How It All Came Round

"Charlotte Harman."

It is to be regretted that Charlotte Home by no means received this sweet and loving little note in the spirit in which it was written. Her pale, thin face flushed, and her eyes burnt with an angry light. This burst of excited feeling was but the outcome of all she had undergone mentally since she had left Miss Harman's house a few days ago. She had said then, and truly, that she loved this young lady. The pride, the stately bearing, the very look of open frankness in Charlotte's eyes had warmed and touched her heart. She had not meant to tell to those ears, so unaccustomed to sin and shame, this tale of long-past wrong. It had been in a manner forced from her, and she had seen a flush of perplexity, then of horror, color the cheeks and fill the fine brave eyes. She had come away with her heart sympathies so moved by this girl, so touched, so shocked with what she herself had revealed, that she would almost rather, could her father's money now be hers, relinquish it, than cause any further pain or shame to Charlotte Harman.

She came home and confided what she had done to her husband. It is not too much to say that he was displeased—that he was much hurt. The Charlotte who in her too eagerness for money could so act was scarcely the Charlotte he had pictured to himself as his wife. Charlotte was lowered in the eyes of the unworldly man. But just because her husband was so unworldly, so unpractical, Charlotte's own more everyday nature began to reassert itself. She had really done no harm. She had but told a tale of wrong. Those who committed the wrong were the ones to blame. She, the sufferer—who could put sin at her door? Her sympathy for Charlotte grew less, her sorrow for herself and her children more. She felt more sure than ever that injustice had been committed—that she and her mother had been robbed; she seemed to read the fact in Charlotte Harman's innocent eyes, Charlotte, in spite of herself, even though her own father was the one accused, believed her—agreed with her.

All that night she spent in a sort of feverish dream, in which she saw herself wealthy, her husband happy, her children cared for as they ought to be. The ugly, ugly poverty of her life and her surroundings had all passed away like a dream that is told.

She got up in a state of excitement and expectation, for what might not Charlotte Harman do for her? She would tell the tale to her father, and that father, seeing that his sin was found out, would restore her to her rights. Of course, this must be the natural consequence. Charlotte was not low and mean; she would see that she had her own again. Mrs. Home made no allowance for any subsequent event—for any influence other than her own being brought to bear on the young lady. All that day she watched the post; she watched for the possibility of a visit. Neither letter nor visit came, but Mrs. Home was not discouraged. That day was too soon to hear; she must wait with patience for the morrow.

On the morrow her husband, who had almost forgotten her story, asked her to come and help him in the care of a sick woman at some distance away. Charlotte was a capital sick-nurse, and had often before given similar aid to Mr. Home in parish work.

She went, spent her day away, and returned to find that Charlotte had come—that so far her dream was true. Yes, but only so far, for Charlotte had come, not in shame, but in the plenitude of a generous benefactor. She had come laden with gifts, and had gone away with the hearts of the children and the little maid. Charlotte Home felt a great wave of anger and pain stealing over her heart. In her pain and disappointment she was unjust.

"She is a coward after all. She dare not tell her father. She believes my tale, but she is not brave enough to see justice done to me and mine; so she tries to make up for it; she tries to salve her conscience and bribe me with gifts—gifts and flattery. I will have none of it. My rights—my true and just rights, or nothing! These parcels shall go back unopened to-morrow." She rose from her seat, and put them all tidily away on a side-table. She had scarcely done so before her husband's latch-key was heard in the hall-door. He came in with the weary look which was habitual to his thin face. "Oh, Angus, how badly you do want your tea!" said the poor wife. She was almost alarmed at her husband's pallor, and forgot Charlotte while attending to his comfort.

"What are those parcels, Lottie?" he said, noticing the heaped-up things on the side-table.

"Never mind. Eat your supper first," she said to him.

"I can eat, and yet know what is in them. They give quite a Christmas and festive character to the place. And what is that I see lying on that chair—a new doll for Daisy? Why, has my careful little woman been so extravagant as to buy the child another doll?"

Mr. Home smiled as he spoke. His wife looked at him gravely. She picked up the very pretty doll and laid it with the other parcels on the side-table.

"I will tell you about the parcels and the doll if you wish it," she answered. "Miss Harman called when I was out, and brought cakes, and sweeties, and toys to the children. She also brought those parcels. I do not know what they contain, for I have not opened them. And she left a note for me. I cannot help the sweeties and cakes, for Harold and Daisy have eaten them; but the toys and those parcels shall go back to-morrow."

Mrs. Home looked very proud and defiant as she spoke. Her husband glanced at her face; then, with a slight sigh, he pushed his supper aside.

"No, I am not hungry, dear. I am just a little overtired. May I see Miss Harman's note?"

Charlotte put it at once into his hand.

He read it carefully once—twice. His own spirit was very loving and Christ-like; consequently the real love and true human feeling in the little note touched him.

"Lottie," he said, as he gave it back to his wife, "why do you want to pain that sweet creature?"

Mrs. Home took the note, and flung it into the fire.

"There!" she said, an angry spot on each cheek. "She and hers have injured me and mine. I don't want gifts from her. I want my rights!"

To this burst of excited feeling Mr. Home answered nothing. After a moment or two of silence he rang the bell, and when Anne appeared asked her to take away the tea-things. After this followed an hour of perfect quiet. Mrs. Home took out her great basket of mending. Mr. Home sat still, and apparently idle, by the fire. After a time he left the room to go for a moment to his own. Passing the nursery, he heard a little movement, and, entering softly, saw Harold sitting up in his little cot.

"Father, is that you?" he called through the semi-light.

"Yes, my boy. Is anything the matter? Why are you not asleep?"

"I couldn't, father dear; I'm so longing for to-morrow. I want to blow my new trumpet again, and to see the rest of the brown-paper parcels. Father, do come over to me for a moment."

Mr. Home came, and put his arm round the little neck.

"Did mother tell you that our pretty lady came to-day, and brought such a splendid lot of things?"

"Whose pretty lady, my boy?"

"Ours, father—the lady you, and I, and Daisy, and baby met in the park yesterday. You said it was rude to kiss her, and she did not mind. She gave me dozens and dozens of kisses to-day."

"She was very kind to you," said Mr. Home. Then, bidding the child lie down and sleep, he left him and went on to his own room. He was going to his room with a purpose. That purpose was quickened into intensity by little Harold's words.

That frank, fearless, sweet-looking girl was Miss Harman! That letter was, therefore, not to be wondered at. It was the kind of letter he would have expected such a woman to write. What was the matter with his Lottie?

In his perplexity he knelt down; he remained upon his knees for about ten minutes, then he returned to the little parlor. The answer to his earnest prayer was given to him almost directly. His wife was no longer proud and cold. She looked up the moment he entered, and said,—

"You are angry with me, Angus."

"No, my darling," he answered, "not angry, but very sorry for you."

"You must not be sorry for me. You have anxieties enough. I must not add to them. Not all the Miss Harmans that ever breathe shall bring a cloud between you and me. Angus, may I put out the gas and then sit close to you? You shall talk me out of this feeling, for I do feel bad."

"I will talk all night if it makes you better, my own Lottie. Now, what is troubling you?"

"In the first instance, you don't seem to believe this story about our money."

"I neither believe it, nor the reverse—I simply don't let it trouble me."

"But, Angus, that seems a little hard; for if the money was left to me by my father I ought to have it. Think what a difference it would make to us all—you, and me, and the children?"

"We should be rich instead of poor. It would make that difference, certainly."

"Angus, you talk as if this difference was nothing."

"Nothing! It is not quite nothing; but I confess it does not weigh much with me."

"If not for yourself, it might for the children's sakes; think what a difference money would make to our darlings."

"My dear wife, you quite forgot when speaking so, that they are God's little children as well as ours. He has said that not a sparrow falls without His loving knowledge. Is it likely when that is so, that He will see His children and ours either gain or suffer from such a paltry thing as money?"

"Then you will do nothing to get back our own?"

"If you mean that I will go to law on the chance of our receiving some money which may have been left to us, certainly I will not. The fact is, Lottie—you may think me very eccentric—but I cannot move in this matter. It seems to me to be entirely God's matter, not ours. If Mr. Harman has committed the dreadful sin you impute to him, God must bring it home to him. Before that poor man who for years has hidden such a sin in his heart, and lived such a life before his fellow-men, is fit to go back to the arms of His father, he must suffer dreadfully. I pray, from my heart I pray, that if he committed the sin he may have the suffering, for there is no other road to the Father; but I cannot pray that this awful suffering may be sent to give us a better house, and our children finer clothes, and that richer food may be put on our table."

Mrs. Home was silent for a moment, then she said,—

"Angus, forgive me, I did not look at it in that light."

"No, my dearest, and because I so pity her, if her father really is guilty, I do not want you unnecessarily to pain Miss Harman. You remember my telling you of that fine girl I met in Regent's Park yesterday, the girl who was so kind and nice to our children. I have just been up with Harold, and he tells me that your Miss Harman and his pretty lady are one and the same."

"Is that really so?" answered Mrs. Home. "Yes. I know that Charlotte Harman is very attractive. Did I not tell you, Angus, that she had won my own heart? But I confess when I saw those gifts and read her note I felt angry. I thought after hearing my tale she should have done more. These presents seemed to me in the light of a bribe."

"Charlotte!"

"Ah! I know you are shocked. You cannot see the thing with my eyes; that is how they really looked to me."

"Then, my dear wife, may I give you a piece of advice?"

"That is what I am hungering for, Angus."

"Tell the whole story, as frankly—more frankly than you have told it to me, to God to-night. Lay the whole matter in the loving hands of your Father, then, Charlotte; after so praying, if in the morning you still think Miss Harman was actuated by so mean a spirit, treat her as she deserves. With your own hands deal the punishment to her, send everything back."

Mrs. Home's face flushed very brightly, and she lowered her eyes to prevent her husband seeing the look of shame which filled them. The result of this conversation was the following note written the next morning to Miss Harman.

Yours,
Charlotte Home.

Thus the gifts were kept, and the mother tried to pray away a certain soreness which would remain notwithstanding all her husband's words. She was human after all, however, and Charlotte Harman might have been rewarded had she seen her face the following Sunday morning when she brought her pretty children down to their father to inspect them in their new clothes.

Harold went to church that morning, with his mother, in a very picturesque hat; but no one suspected quite how much it was worth, not even those jealous mothers who saw it and remarked upon it, and wondered who had left Mrs. Home a legacy, for stowed carefully away under the lining was Charlotte Harman's bright, crisp, fifty-pound note.

CHAPTER XX.

Mrs. Home had told her children that she was going to meet their pretty lady, and Harold had begged hard to come too. His mother would have taken him, but he had a cold, and looked heavy, so she started off for her long walk alone. Won by her husband's gentler and more Christ-like spirit, Mrs. Home had written to Miss Harman to propose this meeting; but in agreeing to an interview with her kinswoman she had effected a compromise with her own feelings. She would neither go to her nor ask her to come to the little house in Kentish Town. The fact was she wanted to meet this young woman on some neutral ground. There were certain unwritten, but still most stringent, laws of courtesy which each must observe in her own home to the other. Charlotte Home intended, as she went to meet Miss Harman on this day of early spring, that very plain words indeed should pass between them.

By this it will be seen that she was still very far behind her husband, and that much of a sore and angry sensation was still lingering in her heart.

"Miss Harman will, of course, keep me waiting," she said to herself, as she entered the park, and walked quickly towards the certain part where they had agreed to meet. She gave a slight start therefore, when she saw that young woman slowly pacing up and down, with the very quiet and meditative air of one who had been doing so for some little time. Miss Harman was dressed with almost studied plainness and simplicity. All the rich furs which the children had admired were put away. When she saw Mrs. Home she quickened her slow steps into almost a run of welcome, and clasped her toil-worn and badly gloved hands in both her own.

"How glad I am to see you! You did not hurry, I hope. You are quite out of breath. Why did you walk so fast?"

"I did not walk fast until I saw you under the trees, Miss Harman. I thought I should have time enough, for I imagined I should have to wait for you."

"What an unreasonable thing to suppose of me! I am the idle one, you the busy. No: I respect wives and mothers too much to treat them in that fashion." Miss Harman smiled as she spoke.

Mrs. Home did not outwardly respond to the smile, though the gracious bearing, the loving, sweet face were beginning very slowly to effect a thaw, for some hard little ice lumps in her heart were melting. The immediate effect of this was, however, so strong a desire to cry that, to steel herself against these untimely tears, she became in manner harder than ever.

"And now what shall we do?" said Charlotte Harman. "The carriage is waiting for us at the next gate; shall we go for a drive, or shall we walk about here?"

"I would rather walk here," said Mrs. Home.

"Very well. Charlotte, I am glad to see you. And how are your children?"

"Harold has a cold. The other two are very well."

"I never saw sweeter children in my life. And do you know I met your husband? He and your children both spoke to me in the park. It was the day before I came to your house. Mr. Home gave me a very short sermon to think over. I shall never forget it."

"He saw you and liked you," answered Mrs. Home. "He told me of that meeting."

"And I want another meeting. Such a man as that has never come into my life before. I want to see more of him. Charlotte, why did you propose that we should meet here? Why not in my house, or in yours? I wanted to come to you again. I was much disappointed when I got your note."

"I am sorry to have disappointed you; but I thought it best that we should meet here."

"But why? I don't understand."

"They say that rich people are obtuse. I did not want to see your riches, nor for you to behold the poverty of my land."

"Charlotte!"

"Please don't think me very hard, but I would rather you did not say Charlotte."

"You would rather I did not say Charlotte?"

Two large tears of surprise and pain filled Miss Harman's gray eyes. But such a great flood of weeping was so near the surface with the other woman that she dared not look at her.

"I would rather you did not say Charlotte," she repeated, "for we call those whom we love and are friendly with by their Christian names."

"I thought you loved me. You said so. You can't take back your own words."

"I don't want to. I do love you in my heart. I feel I could love you devotedly; but for all that we can never be friends."

Miss Harman was silent for a moment or two, then she said slowly, but with growing passion in her voice, "Ah! you are thinking of that wretched money. I thought love ranked higher than gold all the world over."

"So it does, or appears to do, for those who all their lives have had plenty; but it is just possible, just possible, I say, that those who are poor, poor enough to know what hunger and cold mean, and have seen their dearest wanting the comforts that money can buy, it is possible that such people may prefer their money rights to the profession of empty love."

"Empty love!" repeated Miss Harman. The words stung her. She was growing angry, and the anger became this stately creature well. With cheeks and eyes both glowing she turned to her companion. "If you and I are not to part at once, and never meet again, there must be very plain words between us. Shall I speak those words?" she asked.

"I came here that our words might be very plain," answered Mrs. Home.

"They shall be," said Charlotte Harman.

They were in a very quiet part of the park. Even the nurses and children were out of sight. Now they ceased walking, and turned and faced each other.

They were both tall, and both the poor and the rich young woman had considerable dignity of bearing; but Charlotte Home was now the composed one. Charlotte Harman felt herself quivering with suppressed anger. Injustice was being dealt out to her, and injustice to the child of affluence and luxury was a new sensation.

"You came to me the other day," she began, "I had never seen you before, never before in all my life ever heard your name. You, however, knew me, and you told me a story. It was a painful and very strange story. It made you not only my very nearest kin, but also made you the victim of a great wrong. The wrong was a large one, and the victim was to be pitied; but the sting of it all lay, to me, not in either of the facts, but in this, that you gave me to understand that he who had dealt you such a blow was—my father. My father, one of the most noble, upright, and righteous of men, you made out to me, to me, his only child, to be no better than a common thief. I did not turn you from my doors for your base words. I pitied you. In spite of myself I liked you; in spite of myself I believed you. You went away, and in the agony of mind which followed during the next few hours I could have gladly fled for ever from the sight of all the wide world. I had been the very happiest of women. You came. You went. I was one of the most miserable. I am engaged to be married, and the man I am engaged to came into the room. I felt guilty before him. I could not raise my eyes to his, for, again I tell you, I believed your tale, and my father's bitter shame was mine. I could not rest. Happen what would I must learn the truth at once. I have an uncle, my father's brother; he must know all. I sent my lover away and went to this uncle. I asked to have an interview with him, and in that interview I told him all you had told to me. He was not surprised. He acknowledged at once the true and real relationship between us; but he also explained away the base doubts you had put into my head. My father, my own beloved father, is all, and more than all, I have ever thought him. He would scorn to be unjust, to rob any one. You have been unfortunate; you have been treated cruelly; but the injustice, the cruelty have been penetrated by one long years now in his grave. In short, your father has been the wicked man, not mine."

Here Mrs. Home tried to speak, but Miss Harman held up her hand.

"You must hear me out," she said. "I am convinced, but I do not expect you to be. After my uncle had done speaking, and I had time to realize all the relief those words of his had given me, I said, still an injustice has been done. We have no right to our wealth while she suffers from such poverty. Be my grandfather's will what it may, we must alter it. We must so act as if he had left money to his youngest child. My uncle agreed with me; perhaps not so fully as I could wish, still he did agree; but he made one proviso. My father is ill, I fear. I fear he is very ill. The one dark cloud hanging over his whole life lay in those years when he was estranged from his own father. To speak of you I must bring back those years to his memory. Any excitement is bad for him now. My uncle said, 'Wait until your father is better, then we will do something for Mrs. Home.' To this I agreed. Was I very unreasonable to agree to this delay for my father's sake?"

Here Charlotte Harman paused and looked straight at her companion. Mrs. Home's full gaze met hers. Again, the innocent candor of the one pair of eyes appealed straight to the heart lying beneath the other. Unconvinced she was still. Still to her, her own story held good: but she was softened, and she held out her hand.

"There is no unreasonableness in you, Charlotte," she said.

"Ah! then you will call me Charlotte?" said the other, her face glowing with delight.

"I call you so now. I won't answer for the future."

"We will accept the pleasant present. I don't fear the future. I shall win your whole heart yet. Now let us drop all disagreeables and talk about those we both love. Charlotte, what a baby you have got! Your baby must be an angel to you."

"All my children are that to me. When I look at them I think God has sent to me three angels to dwell with me."

"Ah! what a happy thought, and what a happy woman. Then your husband, he must be like the archangel Gabriel, so just, so righteous, so noble. I love him already: but I think I should be a little afraid of him. He is so—so very unearthly. Now you, Mrs. Home, let me tell you, are very earthly, very human indeed."

Mrs. Home smiled, for this praise of her best beloved could not but be pleasant to her. She told Miss Harman a little more about her husband and her children, and Miss Harman listened with that appreciation which is the sweetest flattery in the world. After a time she said,—

"I am not going to marry any one the least bit unearthly, but I see you are a model wife, and I want to be likewise. For—did I not tell you?—I am to be married in exactly two months from now."

"Are you really? Are you indeed?"

Was it possible after this piece of confidence for these two young women not to be friends?

Charlotte Home, though so poor, felt suddenly, in experience, in all true womanly knowledge, rich beside her companion. Charlotte Harman, for all her five and twenty years, was but a child beside this earnest wife and mother.

They talked; the one relating her happy experience, the other listening, as though on her wedding-day she was certainly to step into the land of Beulah. It was the old, old story, repeated again, as those two paced up and down in the gray March afternoon. When at last they parted there was no need to say that they were friends.

And yet as she hurried home the poor Charlotte could not help reflecting that whatever her cause she had done nothing for it. Charlotte Harman might be very sweet. It might be impossible not to admire her, to love her, to take her to her heart of hearts. But would that love bring back her just rights? would that help her children by and by? She reached her hall door to find her husband standing there.

"Lottie, where have you been? I waited for you, for I did not like to go out and leave him. Harold is ill, and the doctor has just left."

CHAPTER XXI.

"It is a good thought," said Mrs. Home. "Thank you for suggesting it—I will move him down at once; the bed is well aired, and the sheets are fresh and clean. I will have him moved whenever you can go."

She was leaving the room when Hinton followed her.

"I said nothing about going. I don't mean to. I can have a blanket and sleep on the sofa. I am not going away, Mrs. Home."

"Mr. Hinton, have you no one you care for? Why do you run this risk."

"I have some one I care for very much indeed; but I run no risk. I had scarlet fever long ago. In any case I have no fear of infection. Now I know your husband is out; let me go upstairs and help you bring down the little fellow."

"God bless you," said the wife and mother. Her eyes were beautiful as she raised them to the face of this good Samaritan.

The little patient was moved to the large and comfortable room, and Hinton found himself in the position of good angel to this poor family. He had never supposed himself capable of taking such a post with regard to any one; but the thing seemed thrust upon him. An obvious duty had come into his life, and he never even for the briefest instant dreamed of shirking it. He was a man without physical fear. The hardships of life, the roughing of poverty were not worth a passing thought of annoyance; but there was one little act of self-denial which he must now exercise; and it is to be owned that he felt it with a heart-pang. He had never told Charlotte that he was going to live in the house with Mrs. Home. He had not meant to keep this fact a secret from her, but there was still a soreness over him when he thought of this young woman which prevented her name coming readily to his lips. On this first night in his new abode he sat down to write to his promised wife; but neither now did he give his address, nor tell his landlady's name. He had an obvious reason, however, now for his conduct.

This was what Charlotte received from her lover on the following morning,—

"Ever, my own true love,
"Yours most faithfully,
"John Hinton."

This letter was posted that very night, but Hinton did not put his new address on it; he meant Charlotte now for prudential reasons to write to his chambers. He returned to his lodgings, and for many weary and anxious nights to come shared their watch with Mr. and Mrs. Home. So quietly, so absolutely had this young man stepped into his office, that the father and mother did not think of refusing his services. He was a good nurse, as truly tender-hearted and brave men almost always are. The sick child liked his touch. The knowledge of his presence was pleasant. When nothing else soothed him, he would lie quiet if Hinton held his little hot hand in his.

One evening, opening his bright feverish eyes, he fixed them full on Hinton's face and said slowly and earnestly,—

"I did kiss that pretty lady."

"He means a lady whom he met in the Park; a Miss Harman, who came here and brought him toys," explained Mrs. Home.

"Yes, isn't she a pretty lady?" repeated little Harold.

"Very pretty," answered Hinton, bending low over him.

The child smiled. It was a link between them. He again stole his hand into that of the young man. But as days wore on and the fever did not abate, the little life in that small frame began to grow feeble. From being an impossibility, it grew to be probable, then almost certain, that the little lad must die. Neither father nor mother seemed alive to the coming danger; but Hinton, loving less than they did, was not blinded. He had seen scarlet fever before, he knew something of its treatment; he doubted the proper course having ever been pursued here. One evening he followed the doctor from the sick-room.

"The child is very ill," he said.

"The child is so ill," answered the medical man, "that humanly speaking there is very little hope of his life."

"Good sir!" exclaimed Hinton, shocked at his fears being put into such plain language. "Don't you see that those parents' lives are bound up in the child's, and they know nothing? Why have you told them nothing? Only to-night his mother thought him better."

"The fever is nearly over, and in consequence the real danger beginning; but I dare not tell the mother, she would break down. The father is of different stuff, he would bear it. But there is time enough for the mother to know when all is over."

"I call that cruel. Why don't you get in other advice?"

"My dear sir, they are very poor people. Think of the expense, and it would be of no use, no use whatever."

"Leave the expense to me, and also the chance of its doing any good. I should never have an easy moment if I let that little lad die without having done all in my power. Two heads are better than one. Do you object to consulting with Dr. H——?"

"By no means, Mr. Hinton. He is a noted authority on such cases."

"Then be here in an hour from now, doctor, and you shall meet him."

Away flew Hinton, and within the specified time the great authority on such cases was standing by little Harold's bedside.

"The fever is over, but the child is sinking from exhaustion. Give him a glass of champagne instantly," were the first directions given by the great man.

Hinton returned with a bottle of the best his money could purchase in ten minutes.

A tablespoonful was given to the child. He opened his eyes and seemed revived.

"Ah! that is good. I will stay with the little fellow to-night," said Dr. H——. "You, madam," he added, looking at Mrs. Home, "are to go to bed. On no other condition do I stay."

Hinton and Dr. H—— shared that night's watch between them, and in the morning the little life was pronounced safe.

CHAPTER XXII.

Then with a smile which an angel might have given him, the mother went away, and Hinton sat down to write to Charlotte. But he was much moved and excited by those earnest words of love and approval. He felt as though a laurel wreath had been placed on his head, and he wondered would his first brief, his first sense of legal triumph, be sweeter to him than the look in that mother's face this morning.

"And it was so easily won," he said to himself. "For who but a brute under the circumstances could have acted otherwise?"

In writing to Charlotte he told her all. It was a relief to pour out his heart to her, though of course he carefully kept back names.

By return of post he received her answer.

"I must do something for that mother. You will not let me come to her. But if I cannot and must not come, I can at least help with money. How much money shall I send you?"

To this Hinton answered,—

"None. She is a proud woman. She would not accept it."

As he put this second letter in the post, he felt that any money gift between these two Charlottes would be impossible. During little Harold's illness he had put away all thoughts of the possibility of Mrs. Home being entitled to any of his Charlotte's wealth. The near and likely approach of death had put far from his mind all ideas of money. But now, with the return of the usual routine of life in this small and humble house, came back to Hinton's mind the thoughts which had so sorely troubled him on the night on which Charlotte had told him Mrs. Home's story. For his own personal convenience and benefit he had put away these thoughts. He had decided that he could not move hand or foot in the matter. But in the very house with this woman, though he might so resolve not to act, he could not put the sense of the injustice done to her away from his heart. He pondered on it and grew uneasy as to the righteousness of his own conduct. As this uneasiness gathered strength, he even avoided Mrs. Home's presence. For the first time, too, in his life Hinton was beginning to realize what a very ugly thing poverty—particularly the poverty of the upper classes—really is. To make things easier for this family in their time of illness, he had insisted on having what meals he took in the house, in the room with Mr. and Mrs. Home. He would not, now that Harold was better, change this custom. But though he liked it, it brought him into direct contact with the small shifts necessary to make so slender a purse as their's cover their necessary expenses. Mr. Home noticed nothing; but Mrs. Home's thin face grew more and more worn, and Hinton's heart ached as he watched it. He felt more and more compunctions as to his own conduct. These feelings were to be quickened into activity by a very natural consequence which occurred just then.

Little Harold's life was spared, and neither Daisy nor the baby had taken the fever. So far all was well. Doctor H——, too, had ceased his visits, and the little invalid was left to the care of the first doctor who had been called in. Yes, up to a certain point Harold's progress towards recovery was all that could be satisfactory. But beyond that point he did not go. For a fortnight after the fever left him his progress towards recovery was rapid. Then came the sudden standstill. His appetite failed him, a cough came on, and a hectic flush in the pale little face. The child was pining for a change of air, and the father's and mother's purse had been already drained almost to emptiness by the expenses of the first illness. One day when Doctor Watson came and felt the feeble, too rapid pulse he looked grave. Mrs. Home followed him from the room.

"What ails my boy, doctor? He is making no progress, none whatever."

"Does he sleep enough?" asked Doctor Watson suddenly.

"Not well; he coughs and is restless."

"Ah! I am sorry he has got that cough. How is his appetite?"

"He does not fancy much food. He has quite turned against his beef-tea."

Doctor Watson was silent.

"What is wrong?" asked Mrs. Home, coming nearer and looking up into his face.

"Madam, there is nothing to alarm yourself with. Your boy has gone through a most severe illness; the natural consequences must follow. He wants change. He will be fit to travel by easy stages in a week at latest. I should recommend Torquay. It is mild and shielded from the spring east winds. Take him to Torquay as soon as possible. Keep him there for a month, and he will return quite well."

"Suppose I cannot?"

"Ah! then——" with an expressive shrug of the shoulders and raising of the brows, "my advice is to take him if possible. I don't like that cough."

Doctor Watson turned away. He felt sorry enough, but he had more acute cases than little Harold Home's to trouble him, and he wisely resolved that to think about what could not be remedied, would but injure his own powers of working. Being a really kind-hearted man he said to himself, "I will make their bill as light as I can when I send it in." And then he forgot the poor curate's family until the time came round for his next visit. Meanwhile Mrs. Home stood still for a moment where he had left her, then went slowly to her own room.

"Mother, mother, I want you," called the weak, querulous voice of the sick child.

"Coming in a moment, darling," she said. But for that one moment, she felt she must be alone.

Locking her door she went down on her knees. Not a tear came to her eyes, not a word to her lips. There was an inward groan, expressing itself in some voiceless manner after this fashion,—

"My God, my God, must I go through the fiery furnace?" Then smoothing her hair, and forcing a smile back to her lips, she went back to her little son.

All that afternoon she sat with him, singing to him, telling him stories, playing with him. In the evening, however, she sought an opportunity to speak to her husband alone.

"Angus, you know how nearly we lost our boy a week ago?"

The curate paused, and looked at her earnestly, surprised at her look and manner.

"Yes, my dearest," he said. "But God was merciful."

"Oh! Angus," she said; and now relief came to her, for as she spoke she began to weep. "You are good, you are brave, you could have let him go. But for me—for me—it would have killed me. I should have died or gone mad!"

"Lottie dear—my darling, you are over-strung. The trial, the fiery trial, was not sent. Why dwell on what our loving Father has averted?"

"Oh, Angus! but has He—has He," then choking with pent-up emotion, she told what the doctor had said to-day, how necessary the expensive change was for the little life. "And we have no money," she said in conclusion, "our purse is very nearly empty."

"Very nearly empty indeed," answered Angus Home.

He was absolutely silent after this news, no longer attempting to comfort his wife.

"Angus, God is cruel if for the sake of wanting a little money our boy must die."

"Don't," said the curate—God was so precious to him that these words smote on him even now with a sense of agony—"don't," he repeated, and he raised his hand as though to motion away an evil spirit.

"He is cruel if He lets our boy die for want of money to save him," repeated the mother in her desperation.

"He won't do that, Lottie—He will never do that, there is not the least fear."

"Then how are we to get the money?"

"I don't know, I cannot think to-night. I will go up to Harold now."

He turned and left the room with slow steps. As he mounted the stairs his back was so bent, his face so gray and careworn, that though scarcely forty he looked like an old man.

This was Harold's one precious hour with his father, and the little fellow was sitting up in bed and expecting him.

"Father," he said, noticing the anxious look on his face, which was generally as serene and peaceful as the summer sea, "what is the matter? You are ill; are you going to have the scarlet fever too?"

"No, my dear, dear boy. I am quite well, quite well at least in body. I have a care on my mind that makes me look a little sad, but don't notice it, Harold, it will pass."

"You have a care on your mind!" said Harold in a tone of surprise. "I know mother often, often has, but I did not think you had cares, father."

"How can I help it, boy, sometimes?"

"I thought you gave your cares to God. I don't understand a bit how you manage it, but I remember quite well your telling mother that you gave your cares away to God."

The father turning round suddenly, stooped down and kissed the boy.

"Thank you, my son, for reminding me. Yes, I will give this care too to God, it shall not trouble me."

Then the two began to talk, and the son's little wasted hand was held in the father's. The father's face had recovered its serenity, and the little son, though he coughed continually, looked happy.

"Father," he said suddenly, "there's just one thing I'm sorry for."

"What's that, my boy?"

"There were a whole lot of other things, father; about my never having gone to live in the country, and those gypsy teas that mother told me of. You light a fire outside, you know, father, and boil the kettle on it, and have your tea in the woods and the fields. It must be just delicious. I was sorry about that, for I've never been to one, never even to one all my life long; and then there's the pretty lady—I do want to see my pretty lady once again. I was sorry about those things all day, but not now. 'Tisn't any of those things makes me so sorry now."

"What makes you sorry, Harold?"

"Father, I'm just a little bit jealous about Jesus. You see there's always such a lot of us little children dying and going to heaven, and He can't come for us all, so He has to send angels. Now I don't want an angel, I want Him to come for me Himself."

"Perhaps He will, Harold," said his father, "perhaps Jesus will be so very loving to His little lamb that He will find time to come for him Himself."

"Oh, father! when you are giving Him your new care to-night, will you just ask Him not to be so dreadfully busy, but to try and come Himself?"

"Yes, Harold," said the father.

After this promise little Harold went to sleep very happily.

CHAPTER XXIII.

That father, on his knees with his head bowed between his hands, and a tempest of agony, of entreaty in his heart, found suddenly that he could not give this care away to God. For a moment, when the boy had spoken, he had believed that this was possible, but when little Harold had himself spoken so quietly of dying and going to Jesus, the father's heart rose suddenly in the fiercest rebellion. No; if it meant the slaying of his first-born he could not so quietly lay it in the hands of God and say, "Thy will be done." This unearthly man, who had always lived with a kind of heaven-sent radiance round his path, found himself suddenly human after all. His earthly arms clung tightly round the earthly form of his pretty little lad and would not unclasp themselves. It was to this man who had so serenely and for many years walked in the sunshine of God's presence, with nothing to hide his glory from his eyes, as though he had come up to a high, a blank, an utterly impenetrable wall, which shut away all the divine radiance. He could neither climb this wall, nor could he see one glimpse of God at the dark side where he found himself. In an agony this brave heart tried to pray, but his voice would not rise above his chamber, would not indeed even ascend to his lips. He found himself suddenly voiceless and dumb, dead despair stealing over him. He did not, however, rise from his knees, and in this position his wife found him when, late that night, she came up to bed. She had been crying so hard and so long that by very force of those tears her heart was lighter, and her husband, when he raised his eyes, hollow from the terrible struggle within, to her face, looked now the most miserable of the two. The mute appeal in his eyes smote on the wife's loving heart, instantly she came over and knelt by his side.

"You must come to bed, Angus dear. I have arranged with Mr. Hinton, and he will sit up with our little lad for the next few hours."

"I could not sleep, Lottie," answered the husband. "God is coming to take away our child and I can't say, 'Thy will be done.'"

"You can't!" repeated the wife, and now her lips fell apart and she gazed at her husband.

"No Lottie; you called God cruel downstairs, and now He looks cruel to me. I can't give Him my first-born. I can't say 'Thy will be done;' but oh!" continued the wretched man, "this is horrible, this is blasphemous. Oh! has God indeed forsaken me?"

"No, no, no!" suddenly almost shrieked the wife; "no, no!" she repeated; and now she had flung her arms round her husband and was straining him to her heart. "Oh, my darling! my beloved! you were never, never, never, so near to me, so dear to me, as now. God does not want you to say that, Angus. Angus, it is not God's will that our child should die, it is Satan's will, not God's. God is love, and it can't be love to torture us, and tear our darling away from us like that. The will of God is righteousness, and love, and happiness; not darkness, and death, and misery. Oh, Angus! let us both kneel here and say, 'Thy will be done,' for I believe the will of God will be to save the child."

A great faith had suddenly come to this woman. She lifted her voice, and a torrent of eloquent words, of passionate utterances, rent the air and went up to God from that little room, and the husband stole his hand into the wife's as she prayed. After this they both slept, and Lottie's heart was lighter than it had ever been in all her life before.

The next morning this lightness, almost gayety of heart, was still there. For the time she had really changed places with her husband; for, believing that the end would be good, she felt strong to endure.

Mr. and Mrs. Home went downstairs to find Hinton regarding them anxiously. He had not spent a long night with the sick child without gathering very clearly how imminent was the peril still hanging over the family. Harold's night had been a wretched one, and he was weaker this morning. Hinton felt that a great deal more must be done to restore Harold to health; but he had not heard what Dr. Watson had said, and was therefore as yet in the dark and much puzzled how best to act. Seeing the mother's face serene, almost calm, as she poured out the tea, and the father's clouded over, he judged both wrongly.

"She is deceived," he said of the one. "He knows," he said of the other. Had he, however, reversed the positions it would have been nearer the truth.

He went away with a thousand schemes in his head. He would visit the doctor. He would—could he—might he, risk a visit to Charlotte? He was resolved that in some way he must save the boy; but it was not reserved for his hand to do the good deed on this occasion. After breakfast he went out, and Mr. Home, feeling almost like a dead man, hurried off to the daily service.

For a brief moment Charlotte was alone. The instant she found herself so, she went straight down on her knees, and with eyes and heart raised to heaven, said, aloud and fervently,—

"Thy holy, loving, righteous Will be done."

Then she got up and went to her little son. In the course of the morning the boy said to his mother,—

"How much I should like to see that pretty lady."

"It would not be safe for her to come to you, my darling," said Mrs. Home. "You are not yet quite free from infection, and if you saw her now she might get ill. You would not harm your pretty lady, Harold?"

"No, indeed, mother, not for worlds. But if I can't see her," he added, "may I have her toys to play with?"

The mother fetched them and laid them on the bed.

"And now give me what was in the brown paper parcels, mother. The dear, dear, dainty clothes! Oh! didn't our baby look just lovely in his velvet frock? Please, mother, may I see those pretty things once again?"

Mrs. Home could not refuse. The baby's pelisse, Daisy's frock, and Harold's own hat were placed by his side. He took up the hat with a great sigh of admiration. It was of dark purple plush, with a plume of ostrich feathers.

"May I put it on, mother?" asked the little lad.

He did so, then asked for a glass to look at himself.

"Ah?" he said, half crying, half frightened at his wasted pale little face under this load of finery, "I don't like it now. My pretty, pretty lady's hat is much too big for me now. I can't wear it. Oh! mother, wouldn't she be disappointed?"

"She shan't be," said the mother, "for I will draw in the lining, and then it will fit you as well as possible."

"But oh! mother, do be careful. I saw her put in a nice little bit of soft paper; I saw her put it under the lining my own self. You will crush that bit of paper if you aren't careful, mother."

The mother did not much heed the little eager voice, she drew in a cord which ran round the lining, then again placed the hat on Harold's head.

"Now it fits, darling," she said.

"But I think the bit of paper is injured," persisted the boy. "How funny I should never have thought of it until now. I'll take it out, mother, and you can put it by with the other things."

The little fingers poked under the lining and drew out something thin and neatly folded.

"Look, look, mother!" he said excitedly; "there's writing. Read it, mother; read what she said."

Mrs. Home read,—