Nan's petition, and expressing great sympathy for her in her misfortunes.

It was arranged meanwhile for Maida to remain with Mrs. Curr, who was to move into a smaller and cheaper lodging, and there to await the return of Nancy and Ratcliffe.

Our story would grow too long and prosy were we to go into all the details of preparation, or even of the journey. We will only say that the invalid and his wife got safely to their destination, and that Mrs. Curr, after looking in vain in the immediate neighbourhood for a suitable room for herself and the little forlorn maiden under her care, was at last so fortunate as to secure the lodging lately vacated by her friend, the former Mrs. Moo, now Mrs. Drinkrow, of "the house that Jack built."

It was here that, soon after her moving in, she received a visit from the elderly bride, who seemed just as usual, only that her very strong and rather crooked nose had assumed—it appeared to Mrs. Curr—a somewhat more defiant aspect.

Much to Mrs. Curr's delight, "Sairey Ann" was wonderfully taken with little Maida, and the child seemed to return the fancy, and not to have the slightest fear of her new friend and admirer.

"Well, and how do you get on, Sairey Ann?" asked Mrs. Curr, after her friend had fairly rocked little Maida to sleep on her lap.

"Get on?" replied the bride. "Oh, very well; just as I said I should. I saw at first that John was going to try and cut me off short, and I says to him, 'Look here now, John: I've promised to love, honour, and obey you, and so I will, but you've a share of the bargain too, for with all your worldly goods you me endow.' I say, Jemima, you should have seen his face when I out with that! So then he said, 'Well, my dear, what's the least you can do the housekeeping, and your dressing, and all that upon?' And I says, says I, 'The least? Why, John, I'm sorry as you're so badly off; I'd never have married you and added to your expenses if I'd known you was such a poor man, for I've lived comfortable even while I've been a lone widow, and could have gone on so for the rest of my life without incommodin' of you or any one else.'

"So then, Jemima, he were a bit ashamed of hisself; but, bein' pretty tough when he's a mind to, I'm not sure as he'd have given in that time if it hadn't been as Tom came into the room just then, and says he, 'Father, don't you go for to be extravagant in the first days of your married life. Brides is the folks for doing people, as you'll find out; there's no fool so big as an old one.'

"Well, Jemima, whether the fool were meant for me or for his father, I can't tell; but John, he turned round, quite fiery-like, and says he, 'Tom, you wiper! Who wanted your advice? I'll do as I choose in my own house. Here, Sarah Drinkrow, say what you want, and your husband won't ask his son's leave to give it you.'

"So then, without any more fuss, I told him what I thought would be enough to keep the house as it should be kep'; and, says he, 'Why, that's twice as much as Mrs. Curr had.'

"And at that, I laughed, you know, Jemima, remembering our talk. 'Yes,' says I, as soon as I could speak for laughin', 'that's likely; Mrs. Curr is a very good manager; but still from the looks and tempers of both you and Tom, I think you've not been properly fed; and people as isn't fed as they should be, and warmed as they should be, get ill and want the doctor, and the doctor costs more than food and firing, as you'd soon find out.'

"Well, at that, Jemima, John, and Tom too, looked as uncomfortable as may be, and says John, 'Well, Sarah, you ought to know what's right, so I suppose I must give you what you want.' Then, seeing my battle was over, I said no more, and now all goes nice enough, only it's awful dull sometimes, for my friends don't come in to see me as they used to before I married again, and John and his son I never see except at meals. I was askin' about Ratcliffe, the younger son, the other day, wonderin' why I never saw him; but his father said he was gone, and gone for good, and his name wasn't to be mentioned no more. But I thought I'd ask you about him, for I knew you was always a friend of the lad's, and he loved you."

"Oh! That's a sad story," replied Mrs. Curr, clearing her throat and wiping her eyes. "You won't say a word to his father and brother, will you, if I tell it you?" And then, when Mrs. Drinkrow promised silence, the old housekeeper told her Ratcliffe's story, or what she knew of it, including the marriage and the existence of a child.

"Why, this is the child," she concluded, laying her broad hand caressingly on the curly golden head, as the little one lay asleep on Mrs. Drinkrow's lap.

"This is the child!" exclaimed the bride. "Bless me, Jemima, but you are a surprisin' old creature. I made sure as you'd took the little one in for the day to look after, and oblige the mother, and that's why I didn't ask no questions. Sweet little lamb!" And she stooped and kissed the unconscious face. "I'd like to take her home with me; I should never be dull if I had her playing round near me."

"Ay, very likely," responded Mrs. Curr, drily; "but it wouldn't never do for your husband to find out his son's child, partic'lar when he hasn't heard of the marriage."

"No, that's true," said the bride, thoughtfully. "Well, I must come and see her when I can. Why, fancy, Jemima, I'm the little thing's grandmother by marriage! And I've a right to do all for her that I can. My own grandchild only lived a week or two—poor Frank's baby, you know. He married a girl down in Devon, of whom I knew nothing, and she died a year after, and the baby too; the little thing would have been about the age of Maida here."

After some more conversation, Mrs. Drinkrow took her leave, promising to come again very soon and bring some present for the little girl, who had evidently quite fascinated her by her pretty ways.

"Which I must write to Mrs. Ratcliffe, and tell her what I've done," said Mrs. Curr to herself. "I hope there wasn't no harm in telling the whole story to Sairey Ann; she's quite to be trusted, and I did want little Maida here to have another friend. God knows she may want one very soon, and Sairey Ann will be a friend for sure, spite of her crooked nose and her odd ways. My! Didn't she work round that there old miser!"

And Mrs. Curr chuckled and cleared her throat in her intense satisfaction, and then proceeded to put Maida to bed, an operation which was always regarded as a serious matter, and requiring a great deal of care and grave attention.

CHAPTER VIII.

"WILL you please to tell me what you want?" said Mrs. Curr one morning, as she opened the door to a young man in rather disreputable garments, but with the unmistakable look of a sailor both about him and them.

"Well, young man," replied Mrs. Curr, "if I was to say she never did live here, it would be a lie; likewise, one and the same thing if I was to say she lived here now, which she doesn't, nor will, except she turn single again, and that ain't likely."

The stranger frowned. "What do you mean?" said he. "Mrs. Moo turn single again? Why, she's a widow, and has been one for years."

"Humbly begging your pardings," replied Mrs. Curr in her most dignified manner; "she's now neither a widder nor yet Mrs. Moo. Come, it ain't no use beatin' about like this; tell me who you are as wants her, and maybe I'll tell you who she is, and where."

The stranger had removed his cap, and was looking the old woman full in the face. She returned his gaze with a puzzled expression in her eyes, and as she finished her sentence, she cleared her throat in her most emphatic and peculiar manner. No sooner, however, had she done this, than the young man sprang a step forward, and laid his hand on her arm, saying—

"Why, Mrs. Curr, it's you after all! I didn't know you till you made that noise, for all the world like the scraping of a boat's keel on the shore. Don't you know me? I'm Frank Moo!"

"Frank Moo! No, really!" cried the old woman. "To think of your gettin' home at last after bein' so long away. Come in, come and sit down, if you can spare a quarter of an hour; you ought to hear what's happened afore you goes to them as it's happened to."

"And what an age it is since I saw you!" said Frank, taking a seat. "Why, I haven't set eyes on you for years and years. Ah, talk of things happening! I've seen a peck of trouble since we met last. I married a girl down in Devon, and she only lived a year. Poor Susie! Ah, you say mother has told you about it. She didn't like the match because she was a Catholic, but I was in love, and of course mother couldn't prevent it."

"Susie, and a Catholic?" questioned Mrs. Curr, to whom Nan had mentioned her sister, and her sister's marriage, though without giving the name of Susie's husband.

"It were down in Devon, as you say, you met her, Frank?" said the old woman. "Were she the youngest niece of an old priest?"

"Yes; how come you to know that?" asked Frank in his turn. "But, of course, you and my mother are friends, and you may have heard it from her. And now tell me what's come to mother, for bein' at sea, no letter has reached me, and I haven't heard any news."

"Well," replied Mrs. Curr, "your mother has married John Drinkrow, of 'the House that Jack built,' and she seems a-gettin' on all right. If you remember, Frank, I used to be housekeeper there, but one day I up and spoke to Mr. Tom about something as had angered me, and he talked his father into turning me off—out of spite, you know."

"He always was a spiteful fellow," said Frank. "But what's become of t'other chap—the younger brother—they called him Ratcliffe, I think?"

"Ah, poor boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Curr. "He offended his father and got sent about his business, which his father won't have nothin' more to say to him; no, nor his brother won't neither."

"You don't say so!" cried Frank. "What a shame, to be sure! Ah, many and many's the spree we've had together when we were both boys, before I went to sea. How I'd like to see him again!"

"He ain't in London," said Mrs. Curr, suddenly remembering that she must be reserved on the subject of Ratcliffe's whereabouts; "so your seein' him ain't possible. But look here, my lad; you surely ain't a-goin' to your mother in them old clothes, are you? Why, you might be a beggar instead of a well-to-do sailor. You're all tattered and torn. What's come to you?"

"Ah, Mrs. Curr," said he, "all my trouble hasn't cured me of my folly yet. When I came ashore last night, I somehow got among a bad set, and I drank too much, and when I woke up in the morning, I found I'd been robbed of my good clothes as I'd brought with me, and these old ones as I had on were torn and spoilt. The money too that I'd been fool enough to leave in my pockets was all gone; but happily most of my earnings was sewn up in a bag and hung by a string round my neck under my shirt, and they didn't find that. Still, I've lost more than I need have done—if I hadn't been so foolish."

"Which I quite agrees with you," said Mrs. Curr. "But now sit down a moment longer, and let me get a needle and thread, and sew up some of these big rents. Then you'll be a little more respectabler to go to your mother, and see your new father."

So saying, the good woman got out her workbox, and was just sitting down to mend Frank's coat, when little Maida toddled into the room, from the garden where she had been playing. Her checks were flushed, her golden curls fell over her brow, while her innocent blue eyes peeped through them wonderingly at the stranger.

Frank looked round. "Oh you little darling!" he exclaimed. "You sweet, pretty little pet! Who are you?" And he caught the child, took her on his knee, and kissed the round pink cheeks.

"Who is she, Mrs. Curr?" he asked. "She's the dearest little girl I ever saw; she must be about the age my baby boy would have been had he lived. Look up, little one! Bless me, why how like she is to what my wife was. The same golden hair and sweet blue eyes, only this little one's eyebrows and lashes are darker; how very strange!" And glancing at Mrs. Curr's face, he saw an expression there which made him lay his hand on her arm and say, "Tell me, who is this child? Surely there is no harm in my knowing. If it's a secret, I promise not to tell."

"Well!" sighed Mrs. Curr. "If you must know, I suppose you must; she's Nancy's child—Nancy bein' sister to your wife that's gone. Nancy married your old friend Ratcliffe Drinkrow, but John Drinkrow (that's the father, as you know) hasn't heard nothink about it, so don't you let it out, whatever you do. As for Mr. Ratcliffe, he's down in Devon for his health, which it's consumption he's in, I'm certain sure; and his wife she's with him; and I'm a-takin' care of their little one while they're away. And Frank, here's your coat, which the biggest of the slits is cobbled up, and now you'd better go and see your mother. You know your way to 'the House that Jack built' without my tellin' of you. It's that as began you in your wild ways, and 'twas there you got to know Mr. Ratcliffe."

"Yes, I know my way," replied Frank; "good-bye, Mrs. Curr, and thank you. Good-bye, little pet!" And once more the rough sailor stooped and kissed the child.

As Mrs. Curr watched him away from the door, the postman came up and handed in a letter. It was from Nancy, and the old woman hastily retreated into the house, and putting on her spectacles, commenced reading the letter, which began thus—

"DEAR MRS. CURR,—I have been putting off writing to you, hoping to have better news to give; but I think now it is no use waiting any longer. My husband gets worse every day, and his spirits are no better. He hardly talks at all, and he groans and moans in his sleep fit to break one's heart. Uncle is very kind, and so is his servant boy, James Cocks, but all the kindness in the world cannot, I feel sure, save Ratcliffe's life.

"He does not grumble or complain, and the only wish he has expressed since he came down here is to see our little one. Sometimes I think if Maida were here, her pretty ways might cheer up her father a little bit."

   "Here I had to stop writing, for at that moment uncle came in, saying that he had heard my husband sighing to himself as he lay in a half doze,—

   "'Ah, my little one, I want you Maida dear, come, come!'

   "And uncle said—oh! so kindly—'Nancy dear, if Ratcliffe wants the child, why not send for her? Mrs. Curr would bring her, and we'll manage somehow about a room; and listen, Nancy, I will bear the expenses of the journey.'

   "So then, when I had thanked him, I said, 'Well, uncle, I am writing now to Mrs. Curr; am I to say this to her?' and he replied, 'Yes, do!' So, dear Mrs. Curr, come as soon as you can, for every day makes a difference now to my dear husband, and somehow I cannot help feeling as if God would make your coming with our darling a blessing to us all."

A few more lines ended the letter, and Mrs. Curr laid it down, and, hiding her face in her hands, indulged in a hearty fit of sobbing. Then she roused herself, taking herself to task as if she had been another person: "Now, Jemima," she said, "don't go for to be a donkey; your duty's plain, and you must get ready and go to-morrow, you and the little one. And since there's heaps upon heaps to do, 'tain't no use in wastin' time weeping!"

Wiping her eyes, Mrs. Curr first set about writing a letter to Nancy, saying that she would start with Maida the next morning. The letter was a wonderful production as regarded composition, spelling, and writing, but it carried with it such hearty sympathy and love as alone would ensure it a welcome.

By that evening, Mrs. Curr and her little charge were ready for their morrow's journey, and when the morning came they set off, and after a long railway ride, which was pure enjoyment to Maida, if not to Mrs. Curr, they arrived safely at their destination, where they received a hearty welcome.

CHAPTER IX.

LITTLE Maida was like a sunbeam in the home of Father Francis. The old man had quite forgiven Ratcliffe for his former misdemeanours, and for the concealment of his marriage from his own relatives and friends; and now, in his loveless, childless old age, Ratcliffe's little one called forth all the best feelings of his nature. For some time past his health had been too poor to allow of his undertaking any active duty in connection with his religion or profession, but having a little property of his own, he contented himself with such quiet occupations as his little house and garden afforded, varied sometimes by a visit to a neighbouring friend, or a drive in his little chaise to some place of interest within easy distance.

His only servant was a youth, James Cocks by name, whom he had employed in his service from a child. The boy was a staunch Protestant, nor did the priest ever try to influence him against the religion in which he had been brought up; and James, or Jim as he was usually called, repaid his master's kindness with the most devoted care and attention. A thorough Jack-of-all-trades, he united in himself the varied capacities of cook, housemaid, gardener, and coachman, and perhaps a more unselfish, industrious servant never sang and whistled over his work.

Jim was like other people in the fancy that he took to little Maida, only that he showed his affection in a practical way, by trying to add the office of nurse to his numerous avocations.

As for Ratcliffe, the presence of his child brought with it a softening influence which his wife could not but notice with thankful heart. Before he and Nancy had left home, the little one's prattle had sometimes seemed to annoy him, and he had even been impatient with her occasionally, and brought the frightened tears to her wondering blue eyes. But he had now been without her for some time, and had learned to miss and long for the nestling golden head, and the sweet-toned voice of his little maiden; and perhaps, too, as the disease which was slowly stealing away his life, marched on with rapid strides, all the fatherhood in him awoke and clutched instinctively at the treasure which he must so soon leave.

Nor was this the only change visible in the behaviour of the young man. The sullen, dogged expression of his face was fast disappearing, and in its stead had come a sad, yearning, regretful look, which told of dawning repentance.

Once, when his wife came suddenly into his room, she found the little old Bible which he had picked up on the dust-heap, lying on the bed. Ratcliffe had evidently put it down as she entered. Perhaps he was ashamed as yet to be seen reading it. On another occasion, when she had taken up the volume, she had asked him whose initials were the letters E. D., which were written in the fly-leaf, and he had answered, "They stand for Emily Drinkrow, Nancy dear. That was my mother's name; and," he added with a sigh, "she was a real good woman, I believe, and if she'd only lived, I should have been a better man."

Nancy was too wise to pursue the subject, but she welcomed these few words as tokens of the change for which she had so earnestly prayed, and so long waited.

One evening the time had come for Maida to go to bed. It was Sunday, and Nancy was at church, as she had been unable to go out before that day. Mrs. Curr undressed the child, and then told her to say her prayers before going to sleep. But the little one, with the curious obstinacy that children sometimes show, declined, since her mother was out, to say them to any one but her father.

"Baby go dadda!" she kept saying in piteous tones, until at last Mrs. Curr was obliged to take her to Ratcliffe's bedside, and tell him what the child wanted.

"I never did such a thing in my life as hear a child's prayers," said he, glancing anxiously up at Mrs. Curr.

"Never mind, sir," replied she; "which you might do worse than begin now. Chil'en gets nearer heaven with their little prayers than many of us grown ones; and, if it's the pure in heart a sees God, why, the babies must needs see Him, for ain't they the purest?"

Ratcliffe was still hesitating, however, when the little one broke into a wailing cry, and stretched out both her arms to her father, sobbing, "Baby say p'ay'rs to dadda! Please dadda, take baby."

Such entreaty as this Ratcliffe could not resist. With tears in his eyes, he motioned to Mrs. Curr to lift the child on to his bed. She did so, and left the room.

Then Maida knelt, and, with her little hands folded reverently, and her golden head bent, she prayed—

"Dear Desus, b'ess dadda; and mamma, and mate Maidie dood, and mate dadda well, and mamma no k'y, and take us all up high wen us is 'eddy, for Desus died sake, amen."

So the little three-year-old lisped her simple prayer in the hearing of her guilty, sorrowing father, and as she finished, and flung her soft arms round his neck, and laid her rosy cheek against his pale face, wet with tears of shame and remorse, he groaned aloud—

"Oh, my little innocent child, God keep you so, never to be lost, oh, never, like your poor father! Oh, my child, my child!" And he strained little Maida to his breast, and covered her brow and hair with passionate kisses.

As the child raised herself again to a sitting posture, her face had grown grave and thoughtful beyond her years. She gazed with strangely penetrating eyes at her father's suffering countenance; then, putting out her tiny hands and gently stroking his thin cheeks, her lips broke into a sudden smile, as if the child-spirit had seen a way out of the darkness which she felt was about her father. She stooped lower, lower still, till her face was close to that of the sick man; then she murmured in soft, caressing tones, "Desus loves 'oo, Desus does love 'oo, dadda!"

Ratcliffe started as if a new thought had struck him, then sank into a deep reverie. He hardly noticed when Mrs. Curr came and took away the little preacher with her one text. To his inmost heart the words had been spoken, "Jesus loves you!"

In thought he went back to earlier days, to the time when he was a pleasure-loving boy, but before he became wicked and wild. He remembered the sadness that stole over him when he lay down at night, with no words of endearment sounding in his ears, no mother-kiss upon his cheek. Ah! If the words had been but spoken then, "Child, Jesus loves you!"

Then had come the later time; the nights when evil companions began to tempt him, and he yielded; when the excitements and false pleasures of the world were smothering all the better feelings of his nature.

"Surely not even God's love can have followed me since then!" said the stricken man to himself. But, as if in reply, his child's words echoed again in his heart and memory—

At length, unable to bear the strife of his own inner nature, he started up and seized the little old Bible that lay on the table beside his bed. He opened it and turned over some of the leaves. In doing so, he noticed with fresh interest, and a deeper understanding, the underlined passages which Nancy had remarked on the night when he had brought home the book.

Parts of texts, the half of a verse—even a single sentence sometimes bore this mark, and Ratcliffe, with a strange feeling of being brought nearer to his dead mother by the perusal of her much-loved Bible, read such words as these in the fresh light that his child's words had shed—

"When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion." "Now Jesus 'loved' Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you." "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us." "God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

He was still engaged in turning over the discoloured leaves, and reading such passages as we have given, when Father Francis came in.

"Ah, Ratcliffe," said he, "I've come to sit with you a little till Nancy gets home. Is anything the matter, my boy?" For the old man noticed the tearstained cheeks, and the trembling hands that laid the book down.

"No, uncle; I've only been thinking," replied Ratcliffe, with a touch of his old reticent manner; and the priest asked no more questions. But he said to Nancy privately, soon after she reached home—

"Have an eye on your husband, my child, for his mind is very full of something. If he were of my religion, I should recommend him to confess to me that he might have the comfort of absolution, but I can't do that now, I suppose."

"No, uncle, you cannot," replied Nan, gravely. "If he wants to confess, he has a Heavenly Father who is ever ready to hear him, and to grant him absolution through Christ."

"So be it then, child, so be it," said he, "but don't break your own heart meanwhile."

Nancy made no reply, but stole away to her husband's room. He lay in the sort of stupor which took the place of sleep with him, and he seemed unconscious of her entrance; but as she bent over him, she heard him whisper to himself with a half sob—

CHAPTER X.

"IT'S six o'clock, sir, and please here's your shavin' water," said Jim Cocks's cheery voice outside Father Francis's bedroom door one morning.

"Yes, sir; very bad, I believe," replied Jim; "at least, so Mrs. Ratcliffe says, and she do look well-nigh worn out."

Father Francis dressed himself and went to the sick man's room. Ratcliffe was sitting, propped up by pillows, and coughing incessantly. As the priest entered, he just turned his languid eyes, but left his wife to speak for him.

"He has had a very trying night, uncle," said Nancy, "and his cough is troublesome. Will you sit down for a few minutes, the cough will soothe down presently, and then he will be able to speak to you?"

Father Francis took the offered seat, and presently Ratcliffe was able to say, in short, interrupted sentences, "Uncle, I'm sure I haven't long to live; my strength is giving way so fast. I want you to do something for me."

"Anything you like, my dear boy; anything you like," replied Father Francis. "You know there's nothing I wouldn't do for you."

"Then," said Ratcliffe, "would you be so good as to telegraph my father that I'm dying, and that I've something that I must tell him while I have the strength, and ask him to come at once, and—"

"My dear fellow," interrupted the old man, "you really are mistaken, you're not going to die yet. Please God, we shall have you up and about again soon. Don't get low and desponding."

Taking no notice of all this, however, Ratcliffe only said, "Will you telegraph what I ask you, please, uncle?"

"Yes," replied Father Francis; "of course I will, if you really wish it; but I must say I can't see the need of it myself."

And after writing out a message under Ratcliffe's direction, the old man went out on his sad errand.

Ever since his little child's prayer, on the night which we recorded in our last chapter, Ratcliffe had been undergoing a rapid and visible change. Growing weaker in health, he was strengthening in resolution to shake off the trammels of concealment and guilt that had bound him for so long, and to be a free man once more.

In the solemn stillness of the many lonely hours which he and Nancy passed together, he had told her the story of the crime which our readers will not fail to have attributed to him and his evil companions; and together the repentant man and his wife petitioned the throne of grace for pardon through the Redeemer's name and for His sake.

"I am justly punished for my sin," the young man had said, concluding his painful recital. "I met my death at the hand of my own brother while I was robbing my own father; but God is merciful as well as just, for here is another dying thief turning to Christ at the eleventh hour for salvation. Now I know how he felt when he cried, 'Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.'"

There was no more sullenness now; there were no unkind words, no surly looks. The sick man was truly penitent and humble, only saddened at the thought of harm done that could not be repaired, and those estranged who might never be recovered.

As for Nancy, it need scarcely be said how she rejoiced in the blessed change that had come over her husband's heart and life; and while tears often rained down her face at the thought of losing one who had always been dear, and now had grown doubly precious, she thanked God for His great mercy in answering her prayers for his salvation.

And now, leaving the cottage of Father Francis for a short time, we may just glance at "the house that Jack built," and see how the little company there are getting on.

It is the mid-day meal, and four persons are sitting at table—John Drinkrow and his son, Mrs. Drinkrow and her son Frank, the latter no longer tattered and torn, but looking quite respectable. A servant, neatly dressed, brings in the dishes and sets them on the table. The meal, though not at all extravagant, is plentiful and well served. There is a look of comfort, too, about the room; and apparently John Drinkrow, at least, is becoming reconciled to the change, through the quiet persistency of his wife, and the increased comfort of all his surroundings.

Nor had the miser made any great opposition to Frank's remaining in the house for a few days, and occupying Ratcliffe's old room. None, at least, after his wife had replied to his first objections by saying, "Well, John, of course Frank ain't your son, so it ain't a wonder you don't want him. He ain't got many days to spend on shore, and I'll tell him he'd better go to the Jewel and Crown and get a bed there. After all, if he's asked why he don't stay along of his mother, he can say as his mother's sitiwated different now, and her husband can't afford to feed an extra mouth for four days."

As for Tom, he found his stepmother a far more clever and formidable adversary than poor Mrs. Curr had been; and, though he could not but enjoy the greater comfort of home, he grudged more than John himself did, the additional sum spent upon its attainment.

To her husband—excepting in cases where he was obviously in the wrong—Sarah Drinkrow was as obedient and docile a wife as the most exacting husband could desire; but Tom's character was one for which she had a particular dislike; and, though she carefully avoided quarrelling with her stepson, she made him feel that she was a controlling influence in the house, and that she neither liked nor trusted him.

Once or twice of late she had ventured to speak to her husband about his son Ratcliffe, and, by dint of tact and persuasion, got him at last to tell her why he had sent him away.

"There don't seem as if there 'd been quite enough reason for your turning him off sudden like that, John," said she. "It's one thing to punish a lad, or not give him money when he wants it to waste, but it's another to disown your own flesh and blood."

The miser excused himself by saying that his conduct was justified by Ratcliffe's years of wild life and undutiful behaviour; but his wife's words struck a sore spot in his heart notwithstanding.

Of late, the questions of strangers, the parting words of Mrs. Curr, and, above all, the absence of news from Ratcliffe himself, had disturbed him. In vain he tried as before to stifle all feeling, and to become absorbed in his business and his savings. His marriage had introduced a new element into his life, and he found himself continually going, a step at a time, out of his usual groove, while Tom looked on with malicious envy at a change the progress of which he was powerless to resist.

Such, then, was the condition of things as the little party of four sat round the dinner-table, three listening, while Frank, who was a thorough sailor in his love of "yarns" told tales of the sea and of his own experience abroad. He was interrupted, however, by the entrance of the servant with a telegram, which she handed to John. The old man's hand shook as he opened it, and read, but not aloud, the following sentence:—

"From Ratcliffe.—I am dying, and must see you once more. I have something to confess, and must ask pardon. Come quickly." This, with the address, was all.

The paper dropped out of the miser's hand and fluttered to the floor, and the great change in his face showed the genuineness of the shock he had received.

His wife got up from her seat, and, coming round, picked up the paper, read its contents, and placed it on the table, saying, as she laid her hand on her husband's shoulder—

Then Tom also took up the telegram and read it; and, turning to his father, said roughly—

"Surely you won't be so silly as to go, father? This is nothing but a scheme to take you in, and make you receive Ratcliffe home again. I don't believe he's ill a bit. Why should he be?"

Tom's stepmother cast one wrathful look at him, but his father as yet was silent. He sat with his head on his hands, and his elbows on the table. No one could tell that he had heard his wife, or his son, in their conflicting advice. Perhaps he had heard neither. His thoughts were busy—strangely so—considering the time and circumstances, with a train of memories which Ratcliffe's name and the sudden message had called up. Dying! Ratcliffe dying! Could it be possible? After all it was not so very long since they had met. He had said to himself again and again that he had no love for this undutiful son. Then what was it now that hurt him so in the thought that his boy was dying? What a pretty little fellow Ratcliffe had been as a tiny child of two years, sitting on his mother's knee, and playing with his baby toys! What winning ways he had, and what a loving, tender heart!

And so one thing followed another in the old man's mind, till it came to that night when he had refused to hear any excuse or explanation that his son had to offer, and when, by his unmerciful, unfatherly sentence, he had cut him adrift to shift for himself. And not a word had come of tidings from this cast-off child—not a word pleading for forgiveness, not a petition for help. The first news was to be this, this fatal message flashed along the wires, and bearing a blow bitter as death itself to the remorseful father's heart.

The miser got up from the table, and, looking like one in a dream, staggered into the next room, saying as he did so—

"It's nothing but a hoax, father; I assure you it's nothing else. 'They've' tried every other dodge, and now 'they' start this to work on your feelings."

"What do you mean by 'they,' Tom?" said he, now thoroughly roused. "Ratcliffe isn't they."

"No," replied Tom, a cruel pleasure dawning in his face, as now at last he thought he held the key to his brother's final and hopeless disgrace. "No," he repeated, "not he alone, but he and his wife."

"He has been for ever so long," replied Tom; "and there's a child, too. See what a deceitful managing fellow he's been—just the one to take you in now, and make you believe in that absurd dying."

"Oh, John, John!" cried his wife. "Don't listen to Tom; he's always been against his brother. Listen to me, or listen to your own heart, which must feel for your child."

The old man raised his head. He was recovering from the shock, and a little of his own natural perception and acuteness were returning to him.

"And that there is a child," answered Tom, "for I don't suppose 'that's' gone and died too."

"And you knew of this some time ago?" asked John, with a calmness which might well have deceived even a less sanguine man than Tom.

"Yes, sir," replied he, adding, with a hypocritical air, "but of course I could not bear to get my brother into trouble by telling of him."

"How 'very' kind and considerate, to be sure!" said Mrs. Drinkrow, with a toss of her head that would have thrown Tom into the air, had she been an infuriated cow instead of a woman.

"Yes, 'very' kind and considerate," repeated John, with emphasis. Then with a sudden, passionate gesture, which seemed but the natural outlet for a world of pent-up feeling, he cried—

"Do you mean to say, Tom, that, knowing this, you stood by and let me cut the boy off without a shilling, and never said, 'Father, if you do this, his wife and child may starve?' His getting married was foolish, and his hiding it was wrong, but you've done the wickedest thing of all, in not telling me at the right time. Sarah, get my things ready; I'm off to my boy by the next train."

Furious at his unexpected defeat, Tom went away to his duties at the bar, while John walked upstairs, and his wife, while preparing a carpet-bag for the journey, told him such parts of Ratcliffe's story as she had heard from Mrs. Curr, and which she thought might still further soften the father's heart towards his son.

She was still busily arranging things when John said, "Would you like to go with me, wife?"

"Ay, that I should," replied she; "if poor Ratcliffe's so bad, his wife and child will need some help, and at least I needn't be in the way."

That night John Drinkrow and his wife were steaming along in the train, and Tom, after supplying his latest customers with the slow poison they loved, laid his guilty head upon an unquiet pillow, and brooded over the failure of his attempt longer to separate father and son.

It is not our intention in this story to detail the meeting between John and Ratcliffe, or to recount his confession, or the reconciliation that followed.

No one was present as the penitent prodigal met his sad and remorseful father—as the grievous sin was confessed, and the father forgave, and craved forgiveness in the same breath.

But out of that chamber where the shadow of death was already gathering, John Drinkrow stepped a changed man; and the prodigal having made his peace with his earthly father, now rested tranquil and serene in the loving arms of his Father in heaven.

A few more hours and the young man's heart had ceased to beat, and the ransomed spirit had gone home to the God who gave it, to the Saviour who had purchased it.

Nancy was sitting the same evening in the little kitchen, holding her child on her knee, and feeling that but for her she would fain be at rest, as was her beloved husband, when all at once a heavy, but not ungentle, hand was laid upon her shoulder, and a voice said huskily—

"My girl, I've worked no end of trouble and sorrow in your life, and that of my boy that's gone. God forgive me! But now listen, Nancy, and believe I mean what I say. My son's wife must make her home with me, and so long as I've a crust or—no—so long as I've a piece of gold left, you and your child shall share it with me."

A burst of tears was Nancy's only answer, and the child, seeing sorrow and sympathy in the rough face bent over her, put up her golden head, pouted her red lips, and said,—

"Now bless her sweet little heart!" sobbed Mrs. Curr, who came in with Mrs. Drinkrow at that moment. "And God bless you too, master, which you've showed yourself a true father; and the blessing of the widder and the fatherless will be your'n for sure, as safe as my name is Jemima."

Mr. and Mrs. Drinkrow remained in lodgings, close by the good priest's cottage, until after the funeral. Then bidding farewell to Father Francis and Jim Cocks, the whole party journeyed home to their London suburb.

But now came a wonderful change in the condition of "the House that Jack built."

The strong-room was turned into a bath-room, the iron safe was sold, the money invested, and, strangest of all, the tavern was turned into a temperance coffee-house, where everything might be obtained except intoxicating liquors.

Of course nearly the whole neighbourhood prophesied evil about this alteration; but the prophecies were disregarded, the necessary alterations went on, and the business was persevered in.

Tom, however, who was among the loudest of the grumblers, found that no attention was paid to anything he said, and, taking offence at this, he soon told his father that he should look-out for a situation which might suit him better than the new work of "the House that Jack built."

John made no objection to this. Tom's character had grown very distasteful to him, and though he kept faithfully a promise he had made to Ratcliffe, never to tell Tom that he had been the means of his brother's death, yet the fact was not forgotten by the father, and he was not sorry when Tom took himself off, having obtained a situation in a public-house at some distance.

There we leave Thomas Drinkrow, certain that, though he has not received actual punishment for his hardheartedness and deceit, yet that such a heart constitutes its own punishment; and, however vindictively we may feel towards him, we can wish him nothing worse.

As for Mrs. Curr, she took a little room near, and used often to pop in for a chat with "Sairey Ann," or to play with the pet and darling of the house, little Maida, of whom she was increasingly fond.

Our friend Nancy was thankful to work hard, and try to forget her loneliness, in the duties of helping to get and keep a new business; and her sweet face and gentle manner did not a little in the way of attracting customers.

Frank Moo went back to sea, but made occasional visits to his mother when his ship happened to be in port. He was a great favourite with his stepfather, who always gave him a hearty welcome.

And with this summing-up our story comes to a close. Nor need we add any moral, for if characters and incidents convey no lesson, vain indeed will have been our writing, and your perusal, dear readers, of—

IT was night—or at least the time that seems to belong rather to the night than to the day—about two o'clock. A gusty night, too, for August, but not cold; and the moon now and then stole from behind a cloud and shone down upon the mud-flats and low marsh-land, and upon the dark, sullen tidal river that flowed through them, on which, where the stream met the sea, stood the fishing village of Orlmuck.

It was a desolate, solitary scene. Far away, nearer the sea-line, glimmered the light in a coast-guard's cabin, and a few sheep dotted the dark green of the grass here and there; but these did not take from the weirdness of the place, nor break the stillness which the thickening fog made more deathlike.

Suddenly, out of the mists and under the moon, emerged a woman carrying a child in her arms. Her long, black hair streamed out on the wind behind her; her head had no other covering.

The wan light above rested on the pale, wild face and horror-stricken eyes, and the wind itself, as it moaned along the marsh and ruffled the surface of the winding river, might have shuddered at the strange words that she uttered as she flitted along the slimy mud-bank by the water-side.

There was madness in the eager yet shrinking gaze that bent itself upon the sullen depths beneath her. Madness in the passionate kisses which ever and anon she pressed upon the child's cheeks and lips. Wild, despairing madness in the resolute white mouth, with its set teeth.

At length she paused, took off her shawl and folded it round the little boy, looking into his quiet sleeping face with a strange expression of sorrowful love and mad resolve. But now she turned her head away, and gazed steadfastly for a moment or two upon the river, murmuring hurriedly to herself, "He must go! He cannot live without his mother, and deserted by his own father. He must die, and this is the best I can do for him. I shall follow him directly. There, darling, one more kiss, and good-bye!"

So saying, her lips touched his forehead, then she raised him in both arms and, with a low cry, threw him down the bank into the water.

When she had done this, she clapped both hands to her ears and darted away along the river-side as though she dreaded to hear the voice of the little one whom she had left to perish.

Swiftly she passed on to the spot where she intended to end her own wretched life. But we need not follow her, for we have only to do with the child—the poor forsaken babe. In the mother's haste, and in her horror lest she should see the little one's struggles in the water, she had not calculated upon the distance between her and the sullen flow of the river. She had thrown him from her, as we have seen, down the bank; but, as it happened, the tide was ebbing fast, and though where the child fell there was water, it was only a few inches deep, not enough to drown him; and even this in half an hour ebbed away, leaving the deserted little fellow vainly trying to clamber out of the mud.

At last, quite exhausted with his efforts and in vain cries for his mother, he laid his curly head on a stone half buried in the mud, and fell asleep, just as the dawn was throwing open the black gates of night and bringing in a new day.

And with the new day comes a brighter picture for our readers, for as the sun rose, and began to cheer the world, and to gild even the dark mud-flats and light up the murky river, Jael Jones, old Fisher Jones's only child, came from her home for her usual morning run before breakfast. Fisher Jones's cottage stood just outside the village, and not far from the bit of sandy beach strewn with shells, that showed where the river ended and the sea began.

A strange man was Peter Jones—or Bible Jones, as his fellow-fishermen called him from his wonderful knowledge of the Holy Book, and his great love for it. Not that they named him thus in ridicule, however; not a man amongst them would have laughed at him, they respected him far too much for that. But somehow the name of Bible Jones had been given him, and the old man felt it an honour and a privilege, and accepted it as such.

He had married late in life, and had made—at least, so folks said—not the wisest choice in the world.

Mrs. Jones was a good-hearted woman, but she had been in service in what she considered grand families, and had acquired a few notions which had not improved her.

It was reported among the villagers that Peter Jones would never have asked her to be his wife but for one thing, which made him decide in her favour. He had heard, through a friend and fellow-servant of hers, what an industrious, hard-working woman Catherine Gobie was, and how, when she dusted her master's library, her greatest care was to keep from every speck of dust the big Bible used at prayers in the family every night and morning.

"Such a woman," thought Peter, "must be a treasure; for if she thinks so much of the mere cover of the Holy Book, how much more she will value its sacred teachings!" And arguing thus in his honest, simple heart, he went to Catherine Gobie, and offered her his hand, and they were married in a month's time.

Alas! Poor Peter soon discovered that his wife's interest in the Bible did not get much beyond the binding, and also that she had but little sympathy with him in his Christian life, or indeed power to understand his feelings. But when a daughter was born to them, a precious gift of God to his old age, Peter began to feel comforted, and more hopeful. This little one should be early taught out of the Blessed Book; its narratives, its characters, and maxims should form part of her life. He named her Jael in a burst of enthusiastic admiration for the unflinching, courageous patriotism of the wife of Heber the Kenite, though perhaps he would scarcely have chosen (could he have done so) the same sort of character for his child.

As she grew older, his great pleasure was in storing her memory with sacred lore, and in leading her young heart through all the beautiful outer courts of the Old Testament Scripture to the real Holy of Holies where Christ Himself, seen afar off before, now had become known as the Lover and Saviour of men, and—as Jael early believed, and rejoiced to think—of little children too.

And now Jael was nine years old, a light-hearted, loving-natured, impulsive child, yet with every feeling and thought coloured and impressed by the religious training which made part of her life.

It was no want of reverence that caused little Jael to associate Bible characters with the most common scenes and practical incidents of her everyday life.

She had always thought that it must have been on just such a strip of sandy beach as that near Orlmuck that Jesus was walking when He called the fishermen to be His disciples. Every bald head suggested Elisha. A glorious sunset of crimson, fire, and gold gave her solemn thoughts of Elijah and the chariot and horses of fire; and she had all her life imagined that the mantle that fell from the great prophet as he left the earth, and that was the symbol of power to Elisha, must have been just like that black silk mantilla that her mother was married in, and that was only produced now on rare occasions of becoming gravity and importance.

She recalled Solomon, and longed for something of his wisdom as she picked a wild flower which to her was without a name. The village church was the temple; and pretty, pensive Mrs. Williams, taking her boy Johnnie to morning Sunday-school, might have been Hannah of old leading her little Samuel to dedicate him to the temple service.

Two brothers, joiners, who lived at a short distance from Peter's cottage, were just what she had fancied Jacob and Esau to be, and she was hardly four years old when she astonished one of them (a hairy, rough-looking fellow) by asking him if he'd "been naughty and sold his 'birt-right.'"

The blacksmith, the giant of Orlmuck, was another Goliath, only good instead of wicked, and David was represented to Jael's mind by the rosy-checked, fair-haired lad who came now and then on to the green flats to look after the sheep, and occasionally give them a feed of turnips and mangel-wurzel.

Such then were little Jael's associations; but any one who had seen her on this bright August morning, would have felt sure that whatever influence the Bible might have had over her life, at least it was no painful or saddening one, for never was there a sunnier face, nor a step more light, nor a voice more blithe in its joyous, lark-like carolling. And now, as she bounded along the grass by the river, her close-cropped brown waves of hair taking a golden shade from the sun, it would have been hard to find a little maiden happier or more light of heart.

Suddenly her springing step was checked. For one instant the colour left her cheek, then came back in a flood of crimson glow.

There, on the mud-bank at her very feet, partly wrapped in an old shawl, which the sun and wind had not yet dried—there with hair dripping and matted, and poor wee hands scratched with sharp flints and broken shells, and dyed in the black ooze of the river—there, with his little golden head pillowed on a flat stone, lay a child, perhaps two years of age, and fast asleep.

Down on her knees beside him, in a wandering ecstasy, went Jael, and peered into the sleeper's face; but the eyes did not open, and save for the heaving of the tiny chest, she would have thought it was a drowned child, such as the one her father had seen washed up on the beach long years ago.

The little girl's mind and heart were full of mingled thoughts and feelings as she stood looking at her new treasure.

No doubt, she said to herself, God had sent her this child because He knew she had no brothers and sisters. Perhaps He had even worked a miracle as He used to do in the old times, and her heart in its simple faith went out in grateful, childlike thanksgiving. The thought never crossed her mind that the little one could be claimed by any one else; God had guided her to him, and she felt sure that he now belonged to her, and to her only.

"You're my boy, now," she whispered, in tender tones. And lifting the child in her strong, muscular young arms, she carried him back across the flat, towards her home.

He woke up on the way and moaned a little, and she soothed him with gentle caresses like a wee mother.

With a glad face yet solemn eyes, full of a new care and responsibility, she entered the cottage and walked straight up to her father, who sat with his great Bible open, waiting for Jael to come home to prayers.

"See, father, see!" she said. "God has sent me this little boy to love and take care of."

She paused a moment, while old Peter looked over his spectacles at her in speechless wonder. Then she added gravely, in low, clear tones,—

"And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water."

"I say, Peter," remarked Mrs. Jones to her husband that night, "you ain't a-goin' to give in to that child's odd notions, surely? You won't keep the little boy? Jael's that stupid in Bibly stories that I'll be bound she'll think herself a Ethiopian stranger princess next, and bound to save every foundlin' she come across."

"If, Catherine, you mean Pharaoh's daughter, she was 'Egyptian,'" responded Peter, who often had to set his wife right on such subjects.

"Well, Peter, and pray what do it matter?" exclaimed Mrs. Jones, peevishly. "Them outlandish creatures is all alike. To my mind a foundlin's a foundlin', and ought to be give up to the parish."

"I'm loth to do that till I hear something more about the child and how it came there," said Peter, quietly. "Our little maid has no companions, and she seems to have set her heart on this boy, which now he's washed and tidied up, he do seem a sweet little fellow."

"How can you tell, though, what he's sprung from?" remarked Mrs. Jones, severely. "It may be from the lowest of the low. You forget that we're respectable folk, Peter; leastways, though I may be mistook, I've always thought so; and we musn't go for to do anything as ain't becomin' to our respectableness."

Peter looked up. "I'll do nothing, wife," said he, "what 'll get you nor any of us into trouble. But afore we hold our heads so high and think of others being low, let's think of the Master who never once, as I knows on, asked whether a child was respectable born and brought up afore He stretched out His arms and said, 'Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not.' Don't forget, Catherine, that of such is the kingdom of heaven."

"Bible again!" sighed Catherine. "I never see such a man! I believe, if I told you your shirts was wearin' out and would have to be re-fronted, you'd find some reason out of the Bible why I should or why I shouldn't do them."

Peter said nothing to this. His wife's opinions were not new to him, and his forbearance was often severely taxed. If Catherine had but realised that it was from the comfort and teaching of the Holy Book that Peter drew his wonderful patience and gentleness towards herself, perhaps she would have refrained sometimes from nagging at her husband. But she was a woman who had no keen perceptions or delicate feelings, neither was she accustomed to restrain her words. So Peter's lot was not without its trials, and, but for his child, he would have had but little pleasure or satisfaction in his married life.

Jael, however, was a great comfort and blessing. Her fresh young life made him recall the days of his youth; and her quick understanding of the things that interested him most brought her more into sympathy with him than could have been possible otherwise. Child though she was, her faith was hardly more simple than was that of her father, and to him she could pour out her childish thoughts and feelings, sure of being understood and helped.

The next day came the sad news that the body of a woman had been found on the shore a mile beyond Orlmuck, but that no clue had been discovered as to who she was. There was nothing to connect the child with this dead woman, however.

And Peter Jones now felt that whose ever the little boy was, he might keep him at least until he was claimed. So one evening, some little time after, he called Jael to him, and said, "I think, little daughter, we needn't fear now that the child will be taken away from us. He will belong to our family, and mother and father will try to be kind to him and teach him to be good, and I know my little Jael will do the same."

The doubt of being able to keep Moses had not as yet crossed her mind, because she had felt so sure that God had sent him to her. At last she said, "Father, no one but God shall take Moses away from me. If He calls him, I'll let him go, but not to nobody else."

Fisher Jones said no more, and from this time Moses became a member of the family, and Jael's great delight.

Nor Jael's alone. Peter grew to love the sunny little face and golden head that nestled up against his knee when he came in from his fishing and sat down in the chimney corner.

At first the little fellow would cry for his mother in pitiful tones, and shrank from Peter and Catherine; but after a while, he grew reconciled to the faces of the old people, and began to show real affection for Peter. To Jael he took a fancy from the beginning, toddling after her wherever she went, and calling out "Jai! Jai!!" which was the nearest approach he could make to her name, while Jael acted the careful mother to perfection.

One day Mrs. Jones tried the experiment of getting him ready, but she never tried it again. The little fellow did nothing but sob and cry all the time in the most heartbroken way, gasping out, "Jai, tum to Mo! Jai, tum, tum!"

He had accepted his name of Moses at once, and always spoke of himself as Mo or Baby, seeming to know no other. By the neighbours he was called "Old Bible's boy," and the history of his finding made him quite an object of interest to those who would otherwise have taken no notice of him.

Jael had for two years belonged to a day-school at Orlmuck, and as there was a room for infants as well, it was thought best that Mo should become a scholar. Accordingly the two children trudged off together every day across the grass plots to the village, past the very place where the little one had been found. And very proud and happy was Jael when she heard other children saying, as she passed them, "There goes Bible Jones's girl and her boy."

But even the possession of her new treasure was not quite unmixed pleasure for Jael. Mo was the cause sometimes of a deal of anxiety and trouble.

For instance, one day all the children of the boys', girls', and infants' schools had come out into the playground for half an hour's recess, and to eat the luncheon they had brought with them.

The night before, Mrs. Jones had made a small seed-cake for her two little people, and now Jael cut it in half and gave Mo his portion. The little fellow was just beginning to eat the tempting morsel when a boy, rather bigger and older than Jael, walked up to him, and snatching the cake out of his hand, gave him a blow on the side of the head which sent the child staggering up against the fence near which he was standing.

Moses, who did not resemble his illustrious namesake as yet in meekness and patience, set up a howl of indignation and pain, and made a little feeble rush—baby-like—to revenge his wrongs with his tiny fists. But his champion was too quick for him. Jael threw her bit of cake into the child's hands and darted like a little fury upon the boy, her cheeks crimson, her great eyes flashing, while the cowardly bully, astonished and somewhat frightened, retreated to the other side of the ground, hooted and laughed at by all the other boys.

After that Mo was usually pretty safe from insult; still, he always kept as near to his young protectress as he possibly could.

But that night when Jael said her prayers at her father's knee as usual, she amazed him rather by commencing with the words, "Blessed is the Lord which teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight." But his eyes grew moist and glistening when her voice dropped into tones of penitence, and she added in her own simple style, "But, please God, I'm afraid I get too angry, 'cause I scratched as well as hit. But, O Lord, Thou knows why it all was, and how I love little Mo what I pulled out of the mud, and what's too small to fight with Joe Brown himself. And I hope it wasn't no worse than David fightin' the lion and the bear to save the lamb of the flock—'cause Joe's just like a wild beast sometimes; and if he'd had a beard, I'd have took him by it like David—only I'm glad he hadn't, for p'r'aps I'd have slew him, and then I'd have been sorry. But now, please God, let everybody be very good to little Mo, for he hasn't no father nor mother, and he's such a tiny fellow still, and make me very patient and kind, and help me to train him up in the way he should go, for Christ's sake. Amen."

Any one but old Peter would have smiled at this prayer—the outpouring of the full little heart accustomed to tell God everything. But Peter only wiped a tear from his cheek and kissed Jael more tenderly even than usual as she said good night. For the world he would not have checked the innocent confidence of that child-heart—a heart so tender and frank and true, and that realised so vividly the Heavenly Father's presence.

We have seen that Jael was not one of those faultless children whom we sometimes find in books, but rarely, if ever, in real life. We have had occasion to notice that she had a quick, hot temper, which soon rose when provoked.

Very specially she resented any interference in her management of little Moses, or fault found with what concerned them both; and now and then Mrs. Jones was the cause of naughtiness and distress without at all meaning it.

One holiday Jael and Moses were playing together in Jael's room—a tiny place opening out of her father's and mother's apartment, and just big enough for her bed and little Mo's crib, and a wee space on the floor.

A kind carpenter at Orlmuck had made the children a box of blocks, and with these they were very fond of building.

A Noah's Ark, with the box-lid for the bottom, was often launched upon the mighty deluge of the floor boards, with a priceless freight of living creatures in the shape of shells, old cotton-bobbins, and similar cargo. Or a Tower of Babel reared its stately pile against the wall under the window, toppling over at last through some oversight on the part of the little architects and builders.

Jael's and Mo's amusements were nearly all of a grave and Scriptural character—indeed, it seemed as if the little girl was so steeped in Bible stories and their spirit, that whatever she did took the form of something she had read in or heard from the good old Book.

On this day in particular Jael had been telling her little companion, in the simplest words she could command, of the great Moses whose namesake he was, and who led the children of Israel out of dark, cruel Egypt, where they had been so badly treated and made to work so hard. To make things plainer to the child's baby mind, Jael conceived the ingenious plan of illustrating everything with the blocks, and thus, with a big block for Moses, a host of smaller ones for the children of Israel, the dark space under the bed for Egypt, and a large wash-hand basin for the Red Sea, she managed at last to interest Mo in the stirring story of Israel's escape.

But just as she had got to the triumphant landing of the favoured people on the other side, the door opened, and Mrs. Jones appeared.

"Oh, my gracious!" exclaimed the good woman. "What's all this mess for? Really, Jael, you ought to know better than to teach Mo such naughty untidy ways. Get that wash-basin up at once, and put it back in its place."

"Oh, mother, we've got nothing else for the Red Sea!" pleaded poor Jael, who had thoroughly entered into the spirit of the story, and had been gratified with little Mo's evident interest and pleasure.

"'Tisn't for us, it's for the children of Israel," replied Jael, somewhat nettled that her mother could not understand.

"For the children of Israel? What does the child mean?" said Catherine. "Children of Israel, indeed! I think I've enough to do with the children of Peter Jones!"

"Dese b'ocks is til'en of Is'el," lisped little Mo, proudly pointing out the wooden host; "and dere's big Mo."

"What humbug and nonsense!" responded Mrs. Jones. "You tell that child such rubbish, Jael, I'm ashamed of you. A great girl like you ought to know better."

"Mother, mother, 'tisn't true! I never teach Mo nothing naughty. He couldn't understand about the Israelites and all that, so I showed him with the blocks, and told him the story that way, and put a basin for the Red Sea."

"If you're a-goin' for to say to your own mother as she's a liar, Miss Jael, I shall just speak to your father. The idea of tellin' me to my face as I said what wasn't true! Now set to work and clear away them Ishmaelites and that there Dead Sea, and all the nonsense, and give Mo his ball to play with, and you go and get your towels to hem."

"Oh, mother! Mayn't we just finish?" cried Jael. "We'd brought the Israelites to the other side, and the Egyptians are all drowned and dead, and we was going to have the song of triumph."

"You'll sing another sort of song if you say a word more!" said Mrs. Jones, now really vexed, and, taking up the Red Sea, she emptied it and the Egyptians into her pail, the unhappy pursuers being represented by some scraps of blue sugar-loaf paper.

Jael looked up in her mother's face, the colour flashing angrily into her own, and said she, "Father wouldn't have done that! Only you call things naughty that isn't; and you're very unkind, and you set me tasks just like the naughty Egyptians, and you make me to serve with rigour!"

This last sentence came out with grand emphasis. Jael was not very sure of its meaning, but she thought it sounded well, and now, in her passion, she felt inclined to put things as strongly as possible.

The only answer to her rude, angry speech was a box on the ear and a hearty shake, which raised Jael's temper to boiling-point, and sent little Mo into a fit of terror and sobbing, during which Mrs. Jones went out of the room and left the children to themselves.

To do Catherine Jones justice, she was really wishful to do what was right, but she had some set notions, and her want of sympathy with her husband, and understanding of "his" character, prevented her understanding Jael's also.

To go out of the room, however, after the storm we have just described, was about the wisest thing she could have done under the circumstances, for Jael, no longer opposed, came to herself, a process helped somewhat by poor Mo's distress.

"Don't cry, darlin'," whispered the little adopted mother, drawing the frightened child towards her from the corner where he had placed himself with his face to the wall. "Don't cry, Mo; come to Jae." And sitting down on the floor all among the wooden Israelites, she took the little one on to her lap, and, comforting him, forgot in part her own anger and misery.

Mrs. Jones, who had perhaps some few pangs of conscience for having so completely lost her temper, did not come near the children again for the rest of the afternoon, and when Peter returned home about six o'clock he was surprised that neither Jael nor Mo ran, after their usual fashion, to meet him.

"Upstairs somewhere," replied Catherine. "I've been too busy to attend to them these two hours or more."

The old man went to the foot of the staircase and called softly, "Jael, Mo, father's come home."

Then, receiving no answer, and not hearing the patter of their little feet, he went up.

His own door stood open, but Jael's was shut. He opened it noiselessly, and spied his daughter sitting on the floor and leaning against the bed, with Mo in her lap. Both children were fast asleep, and there were traces of tears on each face, showing to Peter's quick eye that there had been a storm of some sort.

Gently he laid his hand on Jael's head, saying, "Tea-time, my girl. Come down and have tea with father."

Then taking little Mo up in his arms, he carried him down, while Jael remained behind to wash the tear-stains from her cheeks.

"Jael," said Peter that night, when the little maiden came to say her prayers at his knee, "what happened to you and Moses this afternoon? Had you been naughty?"

"Tell father all about it," said Peter, in the tender voice that always drew out of Jael's heart all her troubles and their pain.

Then Jael began at the beginning, keeping back none of the truth, and telling all in the simple child-language which is more eloquent, because unconsciously so, than the studied speech of the wisest man.

"You were very wrong, my child," said Peter, as she finished. "It was your duty to do at once what mother wished, even if you saw no harm in your game. Children, obey your parents in all things: you know where that is written, Jael?"

"Then do so before you sleep. You'll rest all the better for God's forgiveness, and hers too. God bless you, my little daughter."

"Mother," said she, penitently, "I was naughty to get so cross with you this afternoon; please forgive me."

Mrs. Jones stooped down and kissed the child. "Forgive you, Jael? Of course I will. Why, bless you, my girl, I lost my temper too, it's only right to say. 'Tain't often as I lay a finger on you, is it, Jael? And I'm sorry I did it, but I was vexed, and didn't stop to think. Forgive me, too, Jael, and then we'll be quits."

If Mrs. Jones had thought for a month, she could not have taken a better method of effacing the unpleasant little episode from the child's mind.

The mother's frank confession that she also had been in the wrong made Jael's generous heart doubly sorry, and she respected the humility that was willing to acknowledge a fault to a child.

Impulsively she threw her arms round Catherine's neck, and a few tears were shed on both sides ere mother and child parted for the night.

Winter had come; the Christmas holidays had begun for Jael and Mo. It was a mild Christmas this year, no frost or snow, only plenty of wind and a glorious wild sea dashing up on the beach all along the coast beyond Orlmuck.

Jael and Mo were two hardy little creatures, and nothing gave them so much pleasure as to race along the shore, at the foot of the cliffs, picking up shells, and now and then a bit of amber, listening to the roar of the sea, and watching its great hoary breakers come rolling in, flinging their white spray in clouds as they broke.

Jael knew about the tides as well as any fisherman on the coast, so there was no danger of the children being caught by the rising water at any time, and Peter never felt uneasy about them. Often they would be out for hours, running about and playing, then coming home with rosy checks and bright eyes, all the rosier and the brighter for the brisk healthful exercise in the strong salt wind.

But one day Jael and Mo had wandered away farther than usual, a long distance beyond Orlmuck, to quite a lonely part of the coast. Jael had heard that there were caves somewhere there, and her curiosity and love of adventure had been strongly excited. It was rather a long walk for Mo, but Jael carried him on her back when he complained of being weary, and now they stood close by the rocky cliff where the caves were said to be.

Poking and peering into all the corners and holes, at last Jael gave a cry of triumph and delight.

And she went a few steps in, leading the child by the hand. But it was rather dark, and Mo was frightened and began to cry, and so, very unwillingly, Jael turned and came out, as the child would not wait for her alone outside. However, it was just as well that she did so, for she found that the tide was rising, and that they would on this account have had but few spare minutes for exploring the cave.

Accordingly they set out towards home. Mo was tired and did not chatter incessantly as usual, and Jael was left very much to her own thoughts.

The discovery of the cave had recalled to her memory all the stories about caves that she had either read or heard, and she longed to know more about the one she had just discovered. Why, the Bible itself spoke of caves! Did not David and his followers hide in caves when pursued by Saul? Did not Obadiah hide those fifty prophets in a cave during the persecutions of weak, wicked Ahab and his cruel wife? Had not her father told her of the people of God in later days, who hid themselves in caves and holes of the earth that there they might worship in their own way?

And, indeed, there were some strange stories told about the caves upon this very coast. Years ago smugglers made use of them for storing their ill-gotten wealth, and not so very long since, some treasure had been found in a cave—treasure which must have belonged to those long dead.

Altogether there was a mysterious interest surrounding caves in general, and it had long been Jael's wish to discover one, penetrate to its darkest corners, and see if she too could not find some treasure which should make the family rich all their lives.

Not that she wanted to be rich so far as she herself was concerned, for she was a contented child enough, and quite satisfied with her lot in life, but she had formed great plans for Moses, and had made up her mind that he must grow up to be a great and clever man, and do some grand work like the leader and lawgiver of old. Of course the little girl was rather misty in her ideas about Mo's future, but she liked to think that her boy was destined for a noble and useful life, and she wished she had plenty of money, so that as he grew older, he might go to good schools, and see the world, and learn a great deal, and fit himself for what might be.

Jael's mind was full of all this as she led the little one home that winter afternoon. They had gone about half the distance, and Jael was just calculating how long it would take for the tide to get up to the foot of the cliff, and whether it would be better to clamber up the sheep-path now, and walk homeward across the downs, or quicken their pace and keep to the shore,—when she saw a man coming towards them.

As he drew nearer, she could see that he was rather tall with very long dark hair and a bushy black beard; but what was visible of his complexion was fair, and his eyes, Jael noticed, were of that bright blue which you sometimes see with golden hair and a very white skin.

As he met the children, he stared at them so hard that Jael wondered. He was quite a stranger to her, and she could not understand why he should look at them so steadfastly. He had hardly gone two steps farther when he came back and overtook them, saying to Jael:

The man did not speak like a common person, and though he was dressed in working-clothes, Jael could not help feeling that he was not in her father's station of life.

"And this little fellow?" questioned the stranger, laying a hand on Mo's head, which was enveloped, cap and all, in a little shawl of Jael's, and showed only a pair of bright eyes and rosy cheeks.

"His name is Moses, sir. We live up there by the river, on the Flats. Father's a fisherman. But, please, sir, we mustn't stand talking, 'cause we've not too much time to get home afore the tide rises, and father will be anxious."

"Yes," said he, "it is coming up fast, and I've a long way to go still. Good-by, little people!" And off he strode, taking the way the children had just come, while Jael and Mo hurried on, managing to pass the last point of cliff before the water reached its foot.

After that, they slackened their speed, and Jael carried Mo for some little distance across the Flats, reaching home just as the short winter twilight was deepening into night.

At tea Jael told her father about the finding of the cave, and also how she and Mo had met a stranger, who had stopped to speak to them, and asked them who they were.

"What sort of a looking man?" questioned Peter, with a look of eager interest, which Jael could not understand.

"Why, a tall man, father, with long black hair and a big beard, and such blue eyes; as blue, I do think, as little Mo's."

"'Dark' hair and beard, you say, little daughter? 'Quite dark?' You're sure it wasn't curly light hair?"

"Oh, a stranger, of course. But strangers 'does' come to Orlmuck sometimes, father."

"Yes, yes, child, of course they does," replied Peter, and there the conversation dropped.

But when the children had gone to bed, Catherine said to her husband, "I say, Peter, what made you so particular about knowing all Jael could tell you of that there man as the chicks met on the sands?"

"Well, the truth is, wife," replied Peter, "they tell me at Orlmuck that the police is on the lookout for a man what is thought to be in hidin' somewhere in this neighbourhood."

"They say he is one of two travellers for a London house of business, and that a while ago—I don't rightly know how—they made away with a lot of money as was to have been paid into the bank. One of them went off and got clear to America, but the other only reached some town about ten miles away from Orlmuck. They tracked him as far as this, but there they lost sight of him. Still they think he can't have got much farther, and certainly not by train anywheres, for all the stations has been telegraphed to, and he'd have been stopped afore now."

"But sure you don't think, Peter, that that there man as the children met on the shore was him? Why, bless me! What he mightn't have done to them!" exclaimed Mrs. Jones.

"The man who would rob his master may yet not be the man' to hurt a child, especially as he couldn't hope to get anything by it," replied he. "But, Catherine, I don't think it was that man at all. The description of this fellow the police is after is that he's fair, very good looking, and gentlemanly, with golden curly hair, and a fair skin and a smooth face; and the party Jael met has dark hair and a great beard. Now ain't it on the face of it as the two men can't be the same?" And Mrs. Jones was obliged to confess that it certainly was.

The children's holidays were in all three weeks, and more than a fortnight was already past. Jael knew that when the vacation was over she should not be able to gratify her great wish to explore the cave she had found. The days were very short now, and as she should always have lessons to prepare after dinner as soon as her holidays were over, the afternoon would be broken into, and she could not get back before dark, much less allow herself any time there for searching the holes and corners of that dark mysterious place.

Again, she had made up her mind not to take Mo. The child had been frightened on the last occasion, and Jael was quite determined not to try him a second time.

So, directly after the early dinner one forenoon, she sallied out with Mo, and took him to a neighbour's near, where he often went to play with a little boy about his own age.

Then, with a box of matches and a piece of candle in her pocket, and her basket on her arm, intended for the carrying of what treasures she might find, away she went, her young nimble feet going dancing along the shore, swifter than the great sea waves that were ebbing and leaving foamy tracks on the yellow sands. Now that she had not Mo to consider, she could go quickly, and a walk of about an hour and a quarter brought her to the cave. She paused at the entrance and listened for a moment before going in, but she heard not a sound. Then in she stole, eager and curious, but not a bit frightened, conscious only of a pleasant mysterious feeling, as though she were on the eve of a discovery.

She made a few steps forward, the light from the entrance being sufficient for her to see her way for a short distance. Another yard or two, and the darkness became such that she could not see an inch before her.

To take out her matches and light her candle was the work of an instant, and holding it above her head, she looked round and saw that she was in a roomy cave, not very high but broad, and apparently extending farther into the rock. The sand under her feet was quite deep and dry, showing that the tide did not penetrate beyond the mouth of the cavern.

And still holding her light aloft, and treading cautiously, she advanced, step by step, till the walls began to narrow, and at last there was no possibility of advancing, except through a hole in the rock, just large enough to admit a full-grown person.

It was not difficult for Jael to scramble through, and as she did so, and looked about her, she found herself in a spacious, vaulted rock-hall, far larger than the adjoining outer cave.

She was moving on to examine a little more carefully her new surroundings, when suddenly her light was blown out from behind, and she felt herself pinioned by a pair of strong arms, while a voice said, sternly, "What are you about here? Speak quick, or it will be the worse for you!"

"I came to see what the cave was like," replied Jael, trying to speak calmly, but with her heart thumping like a steam-engine.

"No one. I found it out myself the other day. I had heard folks say that there was caves along this coast, and I'd always wanted to find one, but I didn't come far last time, 'cause I'd Mo with me, and the tide was risin' beside; so I came by myself to-day to have another try. And please don't hold me so tight, sir, it hurts my arms, and I won't run away if you want to talk to me."

Jael's courage had come back after the momentary shock and surprise. She felt, too, that the grasp on her arm relaxed at once at her request, and now she said, "May I please strike a match and light my candle again? It's very dark here."

There was something in the voice that sounded familiar to Jael, and she was trying to remember where she had heard it, when it flashed upon her all of a sudden.

"Why do you call me sir?" exclaimed the man, leaving go of Jael's arms and going a few paces off into the darkness. "If you remember me at all, you must recollect that I have the dress of a working man."

"Yes, sir, but you don't talk like us common folk," replied Jael; "thy speech betrayeth thee."

The man made no answer to this, but presently, after a pause, he said, "It's cold and damp here, I'll light a little fire now. I don't mind your seeing my face since you know me."

So saying, he passed Jael again in the darkness, and then she suddenly saw him down on his knees in a corner, blowing into flame some sparks that were smouldering among a heap of dry seaweed and driftwood, in a hollow of the rock which served him as a fireplace, while the smoke escaped through a little hole overhead. Fresh wood was added, and in a few minutes the whole blazed up bright and warm, shedding a cheerful glow round the dark cave, and shining full upon the singular face, the long black hair and beard of the stranger.

"He does not look at all happy," said Jael to herself, gazing into his blue eyes, which were heavy and dim to-day, looking almost as though they had been shedding tears.

Forgetting the strangeness of her adventure, she found herself pitying this lonely, mysterious creature, who seemed so sad.

"Why are you looking so steadfastly at me, little Jael?" asked he, after a moment or two, during which the spreading glow had illuminated her earnest face and eager, yet tender, pitiful eyes.

"I was just thinking how miserable you looked," replied Jael. "Surely you haven't been living long in such a place as this?"

There was a sound in the man's throat very like a sob. "Yes," said he, "I 'am' miserable, but it is not on account of living here. It is better for me just now to be alone and quiet till what I have to do is done."

"I think I had better not tell you my story, child; you would not understand it, perhaps, or it would shock you, which would be worse. I am not a good man, Jael, and I have much to make me wretched, and there is no hope for me in this world or the next."

"Oh please, sir, beggin' your pardon, but that can't be!" said the little girl. "Father says there ain't no one who mayn't hope for forgiveness and peace, however naughty he's been; and you knows the Bible says so too, 'cause Christ came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance—that means not the folks as thinks themselves righteous, but the poor ones that feel their sin. And Jesus Himself said, 'I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me,' and of course, as we're all sinners, He meant us all—at least, so father says, and he never says nothing but the truth. But perhaps you know all this?"

The stranger looked up and said, more to himself than to Jael, "Yes; that's what my Emily used to say, or like it. Ah, if I'd only listened to her years ago!"

"I 'had,'" replied the man, "and she was born not far from Orlmuck, as I've often heard her say. We were very happy together at first, but I got into bad company a few years after we were married, and I left her. And I'm afraid I shall never see her nor the little one again, for when I went home to tell her I was sorry, and would never grieve her again, the lodgings were let to other people, and wife and child were gone, no one knew where. A few of the neighbours said that she was quite crazed, and did nothing but talk about getting back to the place where she was born, though the friends there who knew her as a baby were all dead and gone, and she hadn't a relative either. Your little Mo reminded me so of my boy, only my child was very thin and pale, like his mother, though his hair and eyes were like mine."

"Mo's hair isn't a bit like yours," said Jael; "it is golden and curly, and yours is black and straight."

The stranger started, put a hand to his head, then dropped it again and said, "To be sure! To be sure!"

"Because I am suspected of being a thief, Jael," replied the man, "and appearances are terribly against me, and I should perhaps be put in prison if I were found, and then I could not look for my lost wife and child."

"But were you a thief really?" questioned Jael, her face showing that she hoped he was not.

"No; I was foolish, and made a bad man my friend, and was led into all sorts of wickedness. But I did not take the money, or help him do it. But when I found I was likely to be arrested, I ran away and hid myself because I had heard that some one like my wife, with a child in her arms, had a few months ago been seen about Orlmuck, or near it, and I wanted to find out more about them. I knew it might be ever so long before I came upon their track if once the police got hold of me. This cave was known to me years ago, and I thought I should be safer here than in lodgings. I buy a little food now and then in the evening at the smallest shops in the village, and I go about from place to place making inquiries, but no one knows me, and you are the first person that has found me here. If I could only learn what has become of poor Emily and my little Cyril I should be content to give myself up to those who are looking for me, and not hide away as though I were guilty. But there, I did not intend to tell you my story, and yet I have done so. But you are only a child, and not cruel and unjust like the world; may I trust you not to betray me?"

"No, not father, nor any one else," was the reply. "If you cannot keep my secret, I shall feel sorry I told you, and you will oblige me to leave this cave and seek a hiding-place elsewhere, and perhaps I shall be put in prison, and all through you."

"I've never had a secret in my life afore," pleaded poor Jael; "and from father, too! Oh! It'll be too dreadful!"

"I can't help it," replied the stranger, his voice growing hard and harsh. "It was not my fault that you found me out in my hiding-place, and now I will not let you go until you promise me never to breathe a word about me to any one."

As Jael still hesitated, the man's face lowered; his blue eyes looked sternly at her.

"I always do as I say," he added. "Choose between staying here till the next low tide and promising to keep my secret."

But just at that moment there was a strange confusion of noises in the outer cave—talking, shouting, and rapping of sticks against the rocky walls. The stranger started as a bright light gleamed through the narrow entrance to the second chamber.

"Good God!" he exclaimed. "They must have tracked me here after all! Ah, well! It must have come sooner or later."

He drew himself up and walked a step or two as though to meet the new-comers as they came on, seeing the flicker of the fire, the smoke of which rising through the cliff above the cave, had confirmed previous suspicions and revealed the hiding-place.

"Why! This is not our man," exclaimed he, staring at the dark-haired, bearded man before him, and then turning in dismay towards his companions; "this isn't golden curly hair, smooth face, gentlemanly dress and bearing. What mare's-nest have we come upon now?"

But even while the constable spoke, another man advanced from the company. He was a detective police-officer, but in plain clothes.

"We are not mistaken," said he, quietly. "Bid him pull off that hair and beard."

"Nay, if that's all, I'll save him the trouble," replied the constable, and striding up he made a sudden snatch at the dark beard and mass of hair.

To Jael's surprise and horror she saw it come off bodily, and leave, before her astonished eyes, another man behind it. There stood a very handsome but rather youthful-looking fellow, with crisp, short golden curls all over his well-shaped head, and his face fresh-coloured and smooth as a girl's.

The next minute the child sank down on the floor of the cave and buried her face in her hands. She forgot the policeman, she forgot the stranger, she forgot where she was. In that one moment a terrible truth had come upon her like a lightning flash. Child though she was, we have seen that her perceptions were keen, and now she knew—knew as well as though an angel had declared it in her hearing—that her little Mo, the child whom she had found, whom she so loved and cherished, and had prized as God's gift to her, was this man's lost boy. There could be no mistake about it. Even her young eyes could not but see the striking likeness between father and son. The same clear, white skin, the same brilliant blue eyes, the same crisp rings of golden hair.

Jael heard not the talk that passed between the prisoner and his captors. She had been in a dark corner, too, and had been unobserved, and thus unnoticed, and herself seeing nothing, she knew not when the party left the cave, nor heard the noise of their voices and footsteps gradually dying away.

She was fairly crushed, poor child, with the one absorbing thought that her Mo was hers no longer, and would have to be given up to his father.

She sobbed and cried as she considered what it would be to live without him. Never to kiss that dear, sunny little face, never to arrange those silky golden curls, or feel those soft arms round her neck, or hear the little plaintive voice, "Jai, Jai, tum to Mo." Oh, "must" she give him up? Could even his father love him as she did?

And then a temptation, a very real and terrible one for the little girl, presented itself before her. Did any one know of this besides herself? The stranger, when she and Mo had met him upon the sands, had failed to recognise his own child. Need she speak the whole truth? Need she say the words that would separate her from her treasure, perhaps for ever? It lay in her own power, in her own hands, whether to keep or lose him; and after all, she would have to tell no lies. She would only need to keep back the truth—in short, to keep a secret. And yet how could she hide it from her father?—her upright, truthful, God-fearing father, from whom, as she had told the stranger, she had never had a secret in her life? Still, except for her own feelings, it would not be so very difficult. She was not obliged to say where she had been that day, or even if she spoke of the cave, she need not tell Peter whom she had met there, and what had happened in her presence.

The little boy, she reflected, would be no better off if given up to his father, and no one need ever know that the child was his. It was all plain enough; she had nothing to do but keep quiet and let things be as they were.

But Jael's was not a hardened conscience, and though the temptation came before her in glowing colours, like a fair, bright picture, there came also the warning voice which the Great Father puts into every heart to tell of danger at hand and rouse the soul to watchfulness and resistance.

Little Jael knew she was wrong. She felt the force of the temptation, and felt, too, how weak she was, and she did the best thing that she or any other Christian could have done at such a time, for she knelt down and prayed earnestly that God would show her very plainly what was right, and help her to do it. And when the prayer was ended, Jael had resolved what she would do, for she felt that whatever happened, she could not bear to carry about with her a secret such as this, or to keep the truth from that loving, tender father of hers.

Jael's mind was full of strange thoughts as she walked homeward along the beach. She felt as if she were making a great sacrifice for the sake of right. She thought of Abraham, and of his wonderful obedience and faith, and she tried to think that if she imitated his example God would, perhaps, in some way she could not see now, give her back her little Mo.

Jael did not reach home until half-past five, and her father and mother and Mo were seated at tea.

The little fellow held out his arms with a cry of delight as the girl entered, and the sight of his bright, sweet face was too much for poor Jael after all she had gone through. Clasping the child in her arms, as he sat at table in his high chair, she burst out sobbing,—

"How can I let you go, darlin', O darlin'? O my little Mo, my little Mo! God can't be so unkind as to take you away from me."

"Goodness gracious! The child's gone clean out of her mind!" exclaimed Catherine. Then in a sharper, louder voice, "What ails you, ye silly girl? Was there ever a mother bothered with such a only daughter as mine!"

"Hush, wife," said Peter, gently; "there's more in this than we can see yet. Don't let us be the ones to break the bruised reed or quench smoking flax. The child's in trouble. Come to father, Jael, and tell him all about it."

Then Jael, throwing herself into her father's arms, told him the whole story, keeping back nothing, though she was often obliged to stop in the recital, for her tears would flow in spite of her efforts to control them.

But it was some comfort when she finished at last to have her father caress her fondly, and to hear him say, "Bless you, my dear brave little daughter! Even a child is known by his doings, whether they be pure and whether they be right; and God's children need not fear to take all that He sends them, if but they try to know His will and to do it. Seek ye 'first' the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."

"And will He add unto me my little Mo?" questioned Jael, lifting her tearful eyes to Peter's face.

"I don't know, child; but this I 'do' know, that we may safely trust Him to give what is best for you and for us all. The love that withheld not His only begotten and well-beloved Son from death for our sake will surely not keep back any lesser gift that's good for us. Trust Him, Jael! Only trust Him!"

Time went on. The story of Edwin Garston's arrest had been on every one's lips. During his trial, his sad story, too, had come out in the account of why he had hidden himself. Then people put two and two together, and concluded that the dead body found months ago must have been that of poor Emily Garston, who, deserted by her husband as she thought for ever, had lost her senses and destroyed herself.

Of course, the fact of there having been a child lost, too, made every one pretty sure that the little one picked up by Jael and adopted by Bible Jones the fisherman must be the little Cyril, though at the time that the body of the woman was found, there had been no clue to her name, nor anything to make a connecting link between her and the baby.

The trial was over at last, and the prisoner acquitted. Ere this, however, Peter had written to him, and had given him some particulars relative to the finding of the child, and of the prevailing feeling at Orlmuck that the drowned woman was the little fellow's mother.

The first visit that Edwin Garston paid after his release was to the cottage of the fisherman, and one look at father and son together would have convinced anybody of the relationship between them, for little Mo was just the image of the stranger who had been so rudely robbed of his disguise before Jael's astonished eyes in the cave that day. His visit was a sore trial to Jael, for the poor child was in fear and trembling, and could hardly help bursting into tears when the newly-found father took the little fellow in his arms, and called him his own Cyril, all he had left in the world now.

"I'd like to have a few minutes' chat with you, please sir," said Peter, when Edwin Garston had somewhat recovered from the excitement natural to such an occasion as the present. "If you wouldn't mind going outside with me, there's something as would be the better of being settled soon."

Jael never knew just what passed between her father and his visitor, but when they came in again, Peter called her and said, "Jael, my girl, this gentleman wants to begin life again over in America, and it wouldn't be well for him to take the boy so far, and he's been good enough to say as he'll trust him with us for the present till he can make some different arrangements."

We need hardly say that Jael was radiant with delight, and even Catherine was much pleased when she heard that little Mo was to remain at the cottage. Her advice to her husband that evening when Jael came home and told of her adventure in the cave had been to keep it all quiet and say nothing about it, but now she was fain to acknowledge that the straightforward, honest way was the best, and that her husband's study of God's Word had taught him wisdom as well as uprightness.

Before Edwin Garston sailed for America, he called at the cottage one day and asked Jael if she "remembered their talk in the cave?"

"Then you may recollect saying that there was no one who might not hope for forgiveness, because Christ came to call sinners to repentance."

"Your words have never left me. My heart was very despairing and dark, and what you said gave me the first ray of hope and light, and since then I have been reading and praying for myself. Dear little girl, if I become a Christian, it will be by God's mercy in directing you to me, and in so filling your heart with the truths of His Word that you were enabled to impart them to one in such need of help and cheering. I feel very happy in leaving my little son with you, Jael, for, child though you are, you may be taught of God, and in your turn can teach Cyril. May the Great Father, whom I am just learning to know and love, have you both in His holy keeping!"

This was Edwin Garston's farewell visit, and he sailed the day after. It is not our intention to follow him into his new life; let us rather look forward a few years, and tell our readers that when he came back, a prosperous man, it was to find Jael grown into a blooming girl of fourteen, and little Cyril—or Mo, as he preferred to be called—a fine boy of seven, who was getting on splendidly at school, and was still the pride and delight of Jael's heart. Peter and Catherine looked somewhat older, of course, and the latter was a little infirm, but she had improved in character, and the little home was more peaceful and pleasant than ever.

Peter had suffered a good deal of late from rheumatism, and now Edwin insisted upon his giving up his hard work of fisherman—or, as he called it, retiring from business.

"God has prospered me, dear old friend," said the young man when Peter tried to object, "and now you must let me be like a son to you. Whatever I may be permitted to do, I could never repay a tenth of what you have done for me and my boy."

So it was settled that all should live together, and Edwin Garston took a house at some distance from Orlmuck, and near a large town, where there were good schools, and to these he sent both Jael and Cyril. And in the evenings, could you but have looked in at the windows, you might have seen Edwin Garston helping his son with his lessons for next day, and Jael, too, with her earnest face bent over her books.

Old Peter sits in the chimney corner, with his big Bible open on his knee, and Catherine opposite him with her knitting.

Let us lean over old Peter's shoulder and see upon what his eyes are dwelling so intently. Ah! There are the words:

   "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

   "The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

   "The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

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R. K. BURT AND CO., PRINTERS, WINE OFFICE COURT, E.C.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of A child shall lead them

A

CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM:

CHAPTER I.