

About the Book

Hester Walton is just starting a promising writing career, but she answers the call to care for her aunt, Verbena Bridge, who is both sour and bitter, as well as bedridden. Aunt Verbena's elderly servant, Finnis, is also sour and bitter, as well as lazy. Hester discovers Finnis never changes Aunt Verbena's bedding! Finis resents the intrusion of Hester as she goes about improving conditions for her aunt. Also in the house is Hugh Millard, the orphan son of Aunt Verbena's friends who died in India. Hester helps with Hugh's education, while doing her best to keep him out of trouble. With her writing career on hold, and the love of her life apparently courting one of her friends, Hester struggles to maintain her Christian faith when faced with so many difficulties.

At Aunt Verbena's

Margaret S. Haycraft

1855-1936

White Tree Publishing Edition

Original book first published 1897

This edition ©White Tree Publishing 2019

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-38-4

Published by

White Tree Publishing

Bristol

UNITED KINGDOM

wtpbristol@gmail.com

Full list of books and updates on

www.whitetreepublishing.com

At Aunt Verbena's is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this abridged edition.

Author Biography

Margaret Scott Haycraft was born Margaret Scott MacRitchie at Newport Pagnell, England in 1855. She married William Parnell Haycraft in 1883 and wrote mostly under her married name. In 1891 she was living in Brighton, on the south coast of England, and died in Bournemouth, also on the south coast, in 1936. She also wrote under her maiden name of Margaret MacRitchie. Margaret Haycraft is by far our most popular author of fiction.

Margaret was a contemporary of the much better-known Christian writer Mrs. O. F. Walton. Both ladies wrote Christian stories for children that were very much for the time in which they lived, with little children often preparing for an early death. Mrs. Walton wrote three romances for adults (with no suffering children, and now published by White Tree in abridged versions). Margaret Haycraft concentrated initially on books for children. However, she also wrote romances for older readers. Unusually for Victorian writers, the majority of Margaret Haycraft's stories are told in the present tense, but not this one, except in the final pages.

Both Mrs. Walton's and Margaret Haycraft's books for all ages can be over-sentimental, referring throughout, for example, to a mother as the dear, sweet mother, and a child as the darling little child. In our abridged editions overindulgent descriptions of people have been shortened to make a more robust story, but the characters and storyline are always unchanged.

A problem of Victorian writers is the tendency to insert intrusive comments concerning what is going to happen later in the story. Today we call them spoilers. They are usually along the lines of: "Little did he/she know that...." I have removed these when appropriate.

£1 at the time of this story may not sound much, but in income value it is worth approximately £120 pounds today (about US$150). I mention this in case sums of money in this book sound insignificant!

This story was sold in a combined volume of two novelettes by Margaret Haycraft, the other being the title of the volume, The Lady of the Chine. This novelette will be published by White Tree Publishing later in 2018. Unlike The Lady of the Chine, Iona seems to have been either rushed to meet a deadline, or poorly edited in places by the original publisher. For example, names appear later as though they have been in the story all along. These and other minor problems have hopefully been addressed in this White Tree Publishing Edition, without changing the plot or characters in any way.

Chris Wright

Editor

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

There are 20 chapters in the book. In the second part are some advertisements for our other books, so the story may end earlier than expected! The last chapter is marked as such. We aim to make our eBooks free or for a nominal cost, and cannot invest in other forms of advertising. However, word of mouth by satisfied readers will help get our books more widely known. When the story ends, please take a look at what we publish: Christian fiction, Christian non-fiction, and books for younger readers.

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Book

Author Biography

Note

1. Briarbloom Cottage

2, News from Aunt Verbena

3. Hester's Decision

4. Aunt Verbena

5. Hester's New Home

6. Birthday Festivities

7. The Secret in the Dresser

8. A New Project

9. Hugh's Sacrifice

10. Sunlight for Hester

11. Called to Service

12. Graham and Phyllis

13. A Fit of Passion

14. Bad News for Finnis

15. At Oakleys Hall

16. A Pleasant Meeting

17. Sisters in Heart

18. The Haven

19. "Mother's Hymn"

20. At Eventide

About White Tree Publishing

More Books from White Tree Publishing

Christian non-fiction

Christian Fiction

Books for Younger Readers

Chapter 1

Briarbloom Cottage

"WHO wants a letter?"

"Oh, Graham, give it up directly. It must be from darling Phyllis. She promised to write when she was settled at the hospital."

"Well, then, 'darling Phyllis's' handwriting has changed of a sudden," said Graham Walton, surveying the letter he had taken from the postman, but holding it teasingly away from his sisters. "The young lady always was rather strong-minded, but I did not know her calligraphy had become so decidedly masculine."

"Graham, is it from Edgar?"

The words came rather shyly from his eldest sister, Celia, as she paused in her occupation of cutting bread and butter, and looked up at him anxiously, as though no mail from India had been in the day before, bringing her the customary "three volumes," as Graham termed the closely-written sheets from a certain dear friend of her own.

"Did you expect a supplement to yesterday's edition, then, my dear sister?" asked Graham. "No, I am afraid I can't oblige you this time. A journal and six sheets of correspondence, a photograph, a Hindu figure for an inkstand, and a Calcutta paper you received yesterday ought to satisfy the most grasping-minded of your sex for one week. As for you, Miss Hester, what do you mean by receiving letters from the opposite sex? It is on my conscience that, as your brother and natural protector, I ought to open this package and acquaint myself with the goings-on of our family genius."

"Give me my letter, Graham. You won't open it, will you?" implored Hester, who was preparing a blackboard lesson for her class tomorrow, but had been silently listening all this time with burning cheeks and inward excitement that Graham fully understood.

"'Messrs. Tinley & Taylor return thanks to Miss Walton, the gifted authoress, for permitting them to peruse her manuscript Saint Charity, and deeply regret their inability to accept the exquisite composition, which they decline with thanks,'" said Graham, pretending to read from the letter; but just then Alys came behind him, and suddenly appropriated Hester's property, bearing it over triumphantly to the rightful owner.

Hester wished them all in various quarters of the house, and herself tasting the sweets of solitude at that moment. It was extremely awkward to be surrounded by one's family when about to read for the seventh time that Messrs. So-and-so "regret they have no opening for the literary attempts submitted to them."

But her kindred listened expectantly, as usual, and Alys asked eagerly, "What is it, Hester? Does it say Messrs. Tinley & Taylor will be sending your story back? Never mind, it's just splendid, and I should post it off to the Homestead Light tomorrow, if I were you."

"They've ... they've taken it!" gasped Hester, "and they've sent me five guineas, and I am to sign this receipt. And ... oh, Celia, they say they would be pleased to see a short serial from my pen. Messrs. Tinley & Taylor ‒ such a splendid firm! And the Beacon, where Saint Charity will come out, has such lovely pictures. Oh, what will father say, I wonder? And whatever shall I do with all this money? It is as much as I earn teaching at Mrs. Riddet's in three months!"

"Hester, I always knew you would be an author!" cried Alys, throwing her arms round her younger sister. "Your name will be in everybody's mouth before long, and your photograph will be in all the papers!"

"Oh, dear, I hope not," said Hester. "Not if it comes out anything like Mrs. Riddet's photograph in our local paper ‒ you know they put her in when Mr. Riddet was mayor. I felt so sorry for Mrs. Riddet, because she wasn't a bit like that, and I think she felt it. But only to think of my story coming out in the Beacon! I'll begin to write regularly now every afternoon and evening, and I'll have the back attic for my writing room, and save up to buy a proper table with pigeon-holes, and drawers, and things. I wonder how much one would cost second-hand!"

"Well, really," said Graham, "I scarcely like to suggest such a mundane subject as boiled eggs on such an auspicious occasion, but I see that Lorry is bringing them in; and if I may be privileged to sit down and eat bread and butter in the presence of such a shining light of literature...."

"Don't tease, you bad boy," said Hester, pulling his hair. "Aren't we going to wait tea for father, Celia?"

"No, dear, he said he might have tea at Dellthorpe if he is detained. How hard father works. I wish you would make haste and get through your exams, and help him, Graham."

"I am quite willing to go through at a gallop, my beloved sister," said Graham, who was studying at one of the London hospitals, "but unfortunately the examiners are somewhat prejudiced and opinionated, and demand a certain amount of acquaintance with the details of one's profession. Guess the news, Lorry. One of us is going to be famous. 'Which shall it be? Which shall it be?' as a well-known recitation puts it."

"Why, then, it's Miss Hester," said the old servant, surveying with proud fondness the youngest of the sisters. "Have you got your story accepted, dearie, and is it really going to come out in print, like a book?"

"It's to be a tale in a magazine, Lorry," said Hester, whose face was still bright with the flush of excitement. "It's Saint Charity, the story I read to you in the kitchen just before Christmas. And they have sent me five guineas for it. I shall soon be able to earn enough to keep us going, I am certain. Successful authors are paid very well, I am told. But I should not have minded if they gave me nothing for my tale. It is so lovely to have it out, and feel I have made a start at last. I have wanted to be an author ever since I was born."

"'Biography of Miss Hester Rose Walton,'" said Graham. "'Our gifted contemporary at an early age showed signs of those remarkable talents which are now of European reputation.'"

"Well," said Celia, "I have some compositions of Hetty's which were made up almost in the nursery. I know she wrote a poem at seven years old about a 'Sire Sitting by a Fire,' and another 'On the Death of Jenny, my Canary.' It begins, 'We weep, sweet bird, because thou'rt gone.'"

"Oh, Celia, don't!" cried Hester, laughing. "I wish you would tear up those old things."

"Don't destroy them on any account," said Graham. "Think how valuable they will be for Chapter One when that biography of the family genius comes out! Perhaps it will be then of interest to the public to know that the author's brother, on the occasion of the acceptance of Saint Charity waited in suspense for his cup of tea for fully eight minutes, and, as one of the faculty, he objects to tea that is overdrawn."

"What a boy you are, Master Graham!" said Lorry, gazing admiringly at "the children," as she still regarded the Walton family. "Well, it's no more than I've expected of Miss Hester all these years. Hasn't she always been scribbling and writing away whenever there was pencil and paper handy? And didn't she always take the prizes at school? I always said as Miss Hetty would live to be great, and so she will; and it's me that wishes your mother were alive this day to know you've succeeded at last, my dearie."

A silence fell upon the group. Five years had not dimmed the memory of the gentle sufferer, whose sweet patience had been in their midst a daily sermon of faith and peace and gladness.

"I think she does know, Lorry," said Hester brokenly. She could not speak out the things that were in her heart. How many and many a time in their quiet talks together, when she would show her mother the dream-children concerning whom she was ofttimes shy to others, Mrs. Walton had reminded her that her gift of writing was a trust from her heavenly Father, and that greatness can attain no higher place than to be laid down for the Lord's use at His feet. And the remembrance came to Hester of almost the last sermon to which she had listened in company with her mother. The text was from Exodus chapter 4, where Moses doubted he would be able to do anything for God: "What is that in thine hand?" And the preacher had urged that our familiar daily work can be glorified if we do it whole-heartedly and earnestly for Christ's sake.

"Hester, my dear one," Mrs. Walton had said when that service was over, "there was a time when I thought my pen would do God service and help His world, but His will for me has been weakness and infirmity. I think this glory will be yours ‒ that the pen you hold will carry the Master's messages."

"Yes, Lorry, mother knows, I am sure of it," said Hester. But it was for a while a subdued little party that gathered round the tea table at Briarbloom Cottage, and wistful looks glanced towards the couch in "mother's corner," and towards the loving face pictured on the wall.

Briarbloom Cottage was one of a row of attractive villas in the suburban town of Woodwell. It was hedged round with thickly growing sweetbriar, and somehow the first flowers seemed to make their appearance in the garden so dear to the doctor and his girls, and the birds seemed to linger longest in the branches of the old apple tree on the lawn.

The Waltons were lovers of beauty, and the girls did all kinds of marvellous things with art-muslins and hanging plants and ivies to beautify their sunshiny home. Dr. Walton often thought there was no fairer place than this house to which he had come on his marriage. Some of his contemporaries had attained before this to higher rents and taxes, or to freeholds of their own, but he was the "poor man's doctor."

While many unpaid accounts due to him were left year by year, he could not keep his hand out of his pocket if he knew beef-tea and the like were needed even more than medicine. He was highly popular, but he never would be rich, save in the love and gratitude of his fellow-creatures. Yet the best possessions of all were his own, for he had the joy and peace of those who live not to themselves, but to God whose they are, and whom they delight to serve.

Celia was housekeeper at present. For two years she had been engaged to Edgar Lindsay, who was now representing a London firm of merchants in India. The young couple would have to wait some time before they could set up housekeeping together, but they had plenty of hope and courage, which contented them by necessity at present.

Alys, who was very particular about the correct spelling of her name, was taking lessons at an art school, and bade fair to excel in the pottery painting whereby she anticipated earning her living.

Hester taught every morning the children of the late Mayor of Woodwell, but her heart was in her writings. To pen and ink she flew in every spare moment of her time. She had contributed to various amateur publications, and had taken many a composition prize, but Saint Charity, a story in three chapters, was her first ambitious effort. She had never really lost heart concerning it, despite rejection here and there, for it was winged by prayer.

Hester, who was credited by some of her former schoolfellows with "very strange notions," believed with all her heart in the power of prayer, and went as naturally to the Lord she loved about her teaching and her writings, as she had done in that never-to- be-forgotten time when Briarbloom Cottage was a house of mourning.

Hester did not want much tea that evening. The eggs and watercress and the cake Lorry produced from her store cupboard in honour of the festive occasion were wasted upon the heroine of the day. Graham soon recovered his spirits, and talked of the days when his "two old-maid sisters" would inhabit a London flat with cat and parrot, and entertain "on alternate Thursdays" ‒ or, more economically, "on the fifth Thursday in the month" ‒ the literary and artistic coteries wherein they were destined to shine so brilliantly.

But his nonsense was unheeded by Hester. Alys, who took great pride in their Tuesday "at homes," which were highly popular in Crescent Road, pretended to wax indignant at the fun he made of his sisters' style of entertaining; but Hester sat there in a daydream, and as soon as she could forsake her relatives she was up in the back attic where she seemed so near to the sky, and where she could close the door upon the noise and laughter below. Alone with the stars that began to smile out here and there above her, the girl sank on her knees, and lifted her face towards the quiet evening sky.

"Oh, Lord, I thank Thee ... thank Thee," she faltered. "Thou hast given me my heart's desire. Thou hast opened the way for me to become a writer. Oh, give me some message from Thyself, my Saviour. Let my pen do Thy errands. Use my life for Thee. Even to hearts and lives I know not, let me tell of Thee. Honour me to be Thy messenger, weak as I am, and glorify Thy name, even through the words Thou givest me."

This was Hester's prayer, as in glad resolve and hopeful courage she took up the life-work of a writer. Had she not asked for guidance as to taking the path of authorship, and had not the guidance plainly come? Henceforth her career was marked out. Her pen was to be that wherewith she was to strive to comfort aching hearts, and strengthen the weak, and encourage the faint, and help the little children sunward. It was a glorious vocation!

No wonder her heart thrilled bravely and joyfully as she visioned, amid the starlight, the days to come! And if into those dreams there crept the thought of someone ‒ a brother of Mrs. Riddet's ‒ who would rejoice right heartily in her success when his sister told him on the morrow, the remembrance brought an added light to her eyes, and she ran down singing merrily when she heard the opening of the garden gate.

"Let me tell father first," she pleaded with Graham, whom she met on the stairs, bearing an array of books to his "den," as he called the little box room.

"Make haste down, then," said Graham mischievously. "I have just made my escape in time, but of course, as the Miss Walton, you must make your appearance before Miss Gurnap."

"Oh, Graham!" cried Hester, with a doleful expression. Her gait became slow and hesitant, but Alys called to her eagerly, and she found Celia delightedly regaling their neighbour from No. 10 with an account of the acceptance of her sister's story, and the gratifying request for a short serial.

"Ah, my love," sighed Miss Gurnap, who believed in preparing young people for the thorns and briars doubtless awaiting them in this vale of tears, "the path of literature is trying beyond conception, and to succeed as an author requires many things too numerous to mention. Have you genius, patience, perseverance, assiduity, wit, humour, pathos, continuity, delicacy of fancy, poetic fire, business-like qualities, and capacity for routine? I am inclined to fear, my dear Hester, you are not business-like."

"I try to be," said Hester. "I keep an account book, and I ruled it all through on New Year's Day, and it nearly always balances. I daresay authorship may mean a great deal of hard work, but I would rather work hard with my pen than be idle in any other way."

"Ah, my child, but are you prepared in the battle of life to face disappointment and neglect? Well do I remember poor young Miss Saunders, related to the Chetworths at No. 8. Miss Saunders brought out at her own expense a sweet little volume of verse. A Garland of Harebell Blossoms was the name. Did she win fame and wealth and the laurels of the bard? Did she even pay the publishing expenses? Alas, no! Her young heart froze beneath the apathy of her generation, and she fell ill, withering as the sensitive plant beneath the touch of careless roughness."

"Did she die?" asked Alys compassionately. "I never knew she wrote a book. We would have bought a copy from her had we known."

"She recovered," said Miss Gurnap, who was given to abrupt stops in her discourse." She married. A young man who has to do with Belfast ‒ something in the tablecloth way, I fancy. Ah, here comes your poor dear father. He looks paler and thinner every day. He puts me sadly in mind of my poor second cousin at the Home for Incurables...."

But Hester was already out of hearing. Dr. Walton was fairly bewildered at first by the joyful confidences she poured into his ear, but he kissed her in tender congratulation when he read the letter, and when Hester pressed the important little slip of paper into his hand.

"No, my Hetty, my little girl will find a use for her earnings. Her old father is not going to take away what has been worked for by this busy little brain. But remember, my girl, what I said to you when you started teaching at Mrs. Riddet's ‒ all our money is lent to us as the Lord's stewards, and, whatever we may add as thank-offerings, I want my daughter to start life with the habit of giving a tenth of all she earns to the Master. This will make such a difference, my Hetty, to your power of helping in His work."

"Yes, father, I will," said the girl. "And now let me pour out your tea. Celia is with Miss Gurnap, and Miss Gurnap says an author's path is hard and disappointing; but, dad, it seems to me it is the only one I have ever wanted to tread!"

"God bless and use you therein, my little daughter," said Dr. Walton.

That evening, as in the heart-joy of answered prayer, and with a future before her bright with the work she loved best, and full of earnest visions of a consecrated pen used and blessed by the Master, Hester nestled into her accustomed seat at Dr. Walton's side at the time of family worship.
Chapter 2

News from Aunt Verbena

"WELL, old girl, have you promised those publishers the serial for which they asked? Did you say, 'Yes, if you please, and thank you kindly'?"

"Well," said Hester, laughing, "I did in spirit, but of course I wrote a business-like letter, and I have promised the new tale in two months' time."

"I don't know, after all," said Graham, "that there is much in authorship nowadays. I'm afraid the field is too full, Hetty. Do you really think there is money in it, old girl?"

"Graham," said his sister, colouring, "the medical field is full also, but whether there is money in it or not, you know you long to be a doctor."

"I should think so," said Graham. "It's the grandest profession going. Scientific knowledge is always on the increase, and there are all kinds of glorious discoveries ahead. You wait and see if I don't find out some cute old bacillus that nobody has suspected, and that has been doing mischief in these bodies of ours! But I don't see how it will help science or widen knowledge for you to tire your brains out over pen and ink, little woman!"

"Well, Graham, when Phyllis Abbot went to Edinburgh, and took her medical degree, I know you were inclined to disapprove; but the days are gone by for men only to work 'and women to weep,' remember."

"You'll weep fast enough when you get some stinging reviews, my child."

"Not I," laughed Hester, "so long as I have done my best. I think authorship, like doctoring and every other kind of work, is only a real success as it cheers, and helps, and brightens the lives of one's fellow- creatures."

"Don't be so Quixotic, my dear, or I shall begin to think you are too good for this world. Stick up for your prices, and write for 'gold, gold, gold, gold!' Leave the 'doing good' consideration to the parsons, who get paid for it. As regards doctoring, I study for the pleasure of study, and to earn my guineas by-and-by. I certainly have no wish or intention to pose as a benefactor to my species."

"But, Graham, dear," said Hester, colouring ‒ for it was the grief of her heart that her clever young brother was indifferent towards those concerns she had learnt to hold the most precious of all ‒ "we surely want to do our Heavenly Father's business as we go through life, and take up our work, whatever it may be, for the Lord who loved us and died for us."

Graham whistled. "My dear little sister," said he, "such notions are very sweet and pretty for girls and dreamers like yourself, but we fellows have to go out into the world and fight with our fellow- creatures for the few guineas that are going. We can't afford to be sentimental. Practical common sense is what I believe in. I know at least twenty fellows who could argue away your beliefs in two minutes, Hetty."

"I think not," said Hester quietly. "And how could they argue away our father's and mother's Christian lives?"

"Oh," said Graham, "even if they had been heathen, father and mother would have been about perfect. I grant you that. Father's only fault is that he is far too open-handed to make money. He would have got on twice as well if he had looked after his own interests better. Why, here comes a telegraph boy. Perhaps it's an important commission from your publishers, begging you to accept a small fee of a thousand guineas in advance!"

The brother and sister were talking together one morning a few days after the arrival of Hester's eventful letter. Hester had a holiday, owing to Mrs. Riddet's birthday, and Graham would leave presently for the London train. Both hastened to meet the telegraph boy, Graham remarking, "It's for father ‒ from a patient, I suppose."

Dr. Walton did not come in till Graham had left. He looked concerned as he opened the telegram, and he told the girls, "I must go immediately to your Aunt Verbena's."

The telegram read

MISTRESS HAVE HAD A STROKE. SINKING FAST. FINNIS, USHERFORD.

"Poor Aunt Verbena!" said Celia. "I suppose she is very, very old, father?"

"She always seems so," he answered; "but she is only between sixty and seventy. No doubt they have sent for a doctor, but I feel I must go off by the express. She must need someone of her own just now, and while I am there I shall try to find a trained nurse for her."

"It is very good of father to go," said Celia, when Dr. Walton had started for the station, Hester accompanying him to see him off. "Aunt Verbena has always been as disagreeable as possible. I know when father took me to that dull old house as a child I felt quite frozen up, and wondered however such a sour-looking old body could be related to dad!"

"You know she is only his half-sister," said Alys. "Lorry says she never liked father's marrying mother ‒ mother was governess to her own little sister, the one Aunt Verbena quarrelled with when she grew up."

"I remember Finnis," said Celia. "She was the old servant at 3, Kilnmere Street, who looked like a witch. How glad I was to get away!"

"Lorry says," remarked Alys, "father and his own brother and sister felt it very much when their father married a widow with two daughters, one grown up ‒ that was Aunt Verbena ‒ and the other a child of thirteen. But they tried to keep the peace, and they grew to be fond of their stepmother and of little Alice. Aunt Verbena's temper seems always to have been trying."

"Well," said Celia, "she and father are the only ones left now. Our own uncle and aunt died long ago. And didn't poor Aunt Alice die in America?"

"Yes. She and her husband emigrated. They were very poor, and Aunt Verbena would not help father to trace them, or he would have sent them money. He did so once or twice, but then he lost sight of them, and knew nothing more till Aunt Verbena wrote of Aunt Alice's death as a widow. Poor Aunt Verbena, I do hope father will cheer her up and do her good."

"It must be a dreary place for young Hugh Millard," said Celia. "Don't you remember father told us Aunt Verbena is guardian to a boy whose parents died in India? Hugh was left to her care as a former acquaintance of his parents. Aunt told father he is sulky and ill-tempered, and she only took him in as a matter of duty. I think I should be sulky too, if I lived in that melancholy place! Here comes Hetty. Are you going to be busy in your sanctum, Hetty?"

"Yes," said Hester cheerily. "I have sketched out a plot for my serial, and I long to be at it."

But somehow, up in the quiet attic, the girl was conscious of depressed feelings which strangely contrasted with the sunshiny day. Her heart was full of concern for Graham, who seemed drifting further and further away from all she held most helpful, and sacred, and precious.

"Mother used to hope and pray our Graham would grow up to work for Jesus," thought Hester. "How strange that such earnest prayers should be unanswered. What would I not give to know that our clever Graham, with all the influence in life he is certain to have, is on the Master's side! Well, I will just keep on praying; with God there is nothing impossible."

Chapter 3

Hester's Decision

DR. WALTON came home on the following afternoon. The old servant had taken too gloomy a view of the case ‒ the stroke (if such it could be called) was but a slight one, and Miss Verbena Bridge was in no immediate danger: careful, skilful nursing was the chief necessity.

"I doubt," said the doctor, "if your poor aunt will ever be the same active woman again, though I trust she has many years yet to live. I find her age is only sixty-five. Girls, I cannot help being very sorry for her. Perhaps an early disappointment that she experienced may have helped to sour her nature. Troubles either make us more Christlike, or leave us colder and harder. In her latter years, Aunt Verbena is a lonely, sorrowful woman, in an extremely comfortless home."

"Why doesn't she change Finnis for a capable servant?" said Alys.

"Oh, Finnis looks a very decided sort of character. I imagine she is a fixture for life! But I have something important to say to you girls, especially to Alys, for I explained to Aunt Verbena that Celia is not vigorous enough for prolonged sick-nursing,"

"Dad, whatever do you mean?" asked Alys, looking frightened.

"Listen, children. Your aunt will not hear of a trained nurse. She seems to think they are still of the Mrs. Gamp description, but she says Finnis is getting too infirm to attend properly to things, and she has long had some idea of asking Celia to go there as helper and companion. 'Tell your girls to expect nothing from me,' she said, 'for my money is mostly in an annuity; but to one of my own I would give twenty pounds a year: and Mary Trevanion's girls are sure to have been brought up sensibly.'"

"I am glad she spoke a good word for mother," said Alys, "but I could not possibly leave the art classes. I would not go there for worlds. You did not promise I would, father?"

"No, indeed, my dear. I was distressed by the proposal, which became almost an entreaty. I only promised to lay the suggestion before you. Celia's spine was weak in childhood, and she must not help to lift the patient. Of course, my child, it would be a very great sacrifice ‒ there is no question of personal enjoyment. The request is to go on Saturday, and to me it seems a great perplexity. We must just pray over it. Here is a feeble old lady in a neglected home. Someone ought to step into the gap, but I do wish Aunt Verbena would consent to try a stranger."

Dr. Walton was summoned away, and the girls were left in dismayed conclave to sympathise with Alys, and to comfort her, as she fairly began to cry at the idea of losing her art studies.

"If it be my duty," she sobbed, "I must go, I suppose, and I shall hate going, and be the crossest of them all. Oh, I do wish father had refused for me at once! He ought to care for me more than Aunt Verbena, disagreeable old creature. She deserves to be lonely, if anybody does!"

Celia gently persuaded her to go and lie down, reminding her of their mother's favourite counsel ‒ "Tell Jesus."

"We will all ask for guidance for you," she said. "Why, perhaps Aunt Verbena will yet engage a stranger, or she may feel much better, and decide that she does not want a fresh helper."

Graham laughed at the notion of beauty-loving Alys amid the dreariness of Kilnmere Street. "No, Alys," said he, "write to our revered relative, 'Declined with thanks,' as soon as possible. Tell the old lady it isn't good enough."

The next evening, Hester was trying to compose upstairs as usual, but she had to give up the attempt, for mind and heart were full of her sister's troubled looks, and of the lonely invalid awaiting the decision. She turned down the lamp, and in the quiet starlight she knelt at her attic window, asking the her Saviour to guide Alys in this perplexity and to make plain the crooked way.

And a voice seemed to speak these words to her heart: "Thou shall go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak." What? She go to Usherford, and throw away her literary hopes and chances by burying herself amid such surroundings! Was it really God's will that she should spare Alys by volunteering for the thankless post?

Often had Mrs. Walton warned impulsive Hester not to trust too much to her feelings. The bewildered girl, with that message echoing within her heart, could only cry in helpless yet mighty faith to the all-seeing Lord to save her from making any mistake, and to guide and teach her to do His will.

The next day was Friday. Hester went as usual to her teaching, but her mind was troubled and confused. All the morning she seemed in darkness, and even as she performed her customary duties her mind was revolving the question whether she ought to keep silence on the subject, or offer herself for the position of Aunt Verbena's helper.

Alys had remarked to her that day, "I suppose I ought to go to aunt's for a week or two, Hetty, just till she takes a turn for the better. I hate going, but even a month will soon be over. I think I shall write tomorrow and say I will go for a month; but even that will send me back dreadfully in my art work!"

"If I go," thought Hester, while the little ones were busy at their sums and copies, "it means giving up not only the regular writing-hours that I planned, but my Sunday school class and my week-evening meetings, just when they seem so helpful and flourishing. I don't know who would take my place. Everyone seems so busy already."

And in her heart there was another thought, though she was herself scarcely conscious of it ‒ "If I go, I shall never see Harold Cline again, for he is only in England for a few weeks, and in a short time he will be far away. If we are to know more of each other, I must not go. And I like him better than any friend I have ever known."

Harold Cline was the children's favourite uncle, a young man who just now was home from his travels in connection with marine telegraphic work. Hester had a pleasant impression that he sought her company, and that Mrs. Riddet, who was very fond of her, rather favoured the friendship. On more than one occasion some charming flowers had been waiting for Hester on the schoolroom table, and books and music for her had found their way to Briarbloom Cottage.

As yet the acquaintance had gone no farther, but it seemed to be nearing a crisis. Hester felt if she went away there would be a soreness at her heart in losing the face and voice that she had, almost unconsciously to herself, idealised into the hero of her successful tale, Saint Charity.

"No, I promised that serial to the publishers, and I must not, will not, have my literary work put on one side," she decided at last. "I am not called to this sacrifice. I cannot give up all that makes life worth living for the sake of Aunt Verbena and her whims. She might just as well get someone who is not related to her."

When the time came for the children to repeat their daily text, the three little ones, conscious of being for once fully prepared, repeated together clearly and distinctly, "Thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak."

There was silence as the children's voices ceased. Hester's face looked pale and startled.

"Children," she asked, "what made you choose that text today, and why did you all learn the same one?"

"Why," said May, "it was mother's birthday yesterday, you know, and that was yesterday's text in her daily text book. She read it to us, and told us about the man ‒ I think it was Jeremiah ‒ who didn't think he could do much, or work like God wanted him to, but God said He would be with him and help him."

"Yes," said Eddie, "and mother said we can all be God's errand-boys and errand-girls and take His messages, if we are only willing."

Hester made no answer beyond a loving look at her little pupils. Somehow she felt they had a message for her today, and she opened her heart to receive it. If it were, indeed, the will of the Lord for her to go and nurse Aunt Verbena, was she not ready even for that? Did she not love Him well enough to forego the path so important and useful, and take a humble, narrow sphere of duty at His bidding?

She went home that day feeling certain within her that the guidance pointed towards Usherford, and striving for strength and courage to make the definite offer that would commit her to the post. A letter was awaiting her.

"It looks interesting," said Celia. "Is it a proof, Hetty, or is it another cheque?"

"It's only from that Helper's Band Hetty belongs to," said Alys carelessly. "The 'Young People's' or 'Young Workers' Society ‒ I don't remember the name, but they work for medical missions. Didn't they have their anniversary the other day, Hetty?"

"Yes," said her sister, "but the annual meeting was held the evening when May Riddet was poorly, so I couldn't go. They have sent me the card for the year," and she drew out a neat motto card, bearing the design of the sower casting in the seed. Beneath were two lines that Hester's bewildered heart silently accepted as her watchword:

My soul upon His errand goes;

The end I know not, but God knows.

<><><><>

The idea of giving up the "family genius," as Alys described her younger sister, to dreary Usherford, was met on all sides with opposition.

"You must not, shall not, bury yourself in a sickroom," cried Alys. "I will go there and do my best for a month. Beyond that time Aunt Verbena cannot expect any of us to sacrifice ourselves."

Graham ridiculed the notion as nonsensical, telling Hester that a would-be author must see life and come into contact with interesting and entertaining characters, whereas at Usherford she would see nobody save "an old Methuselah of a doctor."

"Whatever will the Sunday school do?" asked Celia. "Neither Alys nor I could ever take your class of boys, you know, Hetty."

Only Dr. Walton made no protest beyond a wistful look that showed he would fain keep sunny-faced Hester at his side. He did not like the thought of any of his daughters sharing the home of one whose nature had evidenced itself as cold and unsympathetic, yet he felt if one of his girls volunteered for the ministry, he ought not to deprive his sister of any help which the presence of a bright young Christian might bring.

On Saturday morning, which was always a holiday, Hester went to see Mrs. Riddet, who welcomed her with her usual kiss of greeting, and told her she was just about to send a message inviting her to an impromptu picnic.

"We heard last evening that my brother Harold must leave England in a fortnight," she said, "so we are going to Riverside Woods today, as he will be so busy next week. I will send word to Celia that you are joining us."

A bright day in the woods in the company of Harold Cline! There was something like a heartache going on while Hester told her errand and spoke of the young sister of her friend, Phyllis Abbot, for whom the widowed mother was now seeking teaching employment.

"My dear," said Mrs. Riddet in dismay, "we cannot possibly spare you. If it is any question of salary...."

But Hester explained that it was not. She spoke of the needs of the invalid, and continued to recommend Winnie Abbot, while the children fairly howled at the thought of a new teacher, and their uncle, who had entered the room with them, said nothing at all, but beguiled them away to pack cake for the picnic.

Perhaps his quietude disappointed Hester just a little. Evidently he cared not that their paths were separating. While he, discerning in her manner a touch of constraint, impulsively decided that she had discovered he was trying, in his blundering fashion, to show her that he cared for her. Was it to avoid his distasteful attentions that she had decided to leave his relatives?

Poor Hester almost broke down when Mr. and Mrs. Riddet told her presently that of course if she desired to go to Usherford, they would waive all question of notice. Again and again they thanked her for her help as concerned their children. On leaving the house, whom should she meet but Miss Gurnap!

"My dear Hester," said that lady, "a young woman's place is under the parental roof. I do not like this wild longing of the present-day young person to see the world and to run away from home duties."

"I don't think I shall 'see the world,' as you call it, at Aunt Verbena's," answered Hester; "and I have no wild longing to leave father, I assure you. But I know he feels one of us could be of help to Aunt Verbena, and as Alys is working for an examination just now, I am going to Usherford instead. I think I must hurry now, Miss Gurnap, as I have to write to Aunt Verbena."

"Usherford! Is not that the same place where they had diphtheria so badly some years ago? I believe the drainage is in a deplorable condition. Why, somebody told me the place is all brickfields and public houses!"

"I wish we could transport our Temperance Society there, then," said Hester, "and our energetic secretary." This was a farewell compliment to Miss Gurnap, but it only elicited the lament, "Wherever am I to find an assistant secretary in your place?"

When she was at last indoors again, Hester sat down quietly and wrote the letter which offered her help to her aunt. Was there just a faint hope within her that Miss Verbena Bridge would reply that she had already engaged someone else, or that she considered Hester too young for the post?

Sunday and Monday were days of suspense. Hester taught her lads and went about her Sunday work, conscious that a week hence she might be amid very different surroundings. Many in the school and congregation, who had heard rumours of her departure, remonstrated with her throughout the day, and asked her who was to fill such-and-such a gap, or undertake various duties she had been glad to perform.

Hester could only answer, "I do not know, but the work will go on. God changes His workers. He knows whom He will raise up for this. Not one of us is necessary, father often says. Each one of us can be spared, if need be."

"That is all very well," was the answer, "but it can never be right to run away from work and service."

Hester was silent when she heard such words. There was One who knew whether she wanted to forsake His service or not. Amid all the bewilderment of her mind, the assurance did not fail her that the Master was saying to her, "Now therefore go." And what matter if some misjudged her, seeing He knew and understood that her intense longing was to do His will and obey His voice?

Tuesday brought a reply from Finnis: "Mistress says you can come if you wants to, but there's no box room, so don't you bring much luggage. She keeps very low, and in my belief she won't be long for this world. You can come Friday, but don't come too early, else things won't be ready, for there's only me to do the work, and it all falls on me as usual. Nobody can't meet you at the train, but don't you give more than tuppence to the porter to carry your box across."

"You can't go Friday," said Celia, who was just a little superstitious. "It's unlucky to start things on Friday. Oh, Hetty, how can you go to such a place as that?"

"Celia, you don't really think days can be lucky or unlucky, I know," said Hetty, smiling; and she said presently to her sister in a low voice, "Celia, I'll tell you something. I would rather go on Friday than any other day in the week. Don't you know we found a paper of mother's after she died, and we discovered by it that she had a special day to pray for each of us by name? And Friday was my day, you know, and I believe father keeps those very days still. Celia, darling, we shall be parted for a time, but we can be praying for one another still, can't we?"

"So you are going as sicknurse and helper before the week ends, are you, little daughter?" said Dr. Walton when he came in. "Go, and the Lord be with you. What you do for that poor lonely creature and for her dreary household you will do unto Himself. But should aunt seem worse, send for me at once. Hester, child, you must not overtax your strength and break down in health through overwork."

Chapter 4

Aunt Verbena

"WHAT will the house be without you, dearie? We shall miss you sorely. Dear, dear, you mustn't stay long, Miss Hetty. It won't seem like the same place without your bonnie face."

"Cheer up, Lorry," said Graham cheerfully. "I am left to console you, remember; and, after all, I think you will have the better looking of the two left behind."

The old woman smiled as she arranged a bright bunch of flowers for the traveller, and packed fruit and cake into Hetty's basket.

"Looks go for nothing, Master Graham," she answered. "Beauty's but skin deep and fleeting, you know. You can't take Miss Hetty's place about the kitchen, paring my apples and wiping my dishes, and saving my feet up and down stairs as much as she can, bless her heart!"

"Never mind, Lorry," said Graham. "If I see you look exhausted, I'll make haste and get married, so that my wife can wipe your dishes for you. Won't the future Mrs. Walton console you for the departure of the family genius?"

"You silly boy!" exclaimed Alys. "Who do you suppose would have a feather-brained creature like yourself? Stop talking nonsense, and go and cord Hetty's box, there's a good boy. She is only taking the small one, as they seem so prejudiced against luggage."

"Hetty should assert herself," said Graham, "and take a cartload of things. If she had any spirit, she would begin as she means to go on."

"I only hope she'll be back in a week," said Alys. "It is my opinion that had she stayed on at the Riddets' till Harold Cline left, something would have occurred. I am certain Harold likes Hetty, only as yet he does not quite know whether she is interested in him or not. I think it is such a pity Hetty is going away, and it is all for my sake, too."

"You girls are always thinking about getting married," grumbled Graham, but Alys laughingly told him he had started the subject, and as for herself, the only kind of life she coveted was an existence wedded to art.

Graham corded Hester's box, but he could not take her to Usherford, having to attend an evening lecture. Her father was too busy to be absent from Woodwell that day, and so Hester set out on her journey alone, her last home-vision being a glimpse of Celia and Alys running down the platform after the retreating train, and shouting, "If ever she is cross, you come home again directly," while Lorry waved her handkerchief in loving farewell till Hester was lost to sight.

A cab ride through the busy city brought her to the terminus for Usherford, and ere long she was whirled past gardens and orchards into a flat-looking brickfield district, in the heart of which she found her destination, and consigned her modest luggage to the care of a needy-looking individual who bargained for eight pence.

Hester looked wistfully at one or two houses with window boxes and little front gardens, but her guide led her on past numerous signboards concerning Brown Bears and Pigs and Whistles, and the like, to a row of old houses painted dark, and looking so funereal that the girl's heart sank within her as she was informed, "This here is Kilnmere Street, miss, and No. 3 is Miss Bridge's."

The box was deposited on the step, and Hester, after trying the bell in vain, was reduced to beat upon the door in a way she felt to be somewhat undignified. At last a strange-looking figure with a sour expression of face came into the area below, and the old servant asked angrily, "Can't you leave the door alone? Don't you know there's sickness in the house?"

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Finnis," said Hester. "I tried to knock as gently as I could. I think the bell must be broken."

"Who's to carry up your box, pray?" asked Finnis. "I can't be carrying boxes about all day long at my time of life. Just take and pull it into the hall, and that there boy Hugh Millard must carry it up when he comes in to his tea."

She retreated into the house as she spoke, and after an interval the front door was slowly unchained, and Hester drew her box into the passage. As she did so, she nearly fell forward on her face as her foot had caught in a hole in the oilcloth. She looked round her in dismay. The hall paper, or what remained of it, was brown by nature and browner by age, and the passage looked dim and dismal. A broken umbrella stand and a table that had grown infirm shared the shadowy interior with a case of stuffed humming-birds. Poor little birdies. Hester was glad they had known sunlight and warmth in their life.

"I suppose it ain't fine enough for you?" said Finnis sourly. "Young girls nowadays must have everything smartened up like as if they was princesses. But I don't hold with a lot of ornamentation and nonsense, and people as comes here must just take us as they finds us."

"And how is Miss Bridge today, Mrs. Finnis?" asked Hester, deeming it polite to bestow upon the old servant the matronly title of courtesy.

"Excuse me, Miss Walton," was the sharp reply, "but seeing I've preferred to remain unmarried, will you have the goodness not to call me out of my name? I never was one of those that wander hither and thither searching high and low for a husband. Such ways are not to my liking, whatever young women of the present day may be accustomed to."

"Is she suggesting I am wandering hither and thither in search of a husband?" thought Hester, half inclined to laugh, but the smile ended in a sigh. She began to understand what disagreeable elements there can be even in a small household.

"I hope Miss Bridge is improving?" she said, wondering how long she would have to stand beside her box in the passage.

"She'll never leave her bed again, save for the churchyard," said Finnis shortly. "It's chronic, that's what it is ‒ it's set in chronic."

"Can I go up to her now? I have come to help you in the nursing, you know. I am sure you must have been overworked of late."

"I don't see what nursing there is to do," said Finnis. "She don't want nothing done for her ‒ only her food took up at meal-time and her face washed of a morning. She's too weak to have her bed made. Dr. Ellis says she isn't to sit up, and how can a body change the sheets with sick folks a-lying between them."

Hester knew how to manage this difficulty, for she had learnt many a gentle art of sick-nursing in the ambulance classes, and practically at her mother's bedside. But she said nothing just then about her ability to arrange things more comfortably for the invalid.

"Perhaps Aunt Verbena will be expecting to see me," she remarked.

"No, she won't. She's a-sleeping soundly," said Finnis. "I were up in her room at four, and it's only just gone six," but just then a fretful voice called, "Finnis, is that Mary Trevanion's daughter? What is all the chattering in the hall about?"

"It's her as has come for the lady-help's place," called Finnis back. "Her as wrote and offered for the place. Is she to come upstairs?"

"Send her up," was the answer in faint, weary tones.

Hester was soon at the top of the stairs, and she entered a room of which the door stood ajar. She approached a mahogany bedstead hung with heavy bedding of the prevailing hues of darkness that seemed a feature of the house. A white face peered from the pillows, and her aunt said, "The image of Mary Trevanion ‒ shall I ever get rid of the past?"

"Aunt dear," said Hester, trying not to shrink from the sharp-featured, withered-looking face, and pressing her warm young lips to the pale cheek, "I have come to nurse you and help you to get well. Shall I put your things down and get you your tea?"

"I don't want any tea," said Miss Bridge. "There's the rice pudding Finnis made, if I get hungry, but I never have any appetite. It's young folks like you and the boy Hugh Millard who eat people out of house and home."

"I hope Hugh will leave something for me," said Hester cheerfully, "for I generally am hungry. Which is the rice pudding, aunt?"

On a table near the bed stood a collection of articles waiting for the invalid's appetite, some of them looking several days old, and so prepared that they might be rice or beef-tea, or anything Finnis chose to call them.

"Oh, Aunt Verbena, I have brought something you will like better," she went on. "Celia made you some beef jelly, and Lorry made you this little blancmange. You'll just taste them, won't you, to please me?"

Miss Bridge refused, but presently accepted a spoonful of each. She made no sign of appreciation. How different, thought Hester, from her own invalid, the mother who had tried to enjoy what love prepared for her to the very last. But she had not come there to work for thanks. She quietly removed the tray to a table in the hall, and left a little of the lemon-flavoured blancmange within the invalid's reach.

"Go and take off your things, Hester," said her aunt. "Your room opens into this one. If I want you at night here is a bell which rings beside your bed."

Weary with travelling, Hester turned eagerly to survey her own little room. She tried not to feel disconsolate at sight of the one torn towel on the rail, the dingy curtains, the bits of ravelled carpeting, the large memorial card of some ancestor of Miss Bridge's, glazed and framed, and showing a monumental urn beneath a weeping willow.

A small preserved crocodile, a trophy of the travels of Aunt Verbena's father, adorned the chest of drawers; but what most arrested Hester's attention was the pictured face of a young girl ‒ the sad sweet eyes of the portrait on the wall seemed to follow her as she moved about.

"Ain't you coming to your tea?" called a voice from below.

Hester thought the words were addressed to herself, and reflected she must not lose patience with old Finnis, trying as her ways and manner would evidently be. She found, however, Finnis was calling "that there boy"; and her aunt told her presently, if Hugh Millard was getting his tea she had better go and get something to eat as well.

Chapter 5

Hester's New Home

"CAN'T we have a teapot, Finnis?" asked Hester, finding a boy with a dirty face, and a collar standing on end by reason of the fastening being broken, established before a handleless cup of tea and two crusts of bread and butter.

"I always did say them as comes to nurse the sick makes more work than they saves," grumbled the old body. "A nice house this will be to live in ‒ young girls wanting to be waited on hand and foot, and asking for teapots at all times of the day, just as if there wasn't a flight of nine steps and more down to the kitchen cupboard!"

"I'll come and help," called Hester, as Finnis went slowly off to the lower regions. "I'll be down in a minute. I want to make your acquaintance first," she said to the awkward-looking boy, who glanced sulkily in her direction. "We shall often keep each other company, I fancy, so we must be good friends, must we not? My name is Hester Walton. Will you not tell me yours?"

She held out her hand, but the lad, probably because his own was stained with paint and tar, made no response, beyond saying, "I live here, and my name's Millard."

"Yes, but what does Aunt Verbena call you? What is your other name?"

"Everyone calls me Millard. My other name's Hugh."

"Oh, I like the name Hugh," said Hester. "I will call you Hugh if you will let me. While we have tea, you will tell me all about your school, won't you? And perhaps I can help you a little in your home lessons, for I have learnt Latin and algebra, though I only went to a girls' school."

Hugh stared, and mumbled something about not wanting anybody's help. He was evidently ill at ease in the society of this strange young lady in pretty dress of grey, and apron with pink ribbons. Another attempt at conversation on Hester's part caused the overturn of his tea, owing to embarrassment, and then he glanced at the door, as though expectant that Finnis or Miss Bridge would discover the rivulet of tea upon the floor, and punish him forthwith.

The visitor betook herself to the kitchen. She found a teapot minus a spout, and another that possessed no top; but in a sideboard in the breakfast room she came across a whole tea set, with a pattern of moss roses, and proclaimed her discovery to Finnis in triumph.

"Well, use it and break it to pieces if you will," said Finnis, seating herself resolutely in front of the fire, and declining to render aid. "That china set have been in the family for generations and generations, but there's new ways beginning under this roof, I see, and if you likes to break up the old china, do it, and welcome, miss! Young women knows nothing of carefulness nowadays. I suppose you'll be wanting the damask tablecloths that was mistress's grandmother's next?"

Hester laughed. "Now, Finnis," she said, "just you taste this tea. Isn't it a deal nicer out of this charming little pot than from that cracked one with the broken spout? And I may cut myself a piece of bread and butter, may I not?"

"You may eat the whole loaf if you're so disposed. My poor mistress being ill, there's none to keep down the baker's bill now, and it's well known the young gormandize shocking," said Finnis.

Thus encouraged, Hester cut a few slices of bread and butter, and returned to the sitting room. Hugh had disappeared, so she thought she would carry up her tea to her aunt's room, where she had the satisfaction of finding Miss Verbena Bridge seemed to fancy a dainty slice of bread and butter, and some tea from the ancestral cup. The meal over, she had to tidy the sickroom, unpack her own things, make the invalid some arrowroot, and do her best to settle the old lady for the night.

At last Hester was at liberty to seek repose in the room communicating with her aunt's. The candle stub vouchsafed by Finnis only burnt for a brief season, and then expired in its socket. Hester tried not to think of her weird surroundings. She fell asleep to dream of a funeral procession, and woke with a start, to realise she was in that strange room, opening into the invalid's.

Supposing Aunt Verbena should take it into her head to walk in her sleep, and should stalk ghost-like up to the bed, and bend above her in the darkness! Hester wondered whatever she should do at such a crisis. She began to feel decidedly "creepy," and she longed for the light of morning. She was certain she heard someone moaning, and she drew the clothes tremblingly over her head. Then she remembered that she was nurse, and jumped up, and ran barefooted into the next room, which was illumined by a nightlight.

"Aunt Verbena, can I get you something? Are you in pain?" she asked gently.

"When I want you, Hester Walton," said Miss Bridge, "I will ring for you. I cannot stand people fidgeting about me unless I call them."

Hester apologised, but managed to get the invalid to take some beef jelly and milk, after angry protestations that she was "not to be ordered about like a child." Then she stole back to the darkness of her room, and, clasping her hands beneath the coverlet, she repeated in a whisper her mother's hymn, and so was comforted:

Oh, heart of God, unwearied still!

Thy people Thou dost keep;

The love that heav'n and earth doth fill

Doth never sleep.

Hester's first day beneath her aunt's roof was only a sample of many another as trying and depressing. Finnis from the first was a thorn in her side, conscious of increasing infirmity, yet resenting her share in household arrangements. It needed plans of diplomacy and strategy to obtain hot water, saucepans, spoons, and the like when needed on the invalid's behalf. As for a pair of white curtains for the sickroom, these were quite unobtainable, though there were several laid by in a trunk.

"White curtains is shocking waste and extravagance," said Finnis. "And them curtains as is up have been good enough for this house ever since we first came here."

Hester offered to clean them ‒ a process the brown and black curtains sadly needed by this time. She likewise promised to wash the white ones when necessary, but all in vain. Out of the guinea in her own purse came a simple pair of curtains, and the pretty muslin she substituted for the dark wire blind.

She thought her aunt noticed the change, but nothing was said on the subject. Finnis grumbled about "fads and notions" when the dark curtains came down, and grumbled when she saw Hester's pretty frames, and books, and a climbing plant in a pot change the mournful aspect of the girl's own little bedroom. How Hester longed for Lorry, smoothing away difficulties by bright suggestions, and always cheery and helpful.

Hugh Millard, too, Miss Bridge's eleven-year-old ward, who attended the grammar school daily, was a perplexity to her. She was accustomed to merry, bright-faced boys, and could do nothing with this reserved, sullen-looking lad, save take him, with all her many perplexities and difficulties, to the Helper and Counsellor who is not far from any one of us.

When she had been nearly three weeks in Kilnmere Street, Hester received a letter from Alys Walton.

When are you coming back again? Surely you have had enough of it by this time, Hetty. I should think Aunt Verbena is well enough for you to leave her now. If not, do persuade her to get a trained nurse ‒ I am certain she can afford to. It has turned out, as I felt it would, a great mistake that you ever left Woodwell.

Winnie Abbot gets on all right at the Riddets', and the children seem devoted to her already. She has been staying in the house while her mother was up in London. By the way, did Celia tell you that Harold Cline is not to sail after all for another six weeks? He is wanted for something or other at the construction works till then. Winnie says the children are wild with delight at the idea of keeping him longer than they thought. Winnie gets on nicely there ‒ she is such a winning little thing, so of course she would be sure to succeed.

But where your place cannot be filled, Hetty, is in the Sunday school and the Temperance Society. Miss Gurnap cannot find an assistant secretary anywhere. All the people here are so busy, and none seem to have just your power and energy. You did far more than Miss Gurnap herself, and I believe the society will gradually dissolve and expire without you. Your boys have been very irregular since you left. I hear none will volunteer for such a large class of boys, and, indeed it would only mean someone giving up some other work.

You know if teaching were my forte, I would take them for your sake ‒ nay, for Christ's sake, Hetty; but I know I could do nothing in that line. I asked Graham to take them, but he answered that he was no hypocrite, and could not teach what he did not himself believe. Oh, Hetty, you had more influence with Graham than any of us. I do feel so anxious about him. For you to go and nurse Aunt Verbena was a mistake all round!

It was scarcely a thought of delight for Hester that Harold who had been so much in her thoughts should have prolonged opportunities of cultivating the acquaintance of winsome Winnie Abbot, everybody's favourite. But she blamed herself for the passing shadow. Could she not put aside selfishness, and rejoice that sunshine of happiness was brightening Winnie's lot? She could, and she would.

A trouble far darker was the anxiety as to Graham ‒ the doubt as to whether she had erred, even while following what she had believed to be the will of God. "Yet," thought she, "I did ask Him to lead and guide my steps. I know He leads aright, though it seems as if in everything I have only been making a mistake."

That afternoon, though a misty rain was falling, she seemed to long for the air. She put on her waterproof, and went out to buy a few things her aunt was needing, and then, feeling almost as dreary as the weather, she was turning towards the green that led near the brickfields, when she saw Hugh Millard coming down the street, and remembered it was his half-holiday.

"Shall we have a walk, Hugh?" she asked. "It is not nearly tea time. Won't you show me which is the nicest walk round here? I think the rain is leaving off."

"I'm going to the museum," said Hugh, "and I don't know any nice walks." He turned away, and then suddenly ran after her. "Are you bored to death?" he asked. "Do you hate living there?" and he pointed in the direction of Kilnmere Street.

Hester was startled by the gloom, almost amounting to fierceness, in his expression. "Well, Hughie," she said, "it is dull weather, isn't it? I suppose you had plenty of sunshine out in India."

"Don't!" said the boy, and a change came over his face.

Hester began to think he could not bear just then to speak of the place that to him was Homeland, the place that held his parents' graves. Was there more in the boy than rude sullenness and ill-temper? Was it loneliness and heartache that she had mistaken for moroseness and sourness of nature?

"If you're dull," said he hesitatingly, "wouldn't you enjoy seeing the museum?"

The suggestion did not specially charm her, but she recognised that in acquainting her with the existence of this special museum, Hugh was sharing with her a confidence, and, as it were, throwing open to her the gates of his paradise.

"It's a penny," he said, "and I go in always with my Saturday penny. Mr. Alder gave me a penny for cleaning his counter, and I'll treat you to the museum, and there's elephants' teeth, and weapons, and idols and things, and you'll enjoy yourself so much. Come along!"

Hester knew better than to pay for her admission, She understood that she and Hugh Millard were friends from the moment that, with an air of dignity, he had paid tuppence to a greengrocer, who kept a small shop in the High Street, saying in explanation, "For myself and the lady."

Hugh had enough of Eastern feeling to make him sensible that he was, in some measure, responsible for Hester, now that she had shared his bounty. He showed her where the steps were slippery, and where he once met a goose coming down and nearly fell over it. And he encouraged her, after a couple of flights, by an assurance that they were nearly at the top.

"There's two rooms," he said. "The museum of curiosities, that formerly belonged to Augustus James Bowler, Esq., of Usherford Manor, deceased. You read all about it on tablets on the wall. And there's the picture gallery. It says the pictures were left by his relict. And Mr. Corbett sits in a box just inside, and he's from the Crimea."

"Well, I am thankful for one thing," thought Hester, arriving at the top considerably out of breath, "Hugh is not the mute I have hitherto esteemed him. Now he has become conversational, he will be quite a companion. Poor laddie. He seems drawn to those Indian models and specimens as though the palanquins and punkahs and temples rested his home-sick heart."

"What a dreary life for the old pensioner," she thought, noticing a wrinkled-faced old man in a small compartment at the entrance of the room. "I should think scarcely anyone ever comes up here. It must be melancholy, indeed, to be caretaker in such a place. But what a bright face he has! It is like sunshine to look at him. He must be very old, I should think, yet his is the pleasantest face I have seen in Usherford." She went up to the old man, saying, "What a wet day we have had."

"Ay, lady," said the old man cheerily, "'tis nice moist weather, praise the Lord!"

Hester looked rather surprised for a moment. The drizzling rain had not struck her as "nice moist weather." She sat down near old Corbett's "box," and watched his furrowed hands busily knitting. She knew what that large-printed book open in front of him would prove to be. It sent a glow through her heart to recognise that up here in loneliness, amongst strange birds and animals, and curious things of the past, was one who in solitude communed with the Master. No wonder there was summer sunshine in the heart, even at the time of hoary hairs.

Chapter 6

Birthday Festivities

"YOU lead a quiet life up here, Mr. Corbett," said Hester, remembering the name Hugh had mentioned. "I suppose you do not have many to look over the museum?"

"No, lady, the stairs are trying. We're very quiet here, excepting on Bank Holidays."

"Does it pay to keep the place open then?"

"Oh, it's endowed by the estate of Augustus James Bowler, Esq., deceased," said Hugh. "It says so on the tablet. He was a great traveller, and he left the museum to his home town, and enough money to keep it in good order. And Mr. Corbett doesn't mind being quiet. It's better than battles, isn't it, Mr. Corbett?"

"Ay, Master Millard, I've seen enough of battles to make my heart sing for joy that the Lord has given us peace. This is the best time of all my life. It's like a resting-time before I hear His call and go Home."

"But it is dull for you," said Hester, "up here at the top of this house all alone."

"But if we looks up to God, lady," said the old man gently, "we're none of us alone. And there's no dullness in my heart as I looks round about on my Father's marvellous works and doings, and the wonders of His hand in the little insects and leaves and shells, and thinks within me what wisdom and knowledge He have got ‒ yet He thinketh upon me, and cares for my feeble steps."

"Mr. Corbett's got a wife, and a daughter Anna, and she makes waistcoats," said Hugh, politely endeavouring to entertain his companion, as he noticed an unusually grave look upon the face that was bright and smiling as a rule. "And Mr. Corbett lives two miles out of Usherford, on the Fernheath Road, and he's got another daughter that's a servant at the infirmary, and there's another girl ‒ a little one, isn't there, Mr. Corbett? ‒ only she's been taken in by the family to be cared for."

"Yes, Master Millard, and you must look in and see us all when you take a walk round our way," said the old man, smiling at the boy. "I'm sorry to say that our Kitty, that I told you was in service at the infirmary, will have to lay up for a bit. She's coming home poorly. She's a real willing lassie, and she's a bit over-worked, so they say."

"Perhaps she has a hard place at the infirmary," said Hester.

"Ay, my lady, there's plenty to be done, and she's seen plenty of sorrow and sickness. Our Kitty's a bright lassie, and folks said it was a mistake for her to go into a dull situation like that, but I don't doubt the Master have used her for to cheer some poor sick creatures there."

"But it has turned out a mistake," said Hester earnestly, "for you say she is coming home unwell."

The old man looked at her with bright, cheery eyes full of faith and hopefulness. "It isn't on this side of eternity, lady," said he, "that we know what things is mistakes and what things isn't. Our Kitty didn't go into service yonder without prayer, and it's my belief that what we prays about can't turn out a mistake in the Lord's sight after all, only we don't see far enough sometimes. What look like mistakes on this side of Jordan, lady, may have a brighter light on them when we see them as God sees them ‒ when we look back on them in the Glory-land."

"Yes," said Hester, "I had not thought of that. All we have to do, then, is to follow what we believe to be God's will, and leave the consequences to Him. It is strange you should have said those words you did just now," she added after a pause. "It is just the thought I was needing ‒ that the shadows and worries of the present are not the only result of a step that seems all a mistake, yet I took it in prayer."

"Pray on, lady," said the old man peacefully. "I have been young and now am old, but I've never yet seen the day in which there's been a real failure in any life that's been committed to the Master for Guide. Yon dear laddie's been sadly lonesome, lady," he added, looking towards Hugh, now bending with interest towards a bottled snake, "and many's the time as I've had a bit of talk with him up here, that I've asked the Lord for to raise up friends to teach Master Millard of Him as is a Father to the fatherless. I'm thankful from my heart that the Lord have sent one of His children to care for that poor laddie."

Hester's eyes filled with tears, but they were as dews of healing. Had she indeed been sent to Usherford in answer to the old man's compassionate pleading for the boyish life, so lonely and shadowed?

"I knew you'd enjoy the museum," said Hugh, as they turned their steps homeward. "Did you see the snake in the bottle, and the preserved alligator? Jack Alder and me, we found a snake dead in a hedge, and we bottled it. And then Finnis threw it away, and the dustman had it, and we never found it again all our lives. I hate Finnis. If I was Queen I'd execute her."

"Hugh, wouldn't you like a garden?" asked Hester, pretending not to hear the outburst of passion. "When my brother was a schoolboy he had a piece of ground to look after, and so had we all. Don't you think our garden wants tidying? I could manage some of it, but suppose we put the beds on the right-hand side in your care, and you and I will get some grass seed and improve the lawn."

"They wouldn't let me touch the garden," said Hugh gloomily. "I asked Finnis once. I had some seeds sent over from India, but she wouldn't let me put them in. She said she wasn't going to have heathenish and idolatrous plants growing anywhere near Kilnmere Street. And I asked Miss Bridge before she got ill, and she told me it was only waste of time to tidy that garden. Jack Alder says it doesn't get enough sun."

"Who is Jack Alder, Hughie?"

"My chum. He's very clever. His father's Mr. Alder, of High Street, the chemist. He lets Jack and me make pills sometimes, and then we eat them, only they're not real medicine, you know. I can make real medicine, though, and dentifrice. I watch Mr. Alder nearly all my half-holidays. I say, if I have the right-hand side of the garden, that takes in the old apple-house ‒ couldn't that be my laboratory? Dr. Ellis has a laboratory, and oh, I should love one, and Jack and I could do experiments."

Hester looked at his glowing face, upturned to hers in earnest longing. The sullen, gloomy expression was gone. It had faded away beneath the warmth of confidence and sympathy.

"We will ask Aunt Verbena, Hughie," she said. "I daresay she will let you use the old apple-house if you will keep it clean and tidy. And I am going to ask her to let you bring in Jack Alder to tea tomorrow, because it is my birthday. So you must accept a cake to celebrate the occasion."

Hugh stared and coloured. "Finnis won't allow that," he said. "She never lets any boys come through the gate even. She says they fill the place with dirt."

"Well," said Hester, "nobody likes a dirty place, but I am sure Jack will wipe his boots."

Hugh looked extremely gratified, and scarcely gave himself time for tea, so eager was he to arrange his cabinet of specimens, and prepare for the entertainment of his friend.

As for Hester, her heart sank within her as she realised the task that lay before her. With her usual impulsiveness she had proposed the treat for Hugh, but she began to fear Hugh's disappointment of being unable to invite his friend would now be all the greater because of her suggestion.

All the time she was tending her aunt, and trying to cheer the old lady by a description of the museum and bright-faced old Corbett, her thoughts were dwelling upon the best way to propitiate Finnis, and she breathed a prayer in her heart that she might be helped to bring some cheer and home sunshine into the life of the orphan lad, whose existence beneath that roof seemed so lonely and grey.

It happened, as is so often the case, that the stone of difficulty was rolled away before she had to face it. Her aunt was turning over the pages of an old journal, and she suddenly exclaimed: "Hester, it is your birthday tomorrow."

"I must plead guilty, auntie," said the girl. "And you will wear that new cap with the pink bow just to please me tomorrow, won't you?"

"No, no, child, I shall wear black to the end of my days. But you have been a good girl ‒ a good, patient girl. You are as your mother was before you."

"Aunt Verbena, my mother was like one of God's own saints on earth," said Hester, her voice breaking a little. "I am so glad, so thankful, you know her as she was."

"The past is past," said her aunt shortly. "If I was unkind to her once, it cannot harm her now. Tomorrow is your birthday, Hester. I am a poor woman, and can afford but a shilling or two beyond the twenty pounds a year I give you as salary, but I should like you to name some little gift you would like tomorrow, and you may go out and choose it ‒ not that I can do the same every year, you know."

Hester seized the opportunity to plead, that her birthday might be celebrated by inviting Hugh's friend. Her aunt looked surprised, and told her she feared she was "spoiling Millard, who needed a firm hand over him, and was growing, Finnis complained, more troublesome than ever since his guardian had been ill."

But, in recognition of the birthday, she gave permission before long, and Hester had only to tell the delighted Hugh and break the news to Finnis. This was not such a task as she had feared. Finnis was a woman given to investments, and she had a snug little hoard laid by. She had just heard that her interest was to be increased by a company in which she had invested, and, as she calculated her gains, her temper became almost sweet.

"I won't have no traipsing about in my kitchen," said she. "Them boys must keep their place, and not tramp up and down my stairs. Things is changed in this here house, what with birthdays and spoilt children, and boys invited here to gormandize." But this was the extent of her grumbling, greatly to Hester's thankfulness.

The birthday was a success from beginning to end. Certainly Finnis got out of the wrong side of her bed, and did her best to act as wet blanket on the festivities, but, nevertheless, it was a happy day, from the time the dear home letters and gifts of love arrived in the morning, to the hour when Hugh eagerly led in his chum, shy but smiling, and the two boys presented Hester with a really tasteful bouquet they had wandered hither and thither to make, of late wild flowers and leaves of deepening dye.

After tea there was Hugh's cabinet to inspect, and then came a series of chemical experiments, illustrating a lecture given by the two boys to an audience consisting of Hester, who applauded with enthusiasm whenever she was not too nervous to do aught but survey with an anxious eye the various substances the boys brought eagerly into juxtaposition.

After this, it seemed to Hester that things began to improve somewhat at No. 3, Kilnmere Street. Jack Alder's parents asked her over to their house, and turned out to be warm-hearted, hospitable people.

"I have often said to my husband," remarked Mrs. Alder, "that Hugh Millard has the making of a strong character, whether for good or evil, and I can see he feels you really care for him, and want to lead him aright. He seemed quite heart-broken when he was sent over here to England when his parents died, and I have been glad for our Jack to cheer up the poor boy. And now he is much brighter, and often tells us of the games you have taught him, and how you are teaching him botany, and other things too. My husband says Hugh will be quite a student one of these days."

Hugh had his garden too, and a busy worker he was therein, doing wonders in the way of rockery, shell-edging, and a dandelion-crowned hillock that he called his "wild-flower copse." With Jack Alder's aid he made a model in cork and cement of the Taj Mahal at Agra, and this surmounted his rockery, though it was all Hester could do to prevent Finnis from using it as a dustbin.

Somehow Finnis resented the change in what had for so long been the "back yard," but Hester, while unable wholly to accept Hugh's ideas of art, or to look upon the model as a thing of beauty, considered everything helpful that could brighten the lad's heart and home, and provide him with healthy occupation.

So it came to pass that rake and hoe and spade went to work in earnest, and Hester persuaded her aunt sometimes to sit at the window, propped up with cushions, and to look out upon their joint handiwork.

Chapter 7

The Secret in the Dresser

"YOU'VE had the fairies at work in this house, Miss Bridge," said old Dr. Ellis to his patient one day. "Somehow the look of the place seems different, and I am glad of it. I believe in the influence of sunshine and flowers."

"Ah, doctor," said the old lady drearily, "nothing of that sort can minister to a mind diseased."

"Well, your mind is still in the right place!" said Dr. Ellis cheerfully. "Indeed, if it has a fault, the trouble is that it is too restless and active. You must get out soon in a bath-chair and enjoy the air, you know. By the way, how long can your niece remain with you? I fancy Miss Hester is the fairy that looks after your flowers! But I suppose she will soon be going home? When am I to find you a nurse, Miss Bridge?"

"I have told you repeatedly," said Miss Bridge angrily, "that I cannot afford a trained nurse. I am very poor, doctor. It is needful for me to save."

"I did not know she owed money," thought the doctor, "but people understand their own affairs best. I am inclined to think this mania for hoarding will increase. It must make it hard work for Miss Hester to keep the house respectable."

As he met Hester coming up to the invalid's room, he stopped to tell her she was worth twenty ordinary nurses to her aunt, and to remark upon the improved look of the place. Hester's heart glowed at the first words of encouragement she had received beneath that roof. She went about her duties that day in good spirits, for Mrs. Ellis, the doctor's wife, was coming to sit with Miss Bridge that evening for a couple of hours, and Hester saw before her a prospect of devoting that time to the short serial story she had sketched out in her thoughts.

The deadline given her by the publisher was now almost gone, and she had only been able to write half of the first chapter, so many were the claims upon her time and attention.

"I shall work hard this evening," thought Hester. Alas, for human plans and intentions, and the visionary schemes of authors! Hester had just established Mrs. Ellis comfortably in the armchair, and the visitor was about to read the letter of a mutual friend to the invalid, when there rang through the house a succession of shrieks and howls, intermingled with a passionate wailing cry of "Miss Walton!"

"Oh, what has happened?" cried the invalid tremblingly. "It is that dreadful boy again! All the Millards had such violent tempers. This boy has inherited a spirit of passion. He is very wicked and revengeful towards Finnis. I really do not think I can keep that boy here."

Hester was already downstairs. At first, the noise was too great for her to realise what had happened. Hugh was imprisoned in a small dark cellar, and his kicks threatened to break the door.

"There he is," said Finnis, who was pale with wrath, "and there he'll be till his bedtime, though he's that strong I'd never have got him in there but for a push when he was looking over yonder at the tank."

"But did you not say there are rats there, Finnis? The boy is nervous, remember. Do let him out. I am sure it is harmful to keep him locked up in the dark!"

"I wish he were locked up for ever and ever," said Finnis angrily. "To think of the audacity of his daring to keep a dog in my dresser drawer!"

"A dog in the dresser drawer, Finnis?"

"Yes, well you may stare. It's that old dresser in the back kitchen, and most of the drawers are broken, as you see. Well, my hair has stood on end more than once to hear noises proceeding out of that there dresser, and this night I makes bold to examine every part, for I don't believe in no ghosts; but, thinks I, there's something wrong in that back kitchen. Well, Miss Walton, in that left-hand drawer, as you sees with your own eyes before you, what should I find but a miserable cur, all skin and bone, curled up on some straw, taking French leave in my dresser!

"I drowns him in the tank, and then I taxes that there audacious young good-for-nothing with playing off his tricks on me, and he has the impudence to say he found him a-wandering and a-starving, and he took and adopted of him, and put him there 'cause he knew I never cleaned out my drawers, so I shouldn't find him. The young rascal thought I were too deaf to hear the brute a-whining, but I've given him something to whine for now, and if he ain't taught how to conduct himself to his olders and betters, I'll give notice for to leave my place, that I will, and you may make up your mind to it!"

"Oh, how I wish you would!" thought Hester, but she had no time for meditation. First of all, she ran up to tell her aunt that Hugh had been punished, and she would do her best to quiet him, and she need not be at all alarmed.

Then she ran to the tank, finding, as she suspected, that Finnis, being dim of sight, had not perceived it contained but very little water, not enough to drown the yellow-haired puppy that was struggling now to find more comfortable quarters. Hester took the wet little creature in her arms, ran up to dry it privately in her room, and to administer biscuits and milk. She left it on the bed, wrapped in a soft, warm shawl.

By the time she came down, Finnis had lost the white heat of her passion, and had called to remembrance that a child she once locked in a dark cellar did have a fit that same evening in consequence. The boy eventually recovered from it, but it was an uncomfortable memory.

"He's become wonderful quiet in there of a sudden," she said to Hester. "I've a good mind to open the door, and see if he's up to any mischief."

"Finnis," said Hester earnestly, "let me speak to Hugh. I am sure he did not mean to annoy you, but you know how fond he is of animals. I am used to dogs, and I would take care his dog did not trouble you. Won't you really let him keep it?"

"Why, it's drownded in the tank," said Finnis. "You can see it for yourself, and I'll be obliged to you if you'll bury it."

Hester took a light, and turned the key of the cellar door. Hugh's face was so white that it frightened her, and he could scarcely walk as she led the way up to the parlour. How thankful she felt that he had not been longer imprisoned!

"There's rats there," he said. "One jumped on me. It was like a grave."

Hester made him lie down, and brought him some of the invalid's warm soup. It was no time then to reprove him for passion and rudeness. But when the colour came back to his face, and the tears stood in his eyes for his little lost dog, she tried to show him that his anger and passion were grievous in the sight of Jesus who loved him best, and she pointed out to him that he should make amends to Finnis by an apology for his rudeness.

"She's drowned Judy," cried the boy, unable to restrain the tears that he was yet ashamed for Hester to see. Then Hester ran upstairs, and brought down the shawl with its thin little occupant, and laid it on his breast.

Hugh looked in her face, and felt the touch of Judy's tongue, and ran down suddenly to tell Finnis he was sorry he tried to kick her. As for Finnis, she was so transfixed by what seemed to her as Judy's ghost that she stood mute and amazed, and made no answer whatsoever.

And this was the evening Hester meant to give up to writing her serial! She began to see that story could never reach the publishers by the time they had named, and she thought it only just to them to write and tell them she was unable to send in the work by that date.

She hoped a letter might come in answer, extending the time; but she heard nothing farther, and she laid away her manuscript paper, wondering when again, if ever, she would be able to take up the work she loved the best. "Let it be as God wills," she said in her heart, "If not at my desk, then just where He wants me may I do His work; and even if I can bring Him nothing else, may I try to 'Bring my patient God a patient heart.'"

"I'd love to have Judy for my own," said Hugh, "but I know they'll never let me keep him. He's got no home. I found him lying in the brickfield, nearly dead, and I brought him home and fed him, and kept him two days in the old dresser, and only took him out when Finnis was upstairs, but I wish now I'd told you all about him."

"Yes, Hughie, it is always best to be open and candid. Do try to be brave and truthful in act as well as word, won't you? Now, as you are so much alone, I think the little dog would be company for you, and I am going to ask Aunt Verbena to let him stay. I will contribute a shilling towards his dog licence, but I cannot afford any more."

"Oh," said Hugh, with glowing face, "please say I won't want any more of my weekly pocket-money till Judy's licence money is made up, I'd like to pay for it all myself. Are you going to show him to Miss Bridge? I've got a yellow ribbon my ayah out in Lucknow gave me. Shall we put it round his neck?"

The old lady looked weary and absent-minded when Hester brought the little dog up in her arms to exhibit him in the sickroom. Hester pleaded hard that he might remain as a companion for Hugh, and reminded her aunt there was an old box in the garden that could soon be adapted for a kennel.

Miss Bridge told her at last the boy might keep the dog, on the understanding that he paid for the licence, and Hester's success in her advocacy was celebrated by a joyful dance between Judy and his master. The boy was really sorry for the passion he had shown towards Finnis. He brought her a propitiatory offering of a pudding bestowed upon him by Mrs. Alder, and endeavoured further to compliment her by growing her name, "Palmyra Finnis," in mustard and cress in his garden.

Hester began to think with satisfaction that a better understanding was in prospect between the old servant and Hugh, but she could not feel content to see the continued look of dreariness and gloom upon the face of her invalid charge. It was not till she had been some time beneath that roof that she began to understand "the heart knoweth its own bitterness," and that the aged life was darkened by an ever-present trouble.

One day the two were alone in the house. Finnis was shopping, and Hugh watching the compounding of medicines at his friend's, the chemist's, while Judy reposed his fast-fattening body upon the counter. Hester was moving about her own bedroom, singing softly to herself the hymn that her mother had composed:

The flow'rets slumber in the glade,

'Neath veil of gloaming grey;

But Thou, O Lord, in sun or shade,

Art Light alway.

"Hester, don't sing that!" called the old lady sharply. "I cannot bear it. My little one used to sing it in the evening."

"That was mother's own hymn," said Hester. "She composed the words and the tune. I did not know you had heard it before, Aunt Verbena."

"Your mother was my little one's governess," said Miss Bridge. "Alice learnt it from her ‒ she was always singing it. Hester, do not bring back the past. I cannot bear it."

She spoke almost pleadingly, and Hester heard a sound like a sob.

"Auntie," she said tenderly, "the past is God's now. Won't you be glad in the present? You are so much better. Dr. Ellis says you have really taken a turn towards recovery."

"No, Hester, I shall never recover. The weight on my mind is too great. It brought on my illness, and only one thing could ever really cure me, and that is impossible."

"But nothing is impossible with the Lord, Aunt Verbena. Won't you tell me about the trouble? Perhaps I might be able to help you."

"No one can help me," said the old lady drearily. "No one can bring back the dead. It is through me a little child has gone to its grave. Did you know, Hester, my sister, your Aunt Alice, left a little child behind her?"

"We know so little about Aunt Alice," said Hester. "Finnis told me that is her portrait in the next room. Oh, Aunt Verbena, what a sweet, beautiful face it is!"

"That is the sister I turned out of doors, when she engaged herself to one I thought too poor to marry into our family," said Miss Bridge. "They fell into sickness and poverty, and I hardened my heart against them. God forgive me!"

"So He will, Aunt Verbena," said Hester tenderly. "He knows you would alter it now if you could."

"Alter it? I would give all I have to be able to help them, Hester, but they are dead. She was the last to go, and she wrote to me from New York, pleading with me to send for her baby girl and take her into my keeping, for the sake of the little sister I had loved in the past. I wrote back, saying the child had no claim on me, and if she were sent to me I would refuse to admit her. Alice had died, thank God, before my letter reached her. The boarding house people kept the baby for a while, and then it died, I suppose, of neglect."

Aunt Verbena paused for a moment, to compose herself, but Hester thought she looked a broken woman now.

"I have never been at peace since I wrote that letter to my dying sister. Oh, Hester, the longing woke in me to see that little one in my home. I felt it would be a token that she ‒ that the Almighty One Himself ‒ had forgiven me. I was too proud to seek your father's help, but I went to a private detective and had inquiries made. And then I heard the child had died. I am paying now for them to find out the little thing's grave. Unfortunately, the boarding house has changed hands, and no one seems to know where the child lies. I would raise a memorial stone to her, as I have done on the parents' grave ‒ it is all there is left me to do. You are a good girl, Hester. You are like your mother, but please do not wish for me to recover. I do not want to live and bear the darkness that my own cruelty has brought upon my life."

"But, auntie," said Hester, "if you live on, it is because there is work left for you to do still on earth."

"Work? What can a feeble creature, almost helpless, as I am, do now?"

"You can pray, Aunt Verbena," said the girl softly, "and that covers all power, so mother often said."

"No, Hester, I cannot pray. God never will forgive my rejection of that orphan child."

"Can His Word be broken, auntie?" said Hester, in a voice that trembled with earnestness. "Is it not written, 'If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness'? Oh, Aunt Verbena, surely He who died for sinners will blot out our sins!"

Just then Finnis came in to complain of the dust and wind, and to remonstrate against the draper for not matching the pattern of her print.

Miss Bridge shut her eyes wearily, and that conversation was at an end, but Hester never forgot it. She realised the burden of remorse that aging life was enduring, and she prayed that the Lord Jesus might bring comfort and healing and light, even amid that deep darkness.

"I shall get Aunt Verbena into the sunshine soon," she thought. "I feel there is nothing like sunshine to help her out of these clouds of melancholy. Poor Aunt Verbena. What seemed to me irritability has really been misery. Oh, if we could only see right into people's hearts, I believe we should all grow towards one another much more tender and patient."

Chapter 8

A New Project

IT wanted a great deal of persuasion to get the invalid out of doors, though her general health was certainly better. Dr. Ellis joined Hester in urging her to get into the fresh air, and one lovely morning an outing was decided upon.

Mrs. Alder had recommended a bath-chair man, but Finnis said she had promised the job, if ever Miss Bridge wanted a chair, to her cousin's husband, "As had come down in the world, and had to earn his living by the sweat of his brow." Her relative was commissioned to bring a chair round, but it soon became evident he was the wrong sort of escort for a nervous invalid. The man looked ill, and his hands trembled, though he was anxious to oblige.

He started off so hastily with the chair that he nearly collided with a railway cart. Hester heard him mutter, "The chair's a-going right over," and she told him they preferred to hire the chair without attendance, whereupon Simmons asked for payment of the hire, and speedily disappeared within the Merry Fiddlers.

"The man is intoxicated," said Miss Bridge indignantly. "He was like that before, when he came to mend some chairs. I wonder he does not know better, brought up respectably as he was, and with such a decent body for a wife! Hester, you are not strong enough to pull the chair. Who will take me home? Oh, I never, never will venture out like this again. The chair was nearly under a cart just now."

"Aunt Verbena, this is just Hugh's time to come in from school. If you rest a little here, he will pull in front, and I can help you on from behind."

Hugh readily accepted the task. He had no special liking for his guardian, but with all the warmth of a boy's heart he was devoted to Hester, and he would have done anything at her desire. The invalid soon looked all the better for the air and sunshine, and felt safe with her two protectors. She even unbent so far as to pull out a penny for Hugh when they returned home.

Owing to paying for Judy's dog licence, he had long been penniless, and he was almost as soon among the relics of the land he loved, at the museum, as Simmons had been at the Fiddlers.

"To think of his acting so disgraceful!" exclaimed Finnis, when Miss Bridge explained why the chair was returned by Hugh. "Ah, well, I warned Jane many a time not to enter no bonds of matrimony. But she were took up with his handsome face, and I can't get much out of her against him even now, though I reckon it's only her washtub as stands between her children and starvation. I thought it only right to get him a job, seeing Jane Withers were my own second cousin on the mother's side; but I'll have done with the lot of them now. I don't want no pauper families coming on me to be supported, and so I'll give them to know. I've no patience with them as can't take their glass respectably, and don't know when to stop. The truth is, there's far too many public houses in this here place."

"Yes, there are, Finnis," said Hester. "I wish we could do something here on the other side."

"Begging your pardon, Miss Walton, I've got plenty of my own work to attend to, without mixing myself up with outside work," said Finnis with dignity.

Hester thought within her that to try to help and protect our fellow creatures must surely be our own work committed to us by God. Her heart was concerned on behalf of such as Simmons, and on behalf of suffering wives and children. She had to bestir herself to arrange for a comfortable rest for her invalid aunt, whom presently she read to sleep; but somehow her thoughts kept revolving round those thickly-set taverns of Usherford, and she longed that temperance efforts might be started there.

One evening she was about to retire, having watched her aunt fall asleep, when she recognised with affright that someone was stealthily opening the window below. Feeling she must save the invalid from any alarm of thieves, she went hastily down, and her candle revealed the face of Hugh Millard, who looked startled and ashamed at sight of her.

"I didn't mean to frighten you," he said. "I've only got in this way once before. Finnis always forgets to bolt this window."

"It will not be unfastened again," said Hester gravely. "Oh, Hugh, is it an honourable thing to creep into the house like a thief? You went upstairs before eight. Wherever can you have been?"

"I've run all the way from Femheath," he said. "I wanted to hear Jack Alder play his violin at Mr. Corbett's Band of Hope, and they wouldn't let me go last quarter when I asked. There was lovely singing, and a lot of girls and boys recited. There's nothing ever going on in Usherford. I do wish we had a society here. Please don't tell anyone I've been to the meeting. Mr. Corbett doesn't know, or Jack, that I went there without permission."

"You shall tell me about the meeting another time, Hugh," said Hester; "but you must never go secretly again. I thought, Hugh, you had made up your mind in all things to try to please the Lord Jesus. A Christian boy must not be deceitful, must he? Go to bed now, Hughie; but if you really want to please our Master, I think you will tell Aunt Verbena of tonight's adventure, and ask her forgiveness. Be thankful you did not cause her a relapse ‒ to frighten people like this is a dangerous thing, and she might easily have heard you."

"I'm sorry you were scared," faltered Hugh, "but I never, never could tell Miss Bridge. She does scold so."

The next day, however, Hester contrived that Hugh should read to the invalid in her place; and when she came back to the sickroom she knew the confession had been made, for Hugh looked red and miserable, and Miss Bridge certainly was very angry, and condemned him supperless to bed.

"I'm glad I told her, though," he said, as Hester bade him goodnight. "Miss Walton, I ... I asked Jesus to help me to tell. And I'll never come into the house like a thief again; I've promised Him I won't."

Hester thought a great deal about that little Band of Hope at Fernheath, superintended by old Corbett, and about Hugh's delight in the violin performance. She wondered if Graham would spare the violin he used in the past. He was a skilled performer, and had a better one now; but Hester and he had once shared a cheaper instrument and, with Mr. Alder's help she thought she could perhaps teach Hugh how to play it.

"You said the other day, Hugh," she remarked, "how much you wished we had temperance meetings at Usherford. Do you know, I have been asking God to open the way for a temperance society here? So many hard workers are losing their wages, their health, their happiness because of surrounding temptation."

"I've heard a lot of people say," said Hugh, "there ought to be a temperance society here, only somehow it can't be started. Mrs. Alder says everyone is too busy."

"Well, Hugh, shall you and I start one? Shall we put our names together as the first members, and hold a meeting once a week to plan what you and I can do to help? Perhaps Jack will come to our meeting too."

"Oh, yes," said Hugh eagerly, "and my dog Judy. And I know Mrs. Alder would come, and she can recite beautifully; and Jack knows a piece about a shipwreck. When shall we begin, and who will be in the chair?"

"You shall be our first chairman," said Hester, smiling. "Hughie, yours is the first name in my pledge-book here. Do you know, I think this may be the reason why God sent you to this place all the way from India? He may need your help, as His own child, to make Usherford brighter and better, and to prepare His way in the hearts and lives of all these workers round us. You are going to be His follower, are you not, Hughie, and His messenger? You know He sets us to work for Him if we can truly say 'Yes' when He asks us, 'Lovest thou Me?'"

There was silence for a while in the room, and then the boy said falteringly, but clearly, "I do love the Lord, Miss Walton; and I'd love to do something for Him, if only He'll let me."

<><><><>

One morning, Hugh came running to Hester to tell her, with a face full of indignation, that Finnis was "the meanest old miser in the world."

"Jane Simmons has been here," he said. "She's her second cousin. She's poisoned her hand, and can't do washing now. And Simmons spends all he gets in drink. And she's never asked Finnis for help before. But they owe some rent, and they're all to be turned out, and the little children haven't any food. She said if Finnis would only help her with the rent now, she would pay her back when her hand gets well. But Finnis wouldn't give her a penny. She said she ought to have kept in service and not got married, and now she must suffer for her folly. Finnis didn't even give her any breakfast. I ran after her with my bread and butter. She took the bread for the children, and she couldn't speak, poor woman, only her lips kept trembling. And I haven't any money at all. Oh, I should like to be rich! I know I wouldn't be a miser like Finnis."

"Hugh," said Hester, "we must remember that Finnis has worked very hard for her money, and she is no doubt vexed with Simmons for neglecting his children for the sake of drink. We must not judge Finnis too harshly, but you and I must just do whatever we can to help people out of the power of drink, and then we shall be helping poor little children like these as well."

"But can't anything be done for poor Jane Simmons now? If you told Miss Bridge‒‒‒"

"No, Hughie, I want aunt to sleep quietly today. She has had such a bad night. I must not tell her anything distressing just now. I will try to go and see this poor woman during the day ‒ but my bank, like yours, is empty," she said smilingly, "so I cannot quite see how to help."

"Oh, but if you will only go," cried Hugh eagerly, "you will comfort her so, and she looked so ill. You won't forget, will you? They live in Green Dragon Court."

"Far too near the Green Dragon," thought Hester, as the boy rushed off, hearing the clock strike the quarter to nine; "but no one in Usherford can live at a distance from a tavern. I wonder how I could help this poor woman just a little in her time of illness. It is so bad for her to be longing to work, and yet not to be able to use her hand."

Suddenly a thought struck her. Had she not left a commission yesterday at Messrs. Spruce & Kenway's, the draper's, for some shaded brown ribbon to retrim the sailor hat that had lasted her so long? That ribbon would take one shilling and ninepence ‒ all she possessed. The draper had been showing the kind she fancied in his window, but all was now sold, and he had promised to get in some more, and to send the length she wanted up to 3, Kilnmere Street.

"I don't like countermanding it now," thought Hester "but the ribbon I have would bear washing and ironing, and the money would mean food for those children. When I can leave Aunt Verbena, I must go down to the shop."

Hester was not surprised to find Finnis in a specially irritable mood that day. Probably her thoughts could not rid themselves of her needy cousin and the little ones, while she herself had enough and to spare.

Messrs. Spruce & Kenway were the proprietors of a busy shop, much frequented because of the low prices. There were many girl assistants, and Hester thought, when she visited the shop to countermand the ribbon, that the young people looked in need of a rest and a breath of fresh air.

The girl she spoke to was civil and obliging, but her face was pale, and her tone was tired. Hester felt drawn towards the young assistant, and thought longingly, "Oh, if only we had something like our Woodwell Institute for Young Women here. How the meetings would rest and help these girls, and how they would enjoy the pleasant room, with the flowers, and magazines, and books. I wonder if we could start a branch of our association here. Surely it would be possible."

Chapter 9

Hugh's Sacrifice

THUS meditating, the girl passed on to Green Dragon Court, and in answer to her knock a weary voice asked if she had called about the rent. Hester gazed compassionately upon the little one that had fretted itself to sleep upon the floor, and told the poor mother who was trying to sew, despite her injured hand, that she was Miss Bridge's niece, and had been grieved to hear of her illness and her troubles.

"Baby is waking," Hester said gently. "Let me take her, dear little thing. I passed a milk shop at the corner and asked them for a can of milk, and here is a loaf. Let me make some food for the little one. I wish I had more to help you with than this one shilling and sixpence. Please use it, Mrs. Simmons. I do wish I could do more for you."

The dull, dazed look on the weary face was changed as Hester laid her hand on the worn, patched sleeve, and turned to fondle the little white lamb of the flock. The sight of the milk and bread, and the sympathy and compassion that shone in Hester's bright eyes, moved that aching heart as the familiar burdens of care and sorrow could no longer do.

Tears sprang into the dim, tired eyes, and she faltered, "God forgive me, I thought He had forgotten me and mine."

"Oh, but He never, never forgets us," said Hester. "While you were thinking that, His heart was full of tender love and mercy and pity for you all. Only He is trying your faith and letting the troubles come to bring you nearer to Him in prayer. Now do have some milk yourself. Shall I answer the door for you? Someone is knocking."

"No, don't you trouble, miss, thank you kindly. It's Mr. Corbett. We used to be neighbours at Fernheath, and he and his have been that good to us we never, never can repay them. But the Lord will reward them. He sees how the poor helps the poor that can't give naught in return."

Hester caught a glimpse of the bright wrinkled face of the old pensioner from the museum. Mrs. Simmons was crying when she came back from the door, but the ears were from an overflowing heart.

"Old Mr. Corbett have done a job of gardening before he came into Usherford this morning," she told Hester, "and he have brought the shilling they gave him. And Mrs. Corbett and Kitty are going to try to manage some of my washing, so that I don't lose my customers. And he put this bit of paper in my hand too. I don't know what it can be."

She opened the paper, out fell half-a-sovereign, and in a round, clear hand, that seemed familiar to Hester, the words were written on the paper: "Mrs. Jane Simmons, with my kind regards, to pay the rent."

"Bless the Lord, O my soul!" cried the poor woman. It seemed all she could say, but her visitor understood the relief and joy of her heart, and shared her trembling cry of wonder and thanksgiving.

When Hester went home to dinner she was convinced that Hugh had been crying, but as he kept his face turned away she did not like to embarrass his boyhood by noticing this, and she suspected Finnis had in some way upset or scolded him.

"It is going to be a lovely afternoon, Hughie," she said. "You will be able to have a long ramble with Judy. I have been to see Mrs. Simmons, and she is quite cheered up. That dear old man at the museum is trying to help them, and his wife and daughter are going to do some of Mrs. Simmons' washing, so that she may keep her customers. And whatever do you think? Someone has sent her enough to pay all she is owing for her rent!"

"Was she very glad?" asked Hugh, turning to Hester a face somewhat tear-stained, but bright with interest.

"Glad? Why, Hughie, all she could say was 'Bless the Lord, O my soul!' I think she wanted to rush off to the Board School and tell the children they were saved from the workhouse. I wonder who sent her the money. I suppose it was Finnis after all. Where is Judy, Hugh? I brought him one of those biscuits they give him so often at the baker's. I paid aunt's bill, and they sent this remembrance for Judy."

"He ... he isn't here," said Hugh, with a gulp. "He isn't mine any longer."

"Not yours, Hugh? Why, Aunt Verbena said you could keep him for your own. Do you mean that poor Judy has met with an accident?"

"No, he's sold. He was all I had to sell."

"Hugh, did you send Mrs. Simmons that money? Yes, I can see you did, Hughie, dear. It was very, very kind of you, but I don't know how you could bear to give up your Judy. And what made you send the money so mysteriously? Mrs. Simmons could not imagine who asked Corbett to bring it."

"No, I didn't want her to know," said Hugh, colouring. "Doesn't it say in the Bible when we give things we're not to let our left hand know what our right hand does? That was the text on Sunday, you know."

"Yes," said Hester, with a loving look at the boy's earnest face, "I remember. I am so glad you mean to take your orders out of the Bible, Hughie. But wouldn't you like to tell me about little Judy? I think it would be a weight off your mind to tell me all about it."

"I couldn't help thinking all the morning," he said, "about Mrs. Simmons being so sad and so ill, and those boys and girls having to go to the workhouse. I thought what wouldn't I give if I had something of my very own that I could sell to get her lots of money! But I'd nothing, only Judy, and then all in a minute it flashed into my mind to sell Judy. And then I didn't want to, and I felt I never, never could. But I thought a lot more about it, and at last I ran home after school and fetched Judy, and took him to that grand house on the Fernheath Road ‒ Oakleys Hall ‒ where that rich old lady lives that has five dogs ‒ Mrs. Barnes-Tatton.

"They say she's very fond of dogs. So I rang the bell and asked to see her, and a grand footman said I couldn't. But she'd seen me from the window, and she rang her bell, and they took me to her. And I asked her would she buy Judy? And she asked me why I wanted to sell. Then I said it wasn't any harm, but only a secret; and she gave me that gold piece, and put Judy on a cushion, and told me I could call and ask how he gets on at Oakleys."

"Well," said Hester, "I am very sorry Judy is gone, and yet I know you sold him for Christ's sake, to help His poor. And I know, too, that the Master accepts the sacrifice. I have heard from Mrs. Alder of that old lady at the hall. Judy will have a good home. That is a great comfort, and it will be so nice for you to see him sometimes."

"Yes," said Hugh, "she said I might call once a week and inquire." He did not like to add that he meant to spend his half-holiday peering over the back wall of Mrs. Barnes-Tatton's grounds in expectation of catching a glimpse of Judy's yellow form, or of hearing the familiar bark.

Miss Bridge seemed to be better after a long sleep, but Hester was anxious to keep her mind quiet, and she referred to nothing just then save some cheerful news she had heard as to an approaching marriage in the family of Dr. Ellis. Her aunt was interested, and kept her by her bedside chatting and reading to her through the afternoon; but Hester thought a great deal concerning the offering of the lad who had seemed so cold and sullen till he came in contact with love and sympathy.

She knew that day by day he would miss his little companion, yet she felt he could never regret sacrifice that he had made for the sake of the needy.

"Thank goodness!" said Finnis, that afternoon, "I believe that torment of a dog is lost. I haven't seen him for ever so long, and I don't want to set eyes on him no more, the worriting, capering creature."

Hester could not resist explaining to the old body why Judy had disappeared ‒ to save the Simmons family from being turned out of their home. For once Finnis was silent, but Hester judged that her thoughts were somewhat uncomfortable, for the baker's boy, who called soon after, was greeted with angry upbraiding because his boots marked the steps of the area.

No further allusion was made to Judy. The kennel was put away into an outhouse, and Judy's ball, that had taken part in many a game between master and dog, went into a corner of Hugh's treasure drawer, a relic of the vanished past. And the poor laundress, back at her washtub, prayed every day for those who had taken pity upon her in her time of sore need, and for the unknown helper who had sent that golden coin ‒ "With my kind regards, to pay the rent."

Chapter 10

Sunlight for Hester

HAD Hester kept a diary at this time, its record would have had little to relate beyond "the daily round, the common task." The literary life she had mentally pictured as brilliant and famous seemed spending itself in bearing with the irritability of an invalid, oiling the household machinery, and trying to bring some gladness into the existence of one young lad.

Her longings turned towards desk and pen, yet the hours seemed to glide away in fulfilling trivial duties. Not that amid her daily tasks Hester was left lonely and joyless. Many sweet messages of comfort from the King of love were borne to her even by the twittering sparrows and by the wild flowers wherewith Hugh brightened the vases, and often she would steal away to her own little room, from the strain of domestic worries, and drink in the comfort of the heartsease-entwined text that Alys had painted: "Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you."

One day everybody seemed to get out of their beds on the wrong side, or rather in the wrong sort of humour. Hester had a kind of neuralgic headache, and longed for a cup of tea, but breakfast was later than usual; Finnis said it was the day to wash her kitchen cloths, and she had the copper fire to see to, and couldn't do with "fine young ladies traipsing about after kettles."

Hugh had a holiday, it being the school half term, and Finnis accused him all the morning of being in her way, whereupon wordy warfares ensued, and Hester wearily begged Hugh to be silent and patient. She had to countermand some fish she had ordered for her aunt, and give her broth instead, as Finnis said she could have no cooking being done while she washed out the cloths.

Then Hugh, in running to the fishmonger's on this errand, slipped in the muddy road, and a long work of brushing was the consequence.

Hester had hoped to get time to make herself some aprons, and sat down to her sewing Hugh offered to read to her, but Miss Verbena Bridge must today, of all times, take it into her head to ask Hester to polish the ancient piano and music stool, both of which had been covered up for years with chintz.

The piano that emerged from under the cover was quite neglected and out of tune, and it looked sadly out of repair. Hester felt rather vexed at this whim of the old lady's, but did not like to plead that she wanted to finish the new aprons. She dusted and cleaned and polished the stool first, and it really looked very nice.

"Now I am going to attend to the piano, Finnis," said she, trying to speak cordially, as the old lady passed the room. "That polish I found in the cupboard is first-rate. It's hard work, but see how the carving of the stool shows up!"

Just as she spoke, and bringing upon himself a hurricane of reproaches from Finnis, Hugh stepped forward to admire the carving. Over went nearly all the polish on the carpet, as his foot struck the bottle, and with a frightened look he fled to the kitchen to get what was needful to clean the carpet, while Finnis declared all the "Fussification came of strangers being in this here house and interfering with other folks' belongings!"

It was not often Hester cried, but that day she could not keep back the tears. She ran up to her room, worn out and heated, and fell on her knees beside her bed, but could scarcely breathe a prayer, or do aught but let the tears have their course. She just crept to the Master's feet, and poured out her heart before Him; and in those tears of sorrow spread before Him the shadows and perplexities that seemed day by day to increasingly trouble her. And as she knelt there, the memory came of that message that had been borne to her in the peace of her love-lit home:

My soul upon His errand goes:

The end I know not, but God knows.

Was it indeed His errand, to be patient with Hugh, and forbearing with that most trying of fellow creatures, Finnis, and to strive to lead the aging life of the invalid to rest and light?

It all seemed so dark, but as Hester went to the window to draw up the blind which Finnis had pulled down lest the worn carpet should at the close of its career fade away in colour, she saw that amid the rain clouds God had set His bow of promise, and yonder in the distance there was visible a gleam of blue.

In the comfort of the rainbow message she went back to her polishing. "I shall at least get the old piano to look respectable before dinner time," she thought; but in a few minutes the front doorbell rang, and she had to hurry to the door because Finnis, whether by reason of deafness or obstinacy, had long left to Hester the duty of answering the door.

Then, like Rhoda of old, she could not open the door for very joy. Opening it first on the chain, she caught a glimpse of a bright, handsome face. Was it really Graham, her own merry, warm-hearted, sympathising brother?

Her trembling fingers fumbled at the chain, and when at last she withdrew it, she was taken, not into Graham's arms, but into her father's, while Graham stood beside her, pulling her hair and asking what new scent she was using, that the odour of turpentine floated around her.

"I am polishing," said Hester, "but the other half of the piano can wait till tomorrow to shine. Oh, father, have you really come? Oh, Graham, is it really and truly you? And there's nothing in the house for dinner ‒ nothing at all!" Hester scarcely knew whether to laugh or cry.

She saw Hugh shyly peeping from the upper landing, and visions of sending him hither and thither for provender, combined with recollections that her purse had ebbed low, filled her mind, as she looked in rapture and excitement from one dear face to the other.

"Father, darling," she said, "Aunt Verbena is to pay me quarterly, you know, and I have not much just now, and aunt is asleep. It is dreadful to ask you to pay for your dinner, but if you or Graham would lend me half- a-crown."

Dr. Walton laughed, and pinched her cheek. "We will see about that before we go, Hetty," said he. "But Celia packed this hamper, and you will find she and Lorry have caused it to groan, or at any rate creak with plenty. Graham and I were coming up to London, and it struck me we should like a look at our sunbeam. And how is Aunt Verbena, Hetty? A little bird has been telling us her nurse has become very precious to her."

"Very precious? Oh, no, father, I don't think that," said Hester, "but I think Aunt Verbena would rather have me here than a stranger. She is really better now, only she suffers from depression. But fancy seeing you in Usherford!"

"Can you guess why we came to town today? Do you know there is a sound of wedding bells in the air, my lassie? Edgar Lindsay has been unexpectedly promoted in the business, and is to fill a post in the London house. We have been buying wedding presents, and of course Celia wants her little sister as bridesmaid. She has put a long letter for you inside the hamper."

This was news indeed. "Oh, father, it does seem so funny to think of Celia as married!" said Hester excitedly.

She was proceeding to ask a string of questions on that subject, when Finnis came up the kitchen stairs, exclaiming, "What's all this dreadful racket a-going on in our hall, like as if it was the Tower of Babel?"

Graham bowed politely, and she glowered at him in return, giving a sulky nod in response to the doctor's kindly greeting. "You'll have to take us as you find us, Doctor Walton," she said. "It's rather inconvenient for folks to be dropping in uninvited like this. I'm washing my kitchen cloths today, and I can't have no cooking."

"'Nobody ax'd you, sir, she said,"' quoted Graham, but Hester silenced him, and told Finnis she would see to laying the table.

"I have been conscious for some time," said Graham, "of a head frequently protruding from the upper landing, and as frequently withdrawn. I conclude we are surreptitiously surveyed by young Millard, of whom your letters have told us. He would run down two steps at a time if he knew what is meant by this package."

"Oh, Graham, is it really your old violin, and is it for Hugh? How good you are! I wrote about it, but I thought you had forgotten my hint."

"My beloved sister, are not your wishes my commands?" asked Graham gallantly.

Drawn to the violin as the needle to the magnet, Hugh was soon amid the group, his excited face turning eagerly from the instrument, to the pies Hester was arranging on the dinner table, and to the fruit and flowers from the garden of Briarbloom Cottage.

"Oh, wouldn't old Judy have feasted," he exclaimed at dinner time, enjoying such cooking as was beyond the will of Finnis, if not beyond her ability.

"Do tell me all the news, Graham," said Hester, when by-and-by her father went up to sit with his half-sister. "What about the Abbots? Do you ever see Phyllis now you are studying in London? And ... and is Winnie engaged yet? She is so very pretty."

"I don't know much about girls' gossip," said Graham, "but I fancy something has been said lately about there being a likelihood of Winnie's getting engaged. Alys was saying it would probably come to pass."

Hester put away resolutely the dull pain at her heart as she thought, "So Harold Cline did not remember me long. He has spoken to her already."

"Phyllis owes me a letter," she said. "How well she has got on at that Hospital for Women!"

But Graham did not seem disposed to discuss the circumstances of their childhood's playmate, and presently he yielded to the entreaty in Hugh's face, and good-naturedly went off with him to inspect his beloved museum, the boy earnestly inquiring the cost of medical education, his weekly income being at present restricted to one penny.

When Hester went upstairs, Miss Bridge, seated by the window in the armchair, was inspecting the gold Mizpah brooch, of good quality but simple in design, that the doctor had bought in London as his marriage gift to Celia. A similar one had been her mother's, and was left as a remembrance to Hester.

"She looks kinder than usual," thought Hester, as the invalid glanced at her with something approaching a smile, and bade her carry off her father for a chat, which was the longing of the girl's heart. They only went to the window seat on the landing, for Hester thought her aunt might need her, Finnis being washing the kitchen cloths. But what a rest it was to know that her father seemed to understand all her difficulties and worries, and the hindrances as to writing. And how his love and sympathy took the sting out of all the troubles, and brought an atmosphere around her of the dear old home.

"Oh, if I had only known the kind of day this was really going to be," she thought, "nothing would have saddened me all the morning. It has been the happiest day I have ever spent in Usherford. How strange that father and Graham should come just when things seemed all so gloomy and worrying!"

But Dr. Walton said, when she told him of her thoughts, that it was not strange at all. It is ever God's will to send comfort and sunlight to His children. "And, better still, my Hetty," said the doctor, "He is Sunlight, and there is never need to fear."

Altogether that day of seeming gloom and darkness was a golden memory for Hester, and the best seemed kept for the last. When her father kissed her goodbye at the station, he looked at her with eyes full of tender love and pride, and said softly, "Hetty, there is just one thing your aunt has been asking me today ‒ not to take away her little nurse! 'For she is a good child,' she said to me, 'and she lives her faith, and knows how to keep her temper with a cross-tongued old woman. She is her mother over again, and you must leave her to be sunshine in this dark house!' Is it to be so, Hetty? What about the authorship, my darling?"

And Hester smiled up at him, saying, "I think this is my place, father, and my work ‒ to cheer poor aunt a little."

"I think so, too, my daughter," answered Dr. Walton. "Better than all praise and greatness and fame it will be if you carry your Master's comfort-messages to needy hearts and lives like Aunt Verbena's."

The next day, Hester polished the rest of the ancient piano, thinking delightedly of Celia's happiness, and of her own coming joy in looking on the loved home-faces again.

"But you will come back after the wedding, child?" said the old lady anxiously. "You will not write and say you cannot return? Perhaps I could give you twenty guineas instead of pounds, Hester, but I must be careful of my money. When ... when her little one's grave is found, I shall build there a marble monument ‒ a beautiful one."

"Dear aunt," said Hester, "do not dwell so much upon the past. It has gone to God now, and He has given you the sunshiny present. Just see what a bright day it is. Let me pull up your blind a little. As to leaving you, the nurse must not go away till the patient has recovered!"

"I shall never be well, Hester. I shall not live long, and you have your life before you. Give me a few months of it before I go hence. Finnis means well, but she is noisy and tries my nerves, and the stairs are really too much for her now."

"Of course they are, auntie. I shall soon be back from Woodwell, like a bad shilling, and Hugh must read to you while I am away."

"I want you to go out this afternoon," said Miss Bridge. "There is shopping to be done, so get out after your dinner."

None of the errands that day happened to be at Messrs. Spruce & Kenway's, but when they were finished Hester turned her steps in the direction of the busy shop, bearing a parcel of magazines sent her from home, and an interesting book she had brought with her and lately read.

It needed very little courage to go up to her young friend of the white, tired face, and say, "Here is some reading I have enjoyed so much. Perhaps you and your friends would like to look over these out of business hours. Keep them as long as you like."

But there was something else Hester wanted to say, and she was shy about getting the words out, for not only was a senior assistant within hearing, but Mr. Spruce himself was near. Suppose they thought her intrusive and interfering! Well, never mind what they thought or said, Hester had a message for that sister-heart, and the opportunity to speak it was given, for the girl was not needed just then by a customer.

"Oh," she began, rather tremblingly, "I wondered if you knew that Mrs. Alder, in the High Street, has started a Sunday afternoon Bible class for Young Women. She would welcome you so if you could go. It begins at three. Last Sunday only one came, but they had a very nice class, Mrs. Alder said, and she wants to be a real friend to girls away from home, and so do I. Won't you see if you can join, and will you tell the others too?"

The girl made no answer beyond a stare, though when Hester bade her good day, seeing she was wanted, she answered with her usual civility.

Mrs. Alder and Hester had held earnest converse about the many business girls in the place, and Mrs. Alder had decided to give up her Sunday afternoon and her tasteful little drawing room, to gather in such to a Bible class, which would, in time, she hoped, be the nucleus of helpful social gatherings. She had personally asked the girl at Spruce & Kenway's, a leading spirit among her associates.

The girl had carelessly said she did not like Bible classes, and had forgotten the matter. It surprised her not a little when Mrs. Ellis, the doctor's wife, who had volunteered to have some invitations to the class printed and circulated, handed her a neat little card concerning the proposed association, after making some purchase at the shop.

"I don't think I'll trouble about going to any class though. It would only be dull and poky, though it can't be worse than it is here, that's certain," thought the young girl doubtfully, as she read the card. But just when her mind was quite made up not to "go and be preached at," the young lady from Miss Bridge's, whose smile was so bright and cheery, and whose manner of speech was so gentle and pleasant ‒ the customer the young assistant had unconsciously idealised ‒ had asked her, almost as a personal kindness, to join Mrs. Alder's class.

"It seems as if I am to go," she thought. "That's the third time of asking, and I would do more than that to please Miss Walton. She talks to us girls like as if we were sisters, not as some do, like as if we were the dirt under their feet."

Chapter 11

Called To Service

A LITTLE discouraged by the silent look of surprise that had answered her appeal, Hester turned her steps back to Kilnmere Street, where after tea she gave Hugh his first violin lesson, much to his interest and delight. Then a longing seized her to play the tune, "Mother's Hymn" on the old piano, discordant though it was. Her aunt had let her have the key yesterday, that she might dust and clean it.

"Mother composed the tune on that old piano," she thought, regarding it fondly, "and she and poor Aunt Alice used to sing that hymn to it. I must play very softly, for there is no tune left in the poor old thing now."

What miracle had taken place as regarded that timeworn instrument? There was real sweetness in the notes she touched, and she ran upstairs to her aunt to tell her the polish had somehow worked wonders, or else the dusting ‒ the piano was actually in tune!

"Well," said her aunt, "you are always singing about the place, and I know you love music as your mother did, and I thought a while ago about the old piano, that it might as well be used as not. It is many and many a year since this house heard music. But I daresay you have been missing your piano since you came here, Hester?"

"Yes, Aunt Verbena," she said frankly, "I have missed it every day. Sometimes I wanted to ask you if I might hire one."

"No need for that, child. Save your money while you can. You see the tuner from London comes round here every now and then, and I made Hugh write a letter for him to call today. He has done the best he could with it ‒ he was here all the afternoon attending to it ‒ but he says he can get it quite right if we send it for a time to their place in town, and I said they can take it when you go home to the wedding."

"Oh, Aunt Verbena, you don't know how glad I am to use a piano again. I can give Hugh some lessons, and it will be such a help to have music at our temperance meetings. I was going to play mother's own hymn, but I forgot ‒ it reminds you of Aunt Alice. I'll play something else, auntie dear."

"I ... I think I should like to hear that old hymn, Hester."

So Hester went down to the ancient piano, with its front of faded red silk and its candlesticks like leafy branches; and soon the bright notes filled the house, as her voice sang again to that old instrument after the lapse of changeful years.

Hymn after hymn sang Hester, and then her hands strayed over the keys in dreamy melodies ‒ strains that memory brought back and that seemed to blend with the calm of the evening hour. She almost forgot the lapse of time, and was startled to find at last that it was eight. She ran up to her patient, coming into sudden contact with Finnis, who was outside the parlour door.

"Oh, Finnis, I beg your pardon. I hope I did not hurt you."

Finnis made no answer, and there was something in her face that Hester could not understand. For the moment a memory came to the girl of a picture she had seen, wherein a maiden sat at an organ, drawing forth the "linked sweetness" of its music, and an angel kissed her brow. That Finnis should look as if an angel kissed her! It was only for an instant, then the everyday look came back, and she went downstairs, breathing hard as was her wont.

But something told Hester ‒ and her heart glowed within her in new tenderness for the old servant ‒ that the influence God meant her to use to soften that rugged heart, and bring His child home to Him in life's gloaming-hour, was the power of music that had drawn her up in raptured silence from the depths of her lower domains.

"Aunt Verbena," said Hester, "I did not know it was so late. It is past the time for your beef jelly." She bent down and in loving compassion pressed her lips to the cheeks that were wet with tears.

"Hester," said the old lady brokenly, "isn't there something in the Bible about two people agreeing to ask something of God, and He promises to do it? Don't laugh at me, child. I am old and weak, and strange in my head maybe, but I think I could die better if I could do all that is left me ‒ if I could put a marble monument to the grave of the child I refused in life to take in. Will you help me to ask the people I am paying to search for information to find the place of that baby's rest?"

"Yes, dear aunt, I will, for I know that to find that grave would calm your mind. I believe He who knows the trouble of your heart will do for us what we ask."

<><><><>

All this time the weekly temperance meetings at 3, Kilnmere Street had gone on regularly. Hester had her aunt's consent to receive Mrs. Alder and Jack in the front sitting room. Finnis had been invited, but she refused on the score that she did not hold "with the forwardness of womankind in getting up meetings and speechifying ‒ there was far too much of it going on!"

Hester was unanimously voted to the presidential chair, and Hugh registered the attendances. Two or three more of his school friends joined, contributing recitations, or taking part in debate, or bringing cuttings on temperance topics from various papers.

Dr. Ellis and others heard with interest of these gatherings, and at last a district conference was held of those who felt a temperance society would be helpful for Usherford.

Some said the idea was hopeless; but the doctor, though a previous league he had started had died through lack of support, had caught fresh enthusiasm from Hester and the young folks, and said he would be responsible for the expenses of a temperance meeting at the public rooms, with a view to inaugurating a society. A speaker from London was booked, and the meeting was well advertised.

On the night, the place was filled. Many a wife and mother felt a glow of thankfulness. Hester could see that surely this was an answer to longings and prayers that some help might be given to their loved ones, daily surrounded by temptations.

The doctor felt increasingly hot and nervous as time went on, and the eloquent speaker expected from London did not arrive. The doctor was no orator himself, and that evening he was unusually husky from a cold. He went to Mrs. Alder and asked her what was to be done. He could lead the meeting, and the musical part of the evening would go off well, for some young folks, gifted in that way, were responsible for it ‒ but what about the address?

"Perhaps the speaker will come," said Mrs. Alder. "But if not ... Hester, you know you can speak. You must give the address tonight."

"Oh, please do not ask me," said Hester in great distress. "Whatever could I say in a place crowded with people?"

"Speak from your heart, Hetty, as you have done in our parlour meetings," said Mrs. Alder. "See, a telegram has just been given to the doctor. How worried he looks. Will you not help us, dear?"

"The speaker has unfortunately missed the train, and cannot reach us, as there is nothing from town till 9.30," said Dr. Ellis. "I must try to speak, but my voice will not reach to the centre of the hall."

"I am asking Miss Walton to fill the gap," said Mrs. Alder. "It is a work she is fitted for, and this is a wondrous opportunity."

Hester looked on the expectant faces of the workers in the brickfields, the wives and the children, as they listened to the music and enjoyed the rare pleasure of "something going on" in their neighbourhood. Jack Alder was playing his violin. Hugh's face showed resolution to practise diligently, and imitate Jack in bringing to the aid of temperance work "music's golden tongue."

Hester shrank from rising up before such a sea of faces, but even as she hesitated, the words came powerfully like a message to her heart: "Thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak."

Just then she caught sight of the man Simmons, leaning against a wall, looking around him half vacantly, half contemptuously. Had she but known it, he had told those drinking with him that day at The Dragon that "there shouldn't be no cold water society started in Usherford to rob the poor man of his beer, and he'd undertake to break up tonight's goings-on, that he would!"

Hester hesitated no longer when she saw Simmons, and his wife in her well-worn dress and thin shawl, with two small children nestled up to her. Dr. Ellis made an apology for the absence of the expected lecturer, and then in a few kindly words made way for Hester on the platform. Hugh started the clapping, and many toil worn hands took it up. Simmons looked startled at the sight of a lady, and he could not bring himself to interrupt contemptuously and noisily "her as had been good to the missus."

It was only a simple temperance talk, but it was on fire with earnestness and heartfelt sincerity. Hester forgot herself and all thought of nervousness or self-consciousness as she realised she was pleading with immortal lives to remember the claims of others, and to renounce what is dangerous for Christ's sake and for their dear ones. Her voice was strong and clear, calm even in its intensity of feeling, and it went to the heart of many.

Several pledges were taken voluntarily that evening. Ben Simmons was one who signed. As Hester took his pledge and shook hands with him, and made him known to Dr. Ellis, she felt that for the effort that had left her weary and exhausted now she was repaid a thousand fold.

"Miss Walton," said the doctor, "it dawned upon me tonight that you are the very teacher we want in our Mission Hall Sunday school. My daughter having married, her large class of lads needs a teacher. I knew not where to find one, but now I need seek no further. You will undertake it, will you not, as a call from the children's Lord? I know Miss Bridge can spare you for this."

"Oh, I think she needs me Sunday afternoons," said Hester. "I was not intending to have a class here."

"Will you come next Sunday, at any rate," said Dr. Ellis, "and take the class for us as a substitute. Then you can think over the matter, and help us in our difficulty if you possibly can?"

"I will certainly act as a supply next week, all being well," said Hester, "and I will think about what you ask, but I scarcely know what to say, Dr. Ellis."

Hugh was ready to escort her home. Many followed her with a gaze of interest, and many shook hands with her as she passed them by. Mrs. Simmons looked at her through happy tears, and there came to her remembrance these words:

My soul upon His errand goes:

The end I know not, but God knows.

Chapter 12

Graham and Phyllis

THE doctor and his wife called next day to inform Miss Verbena Bridge that her niece was "quite a public character," and to describe to her the hopeful promise of the inaugural temperance meeting. Hester said with a crimson face she had "never meant to speak at all ‒ it came about so suddenly."

"You sowed fruitful seed, Hester," said Mrs. Ellis earnestly. "And now, dear friend," she added to Miss Bridge, "if you will let Hester take that class of boys at the Mission school it will be such a help to my husband, as superintendent, and I know you will let me come and read to you and keep you company on Sunday afternoons."

Mrs. Ellis had never ventured to call Miss Bridge "dear friend" before, but she was conscious of gentler influences struggling with the invalid's irritability.

"Hester shall teach in the school if she wishes," said Miss Bridge, who was holding, as was customary with her of late, the girl's hand in her own thin fingers, as though clinging to her cheerfulness and strength.

"I have set before thee an open door." These words ‒ the text for the day in her book of daily messages ‒ echoed in Hester's heart when on Sunday she faced the large class of lively boys, previously in charge of the newly-married Miss Ellis.

They were noisy, fidgety lads, but Hester loved children, and though she went home after school wearied out, she was filled with thankfulness that here, too, away from the old familiar school, the Master had called her to His service.

"Sister Hester," said Hugh ‒ for she had told him that her brother by the adoption of love must not go on calling her Miss Walton ‒ "if you are going to have a Sunday school class, I'd like to join. I'll keep all the other boys quiet. They won't bother you at all."

"You shall keep Hugh Millard in order for me if you will," said Hester, smiling.

Henceforth the orphan lad met regularly with those who were so earnestly, lovingly invited into the kingdom of joy and peace.

<><><><>

What a home-coming it was when Hester was back again at Briarbloom Cottage, welcomed rapturously by Celia and Alys, and surrounded by Lorry with all the dainties to which she had been partial of yore. The place was in a pleasant bustle. The Waltons were popular in Woodwell, and Celia received so many toast racks and butter dishes and the like, that she was constantly writing her thanks ‒ and young Edgar Lindsay complained he was bereft of her society.

The wedding day was fair and bright. Alys and Hester resolved they would not shed a tear, lest the faces of the bride and bridegroom should be clouded as they departed; but Alys, after bidding Celia goodbye, made a rush to her room with quivering lips, and Hester would have followed her example, but she noticed Graham was not his usual merry self, and she was anxious to cheer him and her father.

"Who do you think has your class of small boys now, Hetty?" asked Alys, when the two sisters were talking together that evening. "Come, you shall have three guesses."

"You, Alys dear!" cried Hester, looking at her smiling face. "Oh, I am so glad. I longed for you to take my boys."

"Well," said Alys, "I never thought I could take a class, but father reminded me the boys were needing a teacher, and it was a little corner of the harvest field waiting to be filled. At last I just went, asking God to help me, and He did. It is trying work, but I love it now, and I love the boys. Last Sunday I drew the blackboard outline to illustrate the address, so I am getting to feel quite at home in the school now."

Hester kissed her artist sister, looking at her with thankfulness and pride. "But what about the temperance society?" she asked. "Has Miss Gurnap found an assistant yet?"

"Oh, yes ‒ her nephew. You remember Charley Gurnap."

"Charley Gurnap? Why, he seemed so shy and nervous, and Miss Gurnap used to lament he had turned out a young man with nothing in him."

"There is plenty in him though," said Alys, "only people seemed somehow to put him down and keep him in the background. His aunt was so much in want of help that she gave him work to do as her temporary assistant, and he proved his own powers, and other people know them also by this time."

"Well," said Hester, "young Gurnap is the last person I should have expected to come out as a worker."

"Yes," said Alys, "but then we don't always know what is in people ‒ and I suppose they don't themselves, till the necessity arises."

"But God always knows," said Hester, "and He can always find workers, though we look round and wonder where they are to come from."

By-and-by they spoke of the Riddet family, and Alys remarked very gently, looking away from Hester as she spoke, that Woodwell people were of opinion Winnie Abbot had become engaged, or was on the eve of betrothal.

"I have not chanced to see her lately," said Alys, "or I think I should ask her the question. People round here say it is Harold Cline, and that they will perhaps be married when he comes home again from his journeyings."

"I heard from Phyllis the other day," said Hester, her voice sounding just a little unnatural, "and I have been puzzling over one sentence in her letter. What can it mean, Alys? She asked me not to be angry with her. Whatever can she think she has done to vex me?"

"I am not certain," said Alys; "but, do you know, Hetty, I fancy this has something to do with Graham. At times he is full of fun, just as he used to be, but I notice he has some strangely gloomy moods. He has not been himself of late, and I fear he is set against the Christian faith, and no longer just indifferent about such things. I cannot help thinking he proposed to Phyllis when in London, and that she said No."

"Proposed to Phyllis! Why, he always teased her about being a 'bluestocking' and so on."

"But he was always fond of her, Hetty, and she was of him. I wish we could have had her for a sister."

"So do I," said Hester. "Surely dear old Phyllis knows we would welcome her, and I expect Graham will soon take his degree. She would not have minded waiting a few years if she cared for him, Alys."

"It is not that, Hetty; but Phyllis could only marry a Christian."

"Yes," said Hester, "I see. Poor Phyllis ‒ and poor Graham. It worse for him, because she is trying to do what would be right in God's sight, and he has not the blessing of the Lord to comfort him. Alys, what can you and I do to help our brother?"

"I pray every day," said Alys, "that Graham may love Jesus, and I know you do too. Surely God will answer us at last. But I fear my quick temper helps to set him against our faith. I do think your leaving home was a mistake, as concerns Graham. You have such influence over him."

"We must just keep on praying," said Hester brokenly. "I would do anything to win Graham for Christ . I thought it was right for me to go away, and Graham and I write to each other every week. But there has never been a word about his caring for Phyllis."

"Well," said Alys, "I know he had her photograph for some time in his pocket case, and he took care to be home when she came down to see her mother, and he escorted her back to the hospital. But I fancy they see nothing at all of each other now. I think Phyllis imagined we might resent her saying No to Graham, but she is an out-and-out Christian, and I, for one, respect her decision."

Nevertheless, Hester's heart was full of tender compassion for her brother, who was certainly far from happy, though he tried during her visit to seem full of fun and life as of yore.

One day, in a Woodwell shop, she met Winnie Abbot trying on some gloves, and her quick glance caught sight of a pretty betrothal ring. Winnie greeted her affectionately, and seemed disposed to be questioned and to be communicative; but Hester had only power to falter, "May you be very, very happy, dear ‒ he is good and true, and he will have a sweet little wife. God bless you both for ever."

Just then other acquaintances joined them, and Hester soon after left the shop, seeming for a while to see nothing before her, save that little hoop of pearls and the light on Winnie's blushing face.

"Are you going to coop yourself up in a sickroom all your life, Hetty?" asked Graham indignantly, as the time drew near for Hester's return to Usherford. Lorry and Alys looked at her wistfully, longing to keep her with them, yet knowing she was brightening what seemed to be the last days of the invalid. It was hard to say goodbye, but Hester was helped by the sympathy of her father, who understood she left that restful home, believing the Lord had need of her in Kilnmere Street.

It was a wet, grey day when she journeyed back. She could not help thinking how well home seemed to get on without her, and how easily she could be spared from the world of authorship and from the work in which she had been active at Woodwell. But gloomy thoughts were forgotten when at Usherford Station she caught sight of Hugh on the platform, bearing an offering of an enormous apple, and ready to take triumphant possession of her bag.

"It seems ages since you went away," he cried, "and Miss Bridge gave me a shilling to get you a cab because it's so wet. And Finnis has made a cake for your tea, only I think she's forgotten to add some of the things. I tasted some, and it's rather odd. And I heard her tell the milkman, 'Our young lady's coming home today, and glad I am, for she saves my legs up and down the stairs!"

"Teacher," said a boy at the bookstall, turning upon Hester a smiling face. Another child, a little daughter of Mrs. Simmons who was taking home washing by the train, pulled Hester's dress in glad welcome; and Hester thought, "How good God is! Life can never be dark while I have the love of these children."

Back in Kilnmere Street the old lady's eyes followed her as if the sight of her face were precious indeed in the sickroom. Finnis had a new cap and a beaming smile. Hester had never once seen her smile before, and it gave her rather a turn, but she knew the old body meant it for the best, and shook hands heartily, conscientiously eating some of the festive cake even at the risk of nocturnal regret, and persuading Hugh to accept a portion, which he did, for her sake, with reluctance and grimaces.

During tea in came Jack Alder bearing a loaf hot from the oven. His mother had been baking and he brought a note from her, saying the newly-formed temperance society had held a good meeting on the previous evening, and everyone felt the post of receiving the new pledges should be hers.

Mrs. Alder told also of a class of nine young shop assistants at her house last Sunday, four being from Spruce & Kenway's. "And they delighted in the music," she said. "We had such a happy, helpful time together, and I know the Master was present."

After tea, when Hester was clearing the table, Finnis took possession of the tray, and said, "I'll do the washing up, Miss Hester. You go to that piany and play some more of them tunes, for them hymns of yours rings in my ears like silver bells."

Hester smiled to herself. Her welcome back to Kilnmere Street was one worth the having.

"Sister Hester," Hugh said, as Hester began to play, "isn't there some story about creatures that used to attract everyone by sweet sounds? I think you're like them. Weren't they called sirens?"

"I hope not, Hughie," laughed Hester. "The fable says they charmed people to destroy them."

"Well, your music does charm Finnis, and no mistake. She's sitting outside on the staircase now."

"Then let us give her a chair by the piano," said Hester. "Poor old Finnis! I dare say her life has not known much enjoyment."

During Hester's absence from Usherford the piano had been sent away for attention by skilled hands. It's tones now were clear and sweet as there stole through the house the harmonies from the old music sheets Hester found in the cabinet ‒ tunes holding fragrant memories, like faded roses.

Finnis came right willingly to the chair beside the piano. Hester was touched and moved to note how the music appealed to the old lady's heart, and she was sure the old servant's eyes were dewed as she played softly and tenderly, "Steal away to Jesus."

"If we did but know it," thought Hester, "there is a key to every person's nature, and a chord to which it will respond. The power of music, by God's mercy, may be used to open this heart to Him, and so rest and brighten, though late, this life which, away from Him, has been dreary."

So Hester made a point each evening of sitting down to the old piano, and often she and Hugh would blend their voices, and Jack Alder would come in to help. It was not long before Finnis was fain to contribute what she called "the seconds." She sang slowly and quaveringly, but she had a good idea of the correct notes, and the others could scarcely believe it was Finnis herself, the sharp-tongued Finnis, taking the alto with zest and goodwill, her eyes closed, the better to enjoy the harmony.

Not that the old servant from that time forward became obliging and angelic of humour all of a sudden ‒ naturally cross-grained, the work of grace in controlling her impatience of temper would be a long one, and she was still, more frequently than not, a means of developing patience and self-control in those around her. But when she was specially cantankerous, Hester had a remedy. She would go to the piano, and let the notes of "Steal away" go softly down to the stormy kitchen, and she knew ere long the hurricane would be hushed to peace.

There was one very practical change in Finnis of late. Whether the music, or the knowledge of Hugh's sacrifice for her relatives' sake were the cause of it, Hester did not know, but she heard that Finnis had been to see the Simmons family more than once, and had brought herself to provide certain needed garments to make the children tidy for Sunday school.

Both husband and wife came to the weekly meetings of the new temperance society ‒ meetings arranged with untold thought and painstaking, and fast becoming thronged and popular. Dr. Ellis had given Simmons work in his garden to try his ability, and now he had obtained for him a permanent post with another employer, in a place as free as his own from that which was to poor Simmons such a strong temptation.

"I believe in helping them as helps their selves," said Finnis. "He brings home his money regular, and if he keeps steady there'll be no need for them to stay on in Dragon Court. One of these days they might get a nice little home of their own. But he's one as can't be trusted no further than you see him, in my opinion. He'll break out again one of these days. He's signed the pledge before, and back he went to the public house before a month was over."

"More than six weeks have gone by now," said Hester, "and he has gone on so well. Remember, Finnis, that pledge was taken with earnest prayer. Dr. Ellis took him apart into the ante room for prayer, and many of us are praying still that he may be upheld."

"Talk of praying," said Finnis, "my cousin Jane told me she prays every day of her life for the one as sent her that gold to pay off her rent when she'd got the bad hand. I believe she thinks it was me. Seeing as it's a secret, I didn't say nothing beyond telling her I never sent it, but says she, 'Whoever it was, God bless them, and repay them back a thousand fold.' 'Dear me!' says I to Jane Simmons, 'I could no more have drawed gold out of my savings than I could have took a knife and cut myself. It's hard work to make one's money, and what I've saved I means to stick to;' and a tidy little sum I've got by now in a company that pays decent interest, but I didn't tell her that. It don't do to let one's relatives into one's money matters!"

Chapter 13

A Fit of Passion

ABOUT this time, Aunt Verbena gave Hester the key of the bookcase, and told her the old books ought to be sorted and dusted. They were in a closed cupboard above the sideboard. Hester eagerly undertook the work, and she came upon a rich store wherein daily she discovered new treasures. Aunt Verbena's father had been given to collecting valuable old books and quaint literature of the past.

A mine of wonderful thoughts and ideas seemed opened up to Hester. Her mind was quickly responsive to the rich legacies of those who had left behind such "seed-corn" for precious harvests. Day by day she gradually assimilated that which in the future imparted to her own style the influences of its delicate quaintness.

Hester was poring over a volume of Elizabethan poetry one day, when Kitty Corbett, the daughter of the museum guardian, called for some needlework required for Miss Bridge. The old pensioner had told Hester his daughter was not allowed by the doctor yet to return to her place in service, but she would be thankful to earn money by her needle.

Hester remembered this, and had persuaded her aunt to pay the moderate price Kitty asked, and let her make the dressing gown needed by the invalid. Hester was struck by her bright, capable look. They entered into conversation, and Hester found it was a great trouble to Kitty not to be in service, as it made one more at home for her father to keep. "But there, miss," she said, "if it was the best thing just now, I'd be in a situation. Our Father in Heaven can't do for us naught but the best."

Hester, who had lately discovered that Kitty was now at St. Agnes' Infirmary, began to speak of Dr. Phyllis Abbot who was in charge there, and found that Kitty was her devoted admirer. Dr. Abbot had attended her in illness, and sat with her in her scanty leisure time. Kitty spoke, however, of her own belief that Dr. Abbot had "some trouble on her mind," for she often looked unwell and distressed, and had told Kitty she was in perplexity, and asked for her prayers.

"I think," said Hester, "you were sent there, Kitty, to help my friend. In writing to me, she mentioned a Christian girl whose faith and patience were a daily sermon to her, and she wrote out for me some lines you had copied for her. They are beautiful, Kitty. Where did you find them?"

"I copied them out of a paper, miss," said Kitty. Hester read the lines her friend had sent her:

The world is wide

In time and tide,

And God is Guide,

Then do not hurry.

That man is blest

Who does his best,

And ‒ leaves the rest;

Then do not worry.

"I think you helped my friend and a good many others there not to worry, Kitty," said Hester, "and it seems to me that not to be fretted and over-anxious is what we all need to learn just now."

"I must practise the lesson, mustn't I, miss?" said Kitty, "and wait patiently to be fit for regular service again. And now, miss, will you please tell me the kind of gown that's wanted?"

Hester took her up to see the one then in use by the invalid. Kitty was used to the sick, and had a bright, gentle way that took Miss Bridge's fancy.

"Oh," said Hester inwardly, as Kitty adjusted the pillows that had been moved during the explanation as to the gown, "if only we had Kitty here instead of Finnis, what a help she would be to us all!"

She had just shown Kitty out, when Hugh Millard came hurrying into the house with a white, frightened face.

"Don't touch me," he said, in a miserable voice. "I must escape somewhere! I've only come for my moneybox. I've done something dreadful!"

With a beating heart Hester tried to find out what was amiss. She could scarcely suppress a cry of distress when the boy faltered out, "I've ... I've killed Jack!"

The story of passion came out at last. A dispute had arisen between the boys, and in one of the wild tempers he imagined he had wholly overcome, Hugh had flung a heavy brick at his companion's head. Jack dropped down in the brickfield path, and made no response to Hugh's frightened call.

The boy was in despair, beginning to realise the misery he had brought on his kind friends, the Alders, and how he had given way to the evil one, and proved untrue to his colours as a Christian. The dispute had only been a foolish one about Hugh's future as a doctor being greater than that of Jack Alder as a chemist, and it had ended in rage and misery!

"Hugh," said Hester tremblingly, "you and I must go at once to poor Mrs. Alder."

"Oh, I cannot. I cannot ever go near Jack's home. Oh, Jack, Jack, how could I hurt you!"

Hester took her cape and hat from the rail in the passage, and they went out together. The boy seemed to grope half blindly, and her hand held his, for if ever a miserable, repentant boy needed help, it was poor Hugh as they went by the back way through the garden to Jack's home.

Along the path between the dahlias Hester saw a well-worn school cap, and her heart gave such a bound that she could proceed no further. Was she dreaming, or was this really Jack Alder coming towards them with a quick step and a smile of welcome, while his mother behind him smiled also at sight of Hester?

"Hughie, Hughie, look who is coming. Oh, Hughie, God has been very merciful to us!"

Hugh glanced up, surprised by the joy of her tones. In another moment the lads were together, fairly hugging one another. Jack was then on his way to "make it up" with Hugh, for his mother had trained him in such a way that the young servant of the Prince of Peace could not be content that the sun should go down upon their wrath.

"It was like those disciples we heard about last Sunday," he said. "Quarrelling about which should be the greatest. I don't mind if you are professional, Hugh, and if I'm only to be trade. Anyway, we'll always be chums, and I oughtn't to have teased you so. I don't wonder you got cross with me."

"Jack was in great distress," said Mrs. Alder, "because he had offended Hugh, but I was coming with him to your house. I knew Hugh would forgive him, and not bear malice, and I wanted a chat with you about some pleasant winter evenings for the young women's class."

"But didn't Jack tell you, Mrs. Alder?" said Hugh. "I ... I thought he wasn't alive."

"The brick never touched me at all," said Jack, in a low voice. "I turned all strange ‒ I do sometimes ‒ and tumbled down, but father came up and got me home, and gave me some medicine, and I'm to go to bed early and keep myself quiet. Only I told father I must make it right with you first."

"Jack fainted, I think," said Mrs. Alder meanwhile to Hester. "He is much stronger than he used to be, but his father thinks he has been overdoing it at football lately. He used to be subject to attacks of faintness, but they are becoming very rare, I am thankful to say."

"Then we will not excite him any more today," said Hester, in the same quiet tone. "But I shall let Hugh know Jack is not always well, that he may act considerately in their games. Hugh's heart is full of something he wants to tell you. He will not rest till you know."

So Mrs. Alder called Hugh to look at her white asters, and amid their shining bloom the boy told her of his guilty anger, and how, blind with rage, he had not realised the brick just missed its aim.

Mrs. Alder shuddered, but she laid a gentle hand upon his arm. "Hughie," she said, "from my heart I forgive you, and so does Jack. But you have promised to be the Saviour's young follower, and you have been faithless today. Go home and ask His pardon now, and never forget, all your life long, how merciful He has been to you today."

"I never will," said Hugh solemnly. And, as he went homeward between the autumn flowers, there was that in his face which told them that from the power of malice and hatred and passion, a young soul had been restored.

Chapter 14

Bad News for Finnis

IT was a festive day in Kilnmere Street when Edgar and Celia Lindsay, the bride and bridegroom, came to visit Aunt Verbena. The invalid brightened up beneath the influence of the bridal happiness, as Edgar jokingly announced that they intended entering for the Dunmow Flitch Trials, which existed to award a flitch of bacon to married couples from anywhere in the world, if they could satisfy the Judge and Jury of six maidens and six bachelors that in 'twelvemonth and a day' they have 'not wisht themselves unmarried again!'

Celia went away in possession of a gift of silver spoons from her aunt's chest, and filled with wonderment at the sight of flowers and the sound of laughter in the house she remembered as so silent and dreary.

A few days after the pleasant visit of the Lindsays, Hugh astonished Hester by dashing into the parlour with the excited inquiry, "Aunt Verbena, shall I have any money when I am twenty-one?" He had never ventured to call his guardian anything but "Miss Bridge" before, but in his agitation he used Hester's name for her.

"Can I have three hundred and seventy-two pounds ready money now?" he asked. "I want it for something very particular."

Miss Bridge could not help laughing at his request. "I suppose you are joking, Hugh," she said. "If you are in earnest, I may as well tell you the moderate property your parents left you is to be used to start you in life, and to touch any of the money kept for some other purpose would need the consent of two lawyers, which could not be obtained."

"Oh," said Hugh, "some people on board ship, when I came over, said I would have some money when I am twenty-one, and I did want to give Finnis what she's lost. She has had such dreadful news. She's been crying like anything. She has had a letter about some company going wrong, and she's lost her savings for nearly all her life, and I told her not to fret so, because I would ask you for some of my money for her. She's too upset to get the tea, so I must go and help her. Shall I make you some toast, Aunt Ver‒ Miss Bridge?"

"Call me 'aunt' if you like, Hugh," said his guardian abruptly. "I haven't too many left belonging to me now. Neither have you," she added, in a lower voice.

"Oh, poor Finnis," said Hester, "I do feel for her. I know how she must have denied herself to save so much!"

"She should not have invested at such high interest," said Miss Bridge. "I am not at all surprised. I told her she would probably find herself mistaken in that company, but she would not take my advice. What a world of loss and trouble this is."

Hester would have hastened down to help Finnis in her work, but she realised Hugh was anxious to do something for the poor woman.

"I say, Finnis, cheer up," he said, as he cut the bread for the toast. "Aunt Verbena says I can't have any money of my own yet, but one day I shall have some, Finnis, you know, and I shall always look after you. When I get it, I mean to see you don't ever go into the workhouse, as you said just now you would have to. And she says I can say 'aunt' instead of 'Miss Bridge,' and Sister Hester's so sorry for you. She's coming down directly, I know."

"Much good it is being sorry," said Finnis, who sat looking dazed and bewildered now the outburst of sobbing had ceased. "Can being sorry give me back my three hundred and seventy-two pounds?"

"I say, Finnis," said the boy, "you know God has all the silver and gold in the world. He could give you back every farthing of what you've lost. Perhaps He'll let you find a bag full of money in the road ‒ but then of course you'd have to take it to the police. Jack found a brooch once, and he took it to the police station."

"No," said Finnis, "the money's gone for ever and ever, and in my old age I'm a pauper. You and Miss Walton are wonderful kind of people, but I don't think your Christian faith would make up to either of you for losing nigh upon four hundred pound!"

"I've never lost that," said Hugh, "but ... but ... I lost my Judy, and I think my heart would have broken, only I kept thinking 'Whatever I lose, and whoever I lose, I can't ever, ever lose the Lord Jesus Christ.' And, oh, Finnis dear, you love Jesus better than the money, don't you? And you haven't lost Him, you know."

The boy said no more, for the toast had caught fire, and he put it aside for himself and prepared another piece for Miss Bridge. Finnis watched him wonderingly, contrasting his helpfulness with the gloomy, sullen ways of the past.

"If it's the Christian faith that's made the difference in the boy," she thought, "we could do with a few more of the same sort, for he do seem to think about other people now, and try to help all he can."

Hester tried to comfort the old servant concerning her loss, but Finnis told her to "Leave the subject alone, the money was gone, the company was broke, and all the talking in the world couldn't bring back her savings."

Hester saw that Finnis was too much distressed for spoken sympathy, but when her aunt asked for music that evening, she sang a hymn which she prayed might bear balm to the troubled heart:

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,

But trust Him for His grace,

Behind a frowning providence

He hides a smiling face.

A few days later Finnis came to her, asking if she would do her a favour.

"I wants you, if you will, miss," she said, "to try and buy back Judy from her at the Hall. I'd go to twelve and six, or maybe sixpence more, to get the little creature back for the boy. It's his birthday tomorrow, and I wants to surprise him."

Hester looked at her in astonishment, feeling as if she could hug the old woman. "It would delight him," she said, "but could you really afford this, after losing so much?"

"That's where it is, miss. I begins to see I can't afford not to use some of my money on other folks. I never gives no presents, and I've always said No when folks wanted subscriptions for the missionaries and poor children and so on. If I went to a place of worship, I took a deal of trouble not to notice the collection plate. I never put no money in 'the Lord's bank' as Jane Simmons calls it. I just put all my trust in my investment papers that I could touch with my own hands and look at as much as I liked, and it's worth no more now than the rubbish in the streets!"

"Don't be too sure of that," said Hester. "Dr. Ellis says, you know, there are hopes of honourable payments being made. He knows someone who is looking into affairs just now. But I know what you mean, Finnis, you want to sow sunshine for others with the money you have left, and I am quite certain, if you do, you will reap sunshine too. 'Give, and it shall be given unto you' is a text my father is often quoting, and he says he is continually seeing the fulfilment of it."

"Well, Miss Hester, I'm not one of the Lord's people myself, but it seems to me I'd like to be, for you and the boy keeps the rest of us cheered up somehow. I only wish I was fit to be a Christian too."

"Finnis, dear," said Hester earnestly, "the Lord is seeking for you, or such a wish would not be in your heart. Oh, Finnis, will you not take Him for your Friend and Helper, and King, and Saviour?"

"I don't know as He wants old folks like me, with the best of their lives behind them."

"He wants the weary and heavy-laden," said Hester earnestly, "as well as the children. Oh, Finnis, Hughie and I have been praying about you every day. How he will rejoice to know the Master has been speaking to your heart!"

"Anyway," said Finnis, "I'm going to try another plan about my money now. It's been all getting, and I means to try some giving for a change. You see, Miss Hester, I haven't quite lost all, for I've got something in the Usherford Savings Bank still, and I think I ought to draw some of that out in thanksgiving for what I've got left. So I wants Dr. Ellis to take a little bit for that missionary society he's collector for, and here's something for the temperance union, miss, as you helps in. And I'm a-going to 'prentice one of Jane's boys to the coach-building, seeing he's had a good offer, and them children do need a helping hand. And there's enough left to buy Judy back for the boy's birthday tomorrow, but I can't go and face the lady and make bargains for dogs. I do wish you'd have the goodness, Miss Hester."

"I'll go gladly," said Hester. "I have heard Mrs. Barnes-Tatton is very reserved and objects to visitors, but I need not stay more than five minutes. I do hope she will consent to sell little Judy back. Hugh will be wild with joy tomorrow. Oh, Finnis, it is good of you!"

And then the hug fairly came to pass, much to the amazement of Aunt Verbena, who was watching them from her couch, through the open door.

Chapter 15

At Oakleys Hall

HESTER felt rather nervous as she neared the residence of Mrs. Barnes-Tatton, a widow lady, who had the reputation of being very reserved, and to whom wealth had fallen late in life. She had lived many struggling years shadowed by the ill-health of her husband, now passed hence. Hester thought, amid all her beautiful surroundings, Mrs. Barnes-Tatton must be lonely at heart sometimes.

It was a great pleasure to her to find Simmons at work in the grounds. With a beaming face he told her he had been "took on permanent as under-gardener," and he and his were about to move into one of the neighbouring cottages that Dr. Ellis had built.

On entering Mrs. Barnes-Tatton's room, Hester's eyes fell with interest on a lovely writing table, such as her fancy had often painted for herself when prosperity should smile upon her. But while surveying it, Judy, attired in a handsome collar, sprang rapturously upon her, and she hastened to explain her errand to the mistress of the house, who had keen grey eyes that seemed very observant.

"Yes," said the lady, "I have plenty of dogs. I am fond of them, but I like the boy's face, and I took Judy to please him. I am glad he is to have the dog back. Never mind the collar ‒ tell him it is my birthday gift."

With grateful words Hester laid the half-sovereign in paper on the table. She was about to withdraw, when Mrs. Barns-Tatton asked, "Are you the 'Hester Walton' who had a story ‒ Saint Charity ‒ in the Beacon? Yes," she added, with a smile that wonder fully lighted up her face, "I see by your looks that you are. My gardener was speaking of you as a temperance worker, and I wondered if you were the writer of the tale I liked so much. Are you very busy with your pen?"

Hester told her she was writing nothing, save a few stray thoughts for the comfort of sick people, to read to her invalid aunt now and then.

"Perhaps you will publish them by-and-by," said Mrs. Barnes-Tatton. "Think over it, for there many, besides your aunt, who need comforting, Miss Walton. But I wonder if you would feel disposed to help me? I have written a book on social and industrial subjects, but literary work is new to me, and it needs to be revised, I know. Will you overlook the manuscript for me? I would content you as to remuneration. I am going away for three months, and the manuscript will be ready next week. Can you fetch it then and talk things over? Perhaps your aunt would accompany you and lunch here, if I drove in for her, say, on the 19th."

Hester, to whom literary work of any sort was a joy, left the Hall as if treading on air, and Judy seemed as happy as herself. The dog was secreted till next morning, when his appearance rendered Hugh fairly speechless with gratitude and delight.

Miss Bridge was interested in hearing about Oakleys Hall, and about the talk as to Hester's literary work.

"That is a good thought," she said, "about your messages for invalids, Hester. Why should not others share what you composed for me? If you want a little help in bringing it out‒‒"

"I might write to Messrs. Tinley & Taylor," said Hester. "They are very kind, and may advise me, if they cannot publish the little book themselves. Now, auntie dear, I am going to trim you a new bonnet for the nineteenth. Just to please me, you will have that little outing, now won't you? I will take such care of you, and the drive will do you good."

But in a day or two the subject of Oakleys Hall passed away from the invalid's mind, and Hester began to hope that the fresh agitation of the past, which possessed her aunt, really meant that the desire of her heart was accomplished, and that the little child who filled her thoughts would no longer lie in an obscure and nameless grave.

"Hester," she said one morning, in a voice that faltered and trembled, "I have had a letter from a place in Maine, from my agent who is trying to trace out the people who kept that boarding-house in New York, that he may learn where they buried my little niece. He writes that he is certainly upon their track at last. It has taken so long to find them because they are carrying on the business of a relative, and they call themselves now by his name. But he says they are the people under whose roof my poor Alice and her baby died, and when he wrote he was starting off to find them."

"So you will hear again by next mail, auntie dear? I am thankful, for your sake, that the search is nearly over."

"Hester, it is an answer to your prayers ‒ the Lord is very merciful. There is nothing left for me to do save mark the baby's grave with a stone in remembrance of that poor little needy life, and now the Lord will be gracious unto me, and put it within my power."

Hester felt between smiling and weeping as she saw the old lady look again and again at the picture of the marble memorial on the sheet of monuments she kept in a drawer of her table. It seemed strange to her that her aunt desired so greatly to honour the resting place of the little one in heaven ‒ the child against whom she had closed her doors. But, as Aunt Verbena said, it was all she could do now for the child; and Hester said tenderly that she would write, as her aunt begged her, a little verse concerning the babe, to go on the marble headstone.

"I believe aunt's mind will be quieter," she thought, "when this has been accomplished, and she has been enabled to spend her money on behalf of poor Aunt Alice's child. I will pray, more earnestly than ever, that this search may indeed be ended, and the place of the little grave found."

"Another letter from America, auntie," she said gently, when a few days later she brought to Miss Bridge another communication from over the sea.

"You open it ‒ you read it, Hester. Tell me where the child lies," said her aunt brokenly.

The letter was short, and Hester's quick eyes soon took in the meaning. She could have cried out, but she kept still and quiet, though her heart overflowed with sympathy and compassion for Aunt Verbena.

"Hester, were they the right people? Their name was Muston, but they have changed it now. Did they say the baby's name ‒ poor Alice only called her 'Baby' ‒ and did they say what she died of, and where she lies?"

"Auntie dear, you must not distress yourself. He says he will go on searching. These people sold their boarding-house, he says, and the person who bought it said the baby could remain, for they told her someone in England would send for it and pay her for looking after it. They say the baby must have died after they left, and your letter, in answer to Aunt Alice's, had not come when they sold the boarding-house soon after Aunt Alice died. They say they afterwards heard it had changed hands again. But let us pray on, auntie darling. We shall hear yet where that little one has been laid to rest."

"No," said Miss Bridge, "something tells me I never shall. I have saved the money for the stone with the little marble angel on it, all in vain. Those who inquired for me were able to find out where poor Alice is buried, in the same grave as her husband, but I think their little babe must have been utterly neglected and disregarded, perhaps even starved to death. No one seems to know anything about the baby, saving that she died."

"Well, auntie," said Hester earnestly, "I believe you will know yet. This delay is surely just to try your faith and deepen prayer. And supposing you never know where Baby lies. Is it, after all, such a great matter that you should put a beautiful stone to that grave?"

"I think," said Miss Bridge brokenly, "God might have granted me this. He knows I have longed to do something for Alice's child."

"Yes," said Hester, stroking her hand, "He does know. And, auntie, I have been thinking so much about this wish of yours, and about that poor little baby; and something seemed to say to me there are many, many little lives one can help and brighten and care for, even here around us. Perhaps God will like that better than even if one could raise the monument of marble on the grave."

Hester was timid in speaking thus to her aunt, and her voice died away in a whisper. But she saw that a look of despair and lethargy was stealing across the aged face, and she longed to rouse her aunt to do something for a living child, rather than brood remorsefully over the baby's death.

She had heard, through Mrs. Simmons, that the Corbetts were really very poor, for Mrs. Corbett was in weakly health often in the winter, and now the little one they had taken into their home, and were keeping out of charity, was recovering from bronchitis and needed warm garments.

"I wish we could surprise Kitty, when she brings home the needlework she took away, with some flannel for that little girl who has been ill," Hester said suggestively, later in the morning.

Miss Bridge answered nothing at the time, but by-and-by she took out some money from a partition of her cash-box, and said to Hester, "Go and get some warm flannel for the child at the Corbetts'. Kitty can make it up. Get it good and soft, Hester. I have taken this money out of what I kept for the monument. That little one must not perish for want of warm clothes now the autumn is coming on."

"Inasmuch," murmured Hester. "Auntie, warm vests will be new life to that little one, this will be a day of gladness and thankfulness at the Corbetts'."

Miss Bridge stayed silent. She sat in her chair with closed eyes, her heart full of memories. Henceforth her money should aid the little ones ready to perish; but to do aught for the child her dying sister had entrusted to her care, it was all too late.

Hester was thankful that the next day had been fixed for the visit to Oakleys Hall. It was a change for the invalid to look out upon the beautiful glades of the park. The drive, too, gave her quite a colour, and there was a stirring in the conscience of Mrs. Barnes-Tatton as she thought how little her carriage was used, and how many invalids in the neighbourhood would enjoy an airing therein. She was one who loved solitude, but she began to ask herself if this reserve might not be only another name for selfishness.

Hugh and Judy came up after school hours. As they were driving home, the matter of the manuscript having been duly arranged, Dr. Ellis met them, and Hugh proudly pointed to the parcel in Hester's lap, saying, "Sister Hester's going to revise a real book in forty chapters!"

"Ah," said Dr. Ellis, "that reminds me, young lady, I have intended for some time to have a literary conversation with you. I am inclined to think yours is the pen I have been looking for of late, but there are others to consult, so we must postpone our chat awhile. I think Miss Bridge will be very proud of her literary niece one of these days!"

"She is proud of her already," said Aunt Verbena, holding Hester's hand. Then she added, "I suppose you have written a book too, doctor, and want it revised?"

The doctor laughed. "Not I," said he. "I confine myself to prescriptions; but I must not keep you in the evening air. Miss Hester must be content, at present, to know the subject of authorship is 'to be continued'."

"Yes," thought Hester, with gladness in her heart, "it is 'to be continued,' and it seemed, a few months back, as if all such work had passed out of my life!"

Chapter 16

A Pleasant Meeting

MRS. BARNES-TATTON was a woman of active, capable mind. Her writing showed much sympathy with the struggling toiler, and though some might have called her a visionary, Hester felt that her ideals were high and grand, and it did her heart good to peruse the manuscript entrusted for her revision.

One thought came to her frequently. "Why should not the sympathy be practical? Would not the mistress of the Hall open her lovely grounds sometimes to less fortunate ones, to whom those gardens would seem an Eden?" Even at the risk of offending her, Hester ventured in one of her letters to make such a suggestion, mentioning how Mrs. Alder would welcome the opportunity of an occasional outing for the members of her growing class on early-closing evenings.

The book aroused interest when published, and was by no means fruitless It had one beneficial outcome at any rate ‒ Mrs. Barnes-Tatton began to concern herself on her return with the workers around her, and the young people of the Usherford shops were greatly helped and encouraged by her sisterly sympathy and kindness.

Miss Bridge was very anxious for Hester's own book for the sick to appear, and the girl set to work to arrange the stray papers she had penned from time to time. To Hester's delight, Messrs. Tinley & Taylor readily agreed to publish the book. Great was the excitement in Kilnmere Street and at Briarbloom Cottage when Pastures of Rest came out, dainty in binding of grey and gold. Hester linked together two of her loved ones in the double dedication: "Inscribed to Aunt Verbena, and to the memory of my mother."

"Father says your style has become much more powerful than it used to be, Hester," wrote Alys, "and we all love Pastures of Rest! I do believe your book will do a great deal of good, and brighten many troubled ones."

Yes, Hester knew her style had changed, even since the writing of Saint Charity. It was not for naught she had studied those thought-laden volumes on Aunt Verbena's shelves, and in her own soul she had grown through prayerfulness and patience.

"God bless my Hester's little book," wrote her father, "and may He make her, like her mother in the Homeland, a light in shadowed places, comforting others with the comfort wherewith God has blessed her pathway."

As for Aunt Verbena, she kept the book close to her, often turning to its pages of consolation in the quiet moments of which she had so many.

Hugh bought a copy for his friend, old Corbett, whose vigour seemed to be showing signs of abating now, and who grew anxious at times lest the museum authorities should decide upon having a younger curator.

Hester wrote the name of "Palmyra Finnis" in a pretty, dove-coloured copy, which was often read aloud to the old servant by one of "Cousin Jane's" olive branches.

Dr. Ellis carried off several of the books for the missionary committee. Hester knew he was on the committee of a large missionary society, and wondered why he wanted his friends to see her work. Later on, his reasons became apparent.

All this time the temperance meetings flourished, so much so that earnest hearts were beginning to ask if "a public house without the drink" could not be started, on lines likely to prove helpful and self-supporting, for the people of Usherford.

The way did not seem quite clear as yet, for the needful capital could not be fully provided, for there were not at present sufficient friends volunteering to take shares in the enterprise. However, the temperance workers agreed to pray concerning the matter, and to ask for heavenly guidance in the plans they had at heart.

In her Sunday school work Hester had more cheer than discouragement. She had to deal with more than one unruly spirit, and in some instances with those naturally rude and impatient of control, but she knew that the Saviour is the need of every heart and life, and she tried to point to Him and lead to Him each of her bright-eyed, cheerful scholars. And the work wrought in that little band of Mission Hall children, the harvest of good that sprang from the seed sown in those young hearts, only "the crowning day" of glory shall declare.

One afternoon, Hester was coming home through Usherford High Street, from visiting a member of her class who was ill, when she caught sight, to her great surprise, of a familiar face. She hurried across the road to assure herself it really was her friend, Phyllis Abbot, the doctor now in charge of St. Agnes' Infirmary.

"Phyllis, dear old Phyllis! Are you looking for Kilnmere Street? How good it is to see you again, but you have surely been ill? What has become of your rosy cheeks, Phyllis?"

The doctor looked rather confused at sight of Hester. She had a gentle face, with grey eyes that told of tender sympathy as well as power. She hesitated a little, and then said frankly, "I was not coming to see you, Hetty, but I am glad we have met. It seems so long since we had a chat. I was going to the station. I have been to Fernheath to see an old friend of mine, Kitty Corbett."

"She is a friend of mine too," said Hester, "but you surely were not going away from Usherford without seeing me. I don't believe I could ever have forgiven you!"

"I did not know that you would care to see me," said Phyllis, the rose-hue deepening in her face. It occurred to Hester then that Phyllis thought she might prefer not to meet one who had refused the attentions of the brother she held so dear.

"Phyllis," she said lovingly, "haven't we been friends all our lives? Is there anything that can come between us, or ought to come between us?"

"No, there isn't," said Phyllis; "and, oh, Hetty, I have longed again and again to write to you ‒ about everything ‒ only there are things one cannot put on paper somehow."

"You must come home with me, dear," said Hester, "and we will have one of our long talks. It will be like past days. We shall be full of pride to make tea for a medallist and the head of a hospital. We always said you would be great and famous, Phyllis, years and years ago."

"Oh, Hetty, who is the famous one? If you only knew how your book is read and loved!"

"And if you only knew what the Woodwell paper said about you when you were appointed to the infirmary!"

Phyllis laughed, and squeezed Hester's arm as they went on towards Kilnmere Street together. To both those young lives fame and greatness in themselves mattered little. Their joy was to use their influence for the Lord they loved, and, just as might be His will, they were ready for "service or sacrifice."

Almost the first thing they saw on entering the sitting room was a portrait of Graham, which Hetty had placed in a frame on the mantelpiece. She saw Phyllis start and flush at the sight of it, and she felt it would be a relief to her friend to outpour to her the trouble of her life.

Chapter 17

Sisters in Heart

HETTY was rather sorry, for Phyllis's sake, that "Graham is getting on so well," she said. "He expects very soon to take his degree, and then he will either help father at Woodwell, or try to open up a fresh practice for himself. Have you heard how splendidly he did in his last examination?"

"Yes," said Phyllis, "I saw all about it in one of the medical papers. Oh, Hetty, what can we do for your brother? How strange it is that such a clear mind as Graham's should be so dark towards God. He seems to have set himself firmly against anything connected with Christianity."

Both of them were very near to tears as they looked at that bright, handsome face, that told of talent and cleverness, yet showed an obstinate curve of the lip, betraying intense strength of self-will.

"You are not angry with me, Hester?" said Phyllis. "How could I link my life to his by a promise, when my love to Jesus seems to him only a superstition?"

"No, Phyllis, you could not ‒ you must not," said Hester. "Be resolute, whatever it may cost you, to marry no one but a Christian. I should have loved to have you for a sister." And her face grew shadowed as the picture came to her of someone uncongenial, who would probably be Graham's choice in time to come. "But you will do what is right, I know, whatever may happen. How you have been suffering, Phyllis. It has cost you more than I dreamed to part your life from Graham's."

Then Phyllis told her how for a time there had seemed nothing around her but darkness and perplexity, and how her heart had grown cold and hard. She seemed scarcely able to pray, she felt so sad and bewildered. But just then Kitty Corbett, the servant at the infirmary was one of her patients, and it was this girl's bright, cheery faith which lighted for her the pathway back to Him in whom is no darkness at all.

"What I should have done without Kitty then, I know not," she said. "Without knowing my trouble, she seemed always to have just the right message for me, and the word of help. I am not the only one who will always be thankful she came to the infirmary."

"So it was no mistake," thought Hester. "After all, though it seemed so when she came home from London ill. There was a work waiting for Kitty in that hospital."

"Phyllis," she said, "it may be later in life, when he is old ‒ but I am certain mother's prayers and ours for Graham must prevail. He will belong to Christ at last. You love him as much as I do ‒ better, perhaps. Will you, as I do, ask for this every day?"

"I do," said Phyllis. "I have for years. I will, all my life. Now let us talk of dear old Woodwell, for I am not going to let my visit distress you."

The two girls were sisters in heart, and had so much to talk over that their tea grew cold, and Hester's hospitable instincts were shocked to find how little her guest was eating. Nevertheless, amid the flow of converse, and though they discussed many subjects and people, Hester could not bring out the question that was trembling in her heart, "When would Winnie and Harold Cline be married?"

Once, Phyllis mentioned her sister ‒ to say she would soon leave Mrs. Riddet and stay at home till the wedding, and most likely Mrs. Abbot would live with her then, "For both of them want mother," said Phyllis. But Hester suddenly changed the conversation. Somehow she could not bear just then to listen to details of the marriage that was so often in her thoughts.

Aunt Verbena asked that Dr. Abbot might come up to her after tea. Phyllis went by a later train, that she might have a chat with the old lady, and she told Hester afterwards that she believed Miss Bridge yet possessed a good deal of vigour in her constitution, but her nerves were so depressed that her state of mind enfeebled her body, which Hester knew was indeed the case and longed to alter, yet seemed powerless to do aught in the matter save by prayer.

Miss Bridge asked Phyllis many questions as to the old folks in the infirmary, and sent to some of whom she heard that evening copies of Pastures of Rest, promising to knit some crossovers and shawls for the aged women in time for the distribution of Christmas gifts.

"Miss Hester," said Finnis, in an excited whisper, peeping up the kitchen stairs as Phyllis Abbot departed, "have Hugh told you? There's news from London about my money."

"No, Finnis; I caught sight of Hugh running towards the Alders' garden."

"Ah, then, he's off to tell Mrs. Alder. I suppose he didn't like to interrupt your company. Miss Hester, whatever do you think? You know my mind was made up for to lose my savings in that there London company, and, thinks I, it served me right for never going shares with nobody, nor giving nothing to God. And now just look at this paper I've had from London! I can't make head nor tail of it, but Master Hugh says it means as how some bank or company or other have come to the help of the one that got into difficulties, and they've got some bad debts in, and sold some property well, and things have come out so as everybody can have to the full what they've put in, and nobody's going to be a loser after all."

"Yes, it seems so indeed," said Hester, after she had read the paper. "Dear Finnis, I am glad. So you see God has not taken away from you your savings, and many a heart, like yours, will be rejoiced by this good news."

"Miss Hester," said the old servant, "don't it say one can leave the money in, at the same rate of interest, or draw it out, as one may choose? I'm going to take it out. I'd rather have lower interest, and have a hand in helping on some good work. I'll invest it all in shares in that there coffee house the doctor wants to build. Leastways, the tenth of it shall be my thank-offering, and go towards the Mission Hall that's to be enlarged on the ground at the side of the coffee house you've been planning. And what's left, I'll use to buy shares in the temperance public house."

"Finnis!" cried Hester excitedly, "I think this is the very guidance we have been waiting for. We had almost enough to start the place, but not quite. But you must think well over it. I know Aunt Verbena and Dr. Ellis will say so too. You must remember it is possible you will get very low interest, at any rate for a time."

"It isn't for the interest, Miss Hester," said Finnis. "Somehow that money don't seem mine at all. If God have trusted me with it again, I wants in some way to give it back to Him."

"And He will bless it a thousand fold," said Hester. "Come and tell the good news to Aunt Verbena. I think she has half expected it, for Dr. Ellis told us he hoped things would come out much better than seemed the case at first. But none of us ever thought that money would have anything to do with our dream of the coffee house and temperance club!"

Chapter 18

The Haven

HESTER was not mistaken in supposing that the resolve of Finnis to re-invest her money in the coffee house would be a practical encouragement to those who had the scheme at heart. Somehow it became known that the "nest-egg," for the plan was money saved by an old servant since her early girlhood, and Finnis was not left alone in her kindly intentions.

Miss Bridge found she could spare some money both as a donation and in purchasing shares in the temperance public house, and Mrs. Barnes-Tatton took the committee by surprise by help as generous as unexpected.

The idea was to enlarge the mission room already existing, and on an adjoining site to erect premises for the coffee house, social club, reading room, educational classrooms, and gymnasium. In every respect the committee desired to make this place more than a counter attraction to the abounding taverns.

One of the doctor's family designed the plans, and on a bright, sunshiny morning Mrs. Barnes-Tatton laid the memorial stone, and roused great applause by the speech she made on the occasion. But it was Finnis who was asked by the committee to name the place. At first she declared she could not think of a name, but Hester and Hugh insisted on her choosing one, and in the end she asked, "What would they think of calling the place The Haven?"

The suggestion was approved, and The Haven it became. Nobody knew of a summer-year in the old servant's life when a sailor lad was her close friend, and nobody knew he had sailed away in a gallant ship called The Haven, and ship and crew came back to English waters never more.

It seemed to Finnis sometimes that the young girl who mourned for him was some other than herself, so many summers had come and gone since he went into port beyond earthly ken. Yet in the name she gave to those buildings of help and mercy there was remembrance of her sailor lad of the dim past.

Miss Verbena Bridge gave the Bible for the new reading desk in the mission room, and Hester, Finnis, and Hugh went shares in giving a harmonium for the hall, for meetings that were part of the coffee house scheme. Hugh saved five shillings with much thrift and self-denial towards this instrument. What Hester gave was the first-fruits of her literary work in Usherford ‒ part of Mrs. Barnes-Tatton's payment for her help as reviser of her book.

Messrs. Tinley & Taylor had not been hopeful as to the success of Pastures of Rest financially, for it commended itself only to a class, and in this opinion they were correct. Hester was never enriched by the little book, but it brought her what seemed to her far better than gold ‒ many a word of thankfulness for help and comfort from lives in shadow, strangers to herself, but "kindred in Christ."

How humbled she felt to think that these messages had been used by Him to bear hope and light under circumstances the dimness of which He only understood. It always seemed to Hester that He knew just when she most needed such joy and encouragement, for when at times she was downcast, and things seemed dreary, someone was sure to write to her and tell her she had been a cheer and comfort. So, after all, it was a golden harvest that the writer's heart reaped from Pastures of Rest.

"Now, Miss Bridge," said Dr. Ellis, finding his patient one day in the garden, "you are on the highroad to health, you see, and I want you to give your good nurse here two or three hours every day wherein to fulfil a commission for our missionary society."

"You want her to go about collecting, I suppose," said Miss Bridge. "Hester is not at all a good beggar, and why she is to march about daily with a collecting book I cannot imagine."

"No," said the doctor, "we manage things better than that. Our subscribers do not need to be besieged. I hope they are alive to their privileges as givers! But you know next year will be our centenary, and we want a bright, inspiring missionary book ‒ a record of what God has done through the heroes of missions in these hundred years, The book is to be one to set the hearts of the young folk on fire to help in mission work. Now, Miss Hester, you shall have the dry bones of the history supplied, and I think, by God's help, you are the very one to make them live."

"I don't see," said Hester, "that there are dry bones as concerns missionary records. But, Dr. Ellis," she added, with a crimsoning face, "looking over the manuscript for Mrs. Barnes-Tatton was a different kind of work from this you speak of. I have never written a book like that." Yet in her heart she knew she could do it, and would love to do it, and the doctor knew this also.

"You cannot resist the allied forces," said he. "Miss Bridge is on my side, and she means you to have the little top room up among the sparrows to write this book in, morning by morning."

"You have planned it all out, doctor," said Aunt Verbena. "I suppose you mean to give this girl something for her trouble? Don't forget the labourer is worthy of his hire, and I presume that includes females."

Hester was about to protest, as indeed she felt in her heart that she would gladly help the society free of charge by her work. But Dr. Ellis smiled, and said that arrangements as to payment had been left to him as chairman of the committee, and he would give Miss Hester enough to buy herself a new bonnet, she might be certain!

"Seriously, my dear child," said the old gentleman, "I believe this work is a grand opportunity for you. Under God, the victories of missions depend upon the children and young people who are growing up now, and it is for such we ask you to write."

This was the starting-point of the book that made Hester's name, the book that went forth by thousands in coming time from the missionary society, and found its way into countless Sunday school libraries, and over the sea to many countries, and was translated again and again.

Hester could only say, "What hath God wrought?" Up in the lumber room overlooking the garden, among old boxes and disused furniture, He gave her the words to write that told of His hero-servants, and that book was blessed by Him from the day it was begun in prayer.

In Hester's own life it made a practical change. Her prayers for mission work were earnestly deepened, her gifts thereto were doubled and trebled. Like most of those who read the book, the writer felt she must have a place and part in striving to bring the wide world to Christ.

It was a gala day in Usherford when the bright coffee house was opened. Brass bands and waving flags welcomed the temperance Member of Parliament who visited the place for the occasion. The aged clergyman could not be present, but his energetic curate was there, and with the minister of the chapel ‒ who, like himself, was a new-comer to Usherford ‒ rejoiced to see such a building amid the many taverns of the district.

Aunt Verbena was taken to the opening in the carriage from Oakleys Hall. Dr. Walton came over for the day, bringing the news that Graham had now decided to start a practice in a much busier suburb than quiet Woodwell.

"Oh," sighed Hugh, "how I'd love to be his assistant. We could cure patients all day long, and have violin duets in the evening! I'll work hard at school, and be a doctor as soon as ever I can."

About this time Jack Alder's sister, a pleasant girl of eighteen, came home for good from her German school, and her musical talents became most helpful. She gave harmonium recitals at The Haven, which greatly delighted many a busy worker. Finnis never missed the music if possible.

On one occasion, Hester had undertaken the weekly ironing so as to set Finnis free for The Haven, and she was surprised when the old lady soon hurried back, taking possession of a parcel and some new laid eggs that Jane Simmons had sent her.

"I've just met that decent-looking body who did some work for the mistress," she said. "Kitty Corbett's her name, and a pleasant face she's got, though she do look worrited. She's well enough now for a place in fulltime service, but she can't hear of one around here, and her mother's been very bad. She's just getting over the bronchitis. And Anna's not had much work of late at the waistcoat making, and, worst of all, the museum committee have engaged a younger man, so old Corbett have lost his post there."

"I am very sorry to hear that," said Hester; "especially as the cold weather is coming now. This illness, too, is an extra expense for them."

"Yes, and as if they hadn't enough to do to keep themselves, there's a child they've taken in, as eats as much as the rest of them put together, I'll answer for it. I haven't patience with poor people looking after other people's children like that."

"Oh, yes, you have, Finnis," said Hester, looking up from her ironing with a smile. "You intend those eggs for the Corbetts, I can see, and is Kitty to make up your new print for you?"

"Well," said Finnis, "I meant to make it up myself, as you know, but she'll be glad and thankful of the job; and she can sew a bit while she looks after her mother. There's a bit of plaid left over, Miss Hester, from a dress poor Miss Alice had years and years ago. The moth's never been near it. Mistress have kept it in the cedar-chest, wrapped up careful. There's enough to make a frock for the little girl. They seems wonderful fond of the child, and it may as well keep her warm as be laid away in a drawer."

Hester was quite of the same opinion, and she knew there was nothing that seemed to rouse her aunt from low spirits and sad memories so much as some ministry for the needy, especially for children.

It did not take long before the plaid frock was cut out and made, Miss Bridge and Finnis each lending a hand in the cosy little dress. One afternoon, when Hugh was free to take the long walk with Hester, she started off for Fernheath, with the frock and a basket of things suited for Mrs. Corbett's weak state of health.

Hester had never been as far as the Corbetts' cottage. Fernheath itself was a pretty hamlet, but the wintry road that led to it looked rather bare and desolate, and there was a path strewn thickly still with withered leaves that vividly reminded Hester of a woodland walk, beneath bare branches and empty nests, that she had taken once with Mrs. Riddet's children, when Harold Cline joined them and made the wintry scene seem fair to her as summer.

She would not give place to the memory, but tried to occupy her thoughts in chatting with Hugh. He had keen, observant eyes, and brought her many an object he noticed by hedge or wayside, giving her its history past and future, according to what he had noticed and heard.

Nevertheless, Hester could not quite forget the days of old. Her liking for Harold Cline had gone deeper than even her own heart had understood, and though she could not wonder that he had found sunny-faced Winnie more attractive, it seemed to her it must be a long time before the thought of him could be anything but a shadow and a pain.

Chapter 19

"Mother's Hymn"

IT was a long walk to Fernheath, and the shades of evening were beginning to fall when Hester and Hugh drew near to the Corbetts' home. The boy ran in to speak to a schoolfellow who lived close by, while Hester passed in with her basket of good things and sat down beside the sickbed, showing old Mrs. Corbett the warm quilt she had brought her, and the cosy dress for the little maiden under her roof.

"It's very good of you, Miss Hester," said the old lady gratefully, "and I can't thank Miss Bridge enough. It do seem as if the Lord raised up friend after friend for us, just when things seemed a bit dark around us. The poor little lassie, too ‒ she's gone a bit short of late, for I haven't been able to get her a winter frock, and now here's the very thing for the dear little lamb! It's just as Corbett always says ‒ there's One as knows the very things His children need, and He'll supply their needs to the uttermost in His own time. Praise to His Name!"

Just then there came from the little kitchen the sound of a childish voice.

"Is that the little girl?" said Hester. "How well she sings! Will she come and make friends with me?"

But the next moment she gave a start of astonishment, and wondered if she were not dreaming. The little one was singing "Mother's hymn!"

O heart of God, unwearied still!

Thy people Thou dost keep;

The love that heav'n and earth doth fill

Doth never sleep.

We bless Thy Name for all Thy grace,

That flows like ocean wide;

Now grant the shining of Thy Face

At eventide.

It was the very same tune that Hester's mother had composed. How came it to pass that in that hamlet it was sung, a little brokenly and uncertainly, but still truly as to words and melody, by this stranger-child?

"Isn't it beautiful, Miss Hester? Don't she sing like a bird?" said the old lady proudly. She tapped at the wall, calling, "Olive, my lamb, come in and see the lady;" and in danced a dark-eyed little lassie of five years old, with long dusky lashes, and a sweet little face, that in a moment brought to Hester's remembrance the picture hanging on her bedroom wall.

Again she felt she must be dreaming, but the child's soft hand was in her own, and the innocent little face was lifted for a kiss.

"Olive, little Olive," said Hester falteringly, "tell me where you learnt that hymn?"

"It's mother's hymn," said the child, "and my teacher at Sunday school, she learnt it to me, she did."

"Yes, poor little dear," said Mrs. Corbett to Hester in a low voice. "There was a little packet sewn into her clothes, you see, miss, when she first came to us ‒ only old letters and the like ‒ quite a small packet, and in one of the letters there was a tune copied out, and a hymn. And a lady near here, that teaches the infants in the Fernheath Sunday school, took a fancy to the tune, and she's taught it to some of the children. We tell Olive it's her mother's hymn, and the little dear loves to sing it."

"Mrs. Corbett, who is Olive? Mrs. Simmons told me she was a child you had taken from the workhouse."

Hester's heart was beating fast, and her face was almost colourless. The little one had run across the room to possess herself of the kitten. Hester thought of Aunt Verbena, and the weary, longing, remorseful look so often seen on that aged face. Was it possible that an answer to prayer, infinitely better than their utmost expectations, had been all this time a living reality near them, could they only have known it?

"Well, no, miss," said Mrs. Corbett; "I expect Jane Simmons got that notion from hearing folks say maybe the little one would have been took to the workhouse if we hadn't decided for to take her in. But the gentleman was going to try and get her into Dr. Barnardo's. He wouldn't have sent her, poor babe, to the workhouse."

"What gentleman?" asked Hester, in perplexity. "I must not tire you with questions, Mrs. Corbett, but little Olive is so like an aunt of mine who died, I cannot help thinking I ought to trace out her history."

"Indeed, Miss Hester!" said the old lady, with interest, "I only wish Corbett was in, for that little packet of letters in the envelope sewn into Olive's things is in his old desk that's kept locked for safety. The baby was brought to us, when we lived in Southampton, by a gentleman as came to us for a lodging. He'd saved the little dear at the time of a shipwreck, and was looking for a family to care for her. She might have been about a year old at the time. Her things was marked 'Olive,' and, as I said, there was three or four papers stitched up in her things, but nothing to tell who her family and friends might be. We made up our minds she belonged to one of the steerage passengers who had drowned."

"Was it a vessel from America?" asked Hester, her breath coming fast in her excitement.

"I think so, miss, but, strange to say, the gentleman as brought her is home from sea again just now, and he takes an interest in her, and he's coming tomorrow to see how she's grown. My memory's that bad, I've forgotten his name."

Hester promised to come over about three on the morrow. Her mind was in a whirl. She scarcely heard Hugh's talk as they went home in the starlight. Finnis told her that another letter had come from America. "The mistress does look so ill and worrited," she said.

"Hester," said her aunt in a faint voice, when she went upstairs, "the inquiry-agent writes me that the search is over. I can never raise that monument, for that baby's grave is in the sea. The child was lost in the wreck of the Vivid about four years ago."

The letter told how continued inquiries had resulted in the information that the baby had been sent to Miss Bridge's care, in charge of a woman who had stayed at the boarding house where the little one was born.

"This woman's own children were saved, but," murmured poor Miss Bridge, "my Alice's little one is buried in the depths of the sea!"

"But the sea is held in the Father's Hand," said Hester softly. "Dear auntie, just trust Him still ‒ just let Him do His own loving will, and try to be still, for His mercy endureth for ever."

Hester longed to say more to her, but at present she did not dare, lest the reaction of disappointment should be harmful to her. She scarcely slept that night. She longed to end the suspense as concerned little Olive.

Day came at last, and she so arranged her morning duties that she could get off to Fernheath by two o'clock. Miss Bridge would have liked her company that afternoon, but said nothing, believing it was an errand of charity. The poor old lady, at life's gloaming-tide, was trying humbly as a little child to silence within her life "the chord of self."

Little Olive was away at day school, but there was quite an assemblage that day in the Corbetts' kitchen. Mrs. Corbett sat beside the fire in the chintz-cushioned armchair, and both her daughters were present. Anna was stitching away as usual, and Kitty getting tea ready

A visitor rose as Hester entered, and held out his hand with a clasp that said more than his words. "How do you do, Miss Walton? I thought it must be our Miss Walton from Woodwell. It is good to see you again."

"Oh," gasped Hester, "it surely is not you?" And then the rose-hue sprang to her face, and she thought how foolish her words must sound, and how awkward and school-girlish she must seem, colouring so vividly in the surprise of standing face to face with Harold Cline once more!

"Well, to be sure!" said Mrs. Corbett. "To think you two should be friends already! Just think of it, father! It do seem in this world that one's always coming across old friends, and nice it is to meet with those as we've known before in the past. Now, father, if you'll get that desk from the top of the cupboard, Miss Hester can look over the papers as belongs to the child, and here's Mr. Cline ready and willing for to oblige with every information."

"It is the strangest thing I have heard of," said the young man, looking so earnestly into Hester's eyes that only the remembrance of Winnie Abbot and the betrothal-ring kept her composed and sedate beneath that eager gaze, "if our little water-babe should turn out to be connected with your family. I hope it may prove to be so, indeed. The letters may throw some light on Olive's identity for you, though they gave us no guidance as to her friends."

Hester calmed herself by a strong effort for self- control, and by thinking no longer of two or three bygone scenes connected with Woodwell memories, but of Aunt Verbena, to whom the results of this investigation would mean so much, And, indeed, in a few minutes all personal matters passed away into the background, for the first letter she took up was one that was old and faded ‒ written in her own mother's handwriting to her old pupil who had just married, and had asked for a copy of the hymn Mrs. Walton had composed during the teaching days.

Mrs. Walton had copied it for her, verses and music, and penned words of love and blessing that were precious, unspeakably, to her who read that letter of bygone days. But it was signed only with the initials, "M. W.," and there happened to be no address.

There were two other letters, one evidently written by Olive's father to the young wife he so soon left widowed, and treasured in memory of him, and one written to Alice by Aunt Verbena herself on the occasion of a birthday in her childhood. This letter was almost in pieces, with no address showing. How it would comfort Aunt Verbena to know this letter of love had been preserved to the last, despite colder, sterner communications that followed it later in life!

There was one more slip of paper: a few words written in a faint, trembling hand, bidding the baby take her mother's love to her aunt and tell her that one day they two would go to the Homeland and find mother there with Jesus.

"You see, miss," said old Corbett, "we couldn't find no surnames, nor no addresses, to help us in tracing out the little lamb's friends."

"But she is my little cousin," said Hester, whose eyes were dim with tears. "Here is a letter from my own dear mother to hers, and one in Aunt Verbena's writing. I suppose her poor mother held these papers precious, and said they were to be sewn into her clothes when she crossed the sea."

"They were in the lining of her little frock," said Mrs. Corbett. "Won't you tell Miss Walton, sir, if you please, just how you found our little lassie, poor dear, when that ship were breaking up?"

"Was it the Vivid?" asked Hester; and they listened with deep interest and sympathy while she told of the letter that reached yesterday, and had caused such trouble to her aunt.

"Yes," said Harold Cline, "I was coming over from New York, and as I could swim well I was one of the last to leave the ship, and tried to help the rest a little. We thought all were off in the boats, except just a few of us ‒ the captain and some of the crew ‒ when I came across that little creature curled up on a rug down in the steerage, almost hidden by some dresses that had fallen across her. We all knew the ship was going to pieces before long, and there lay the baby, fast asleep. I took her up in my arms, and we were only just in time. We had only got clear of the ship when the waves conquered her. But our boat made the port, and the little waif became my care till Mrs. Corbett, then my landlady at Southampton offered to give her a home, and she has been with our good, kind friends ever since."

"God bless you for it," said Hester to the old couple, "and, oh, Harold, aunt will be thankful to you more than words can say. You will let me take Olive to Aunt Verbena, will you not, Mrs. Corbett? That child will be doctor and nurse and healer to her, for she has her mother's very look and smile."

And just then little Olive herself ran in, and everyone wanted to make much of her, and tell her of the new aunt who would welcome her so thankfully. The little thing could not take it all in. She only knew that "grandfather," as she called old Corbett, told her to go with the young lady and be a good child, and love and serve the Lord all the days of her life. And "grandmother" left a tear on her cheek as she kissed her, and thanked God she was properly provided for, and squeezed one of Olive's favourite biscuits into the little hand.

"May I be allowed to see you home, Miss Walton? The road is rather lonely," said Harold Cline, drawing on his overcoat.

"Oh, no!" said Hester. "We will try to get a drive home in the carrier's cart. It goes to Usherford Station about this time. Olive, darling, I want you to come with me to comfort someone who has been ill, someone who will love you dearly, someone who has been thinking about you a long, long time."

"Am I going to a party, grandmother?" asked the child wonderingly, as her warm plaid frock was brought out, and Kitty tenderly arranged her curls.

"You are going, my dearie," said the old lady, "where the Lord Jesus is sending you, and where He needs His little lassie to do His work. You'll come soon again and see us, dearie. Go with the lady now, and she'll tell you a nice story while you ride along."

In a sort of rainbow mist of smiles and tears the Corbetts watched the little maid depart. She was very dear to them, so dear that their hearts could rejoice that she would be beyond the reach of want, whatever their future might be.

Riding at the back of the carrier's cart with the child nestled trustfully in her arms, Hester tried to tell her of the invalid aunt whose treasure she would be henceforth. The little girl grew earnest and grave when Hester said she must be gentle in her ways, and remember Aunt Verbena was weak.

"She shall take her the message of Aunt Alice's letter," thought Hester, and she taught the child to say when she kissed her aunt, "Dear auntie, mother sends you her love, and you and I will one day go and find her in heaven with Jesus."

Hester let herself in with the door key, and took Olive up to her own room, telling her to wait there quietly till she called her.

"Aunt Verbena," said she, sitting down by her aunt's chair and caressing the wasted hand, "do you know, I have met a Woodwell friend today; and I have heard such wonderful news, auntie. Do you know, he was a passenger on the Vivid!"

Her aunt turned and looked at her. Hester's face seemed to hold her longing gaze, but the words of questioning would not come. Then Hester said she had a true story to tell her, and she related how a little child had been forgotten by those who had charge of it on board, and how it had been found fast asleep on the ship that was almost a wreck, and brought safely to land, to be taken into a home of love to grow up, bonny and beautiful, within a few miles of the home where dwelt the aunt who believed she had died as a babe.

"Hester," said Aunt Verbena tremulously, "why do you tell me this? What does this story mean to me? Hetty, child, tell me the truth ‒ it cannot be that Alice's little child is living."

"Yes, she is," cried Hester rapturously. "She is here, close beside you, God's gift to you, auntie darling. Olive, little cousin, where are you?"

Then the child came in softly from the dressing room, and her little arms went round the old lady's neck. She was gentle and good, as Hester had bidden her, but she did not quite remember what her message was to be. She said, in the childish voice that henceforth was the music of Aunt Verbena's life, "Dear auntie, mother sends you her love; and let's you and me go and find her one day with Gentle Jesus."

Chapter 20

At Eventide

(Last Chapter)

"FINNIS! I say, Finnis!"

The old servant, coming upstairs with the tea tray nearly sent the cups and saucers over Hugh, who was rushing excitedly along the passage.

"Finnis, where's Sister Hester? There's a strange child in the parlour, and she's nursing Judy, and she's got my chair, and I shouldn't wonder if she hasn't been touching my stones and specimens and things. I believe she's come into the wrong house. Is it one of the little girls from No. 10?"

"She's Miss Alice's little girl," said Finnis, whose gaze seemed to linger long on Olive, curled up in Hugh's favourite seat, and singing "Lullaby" to Judy. "Miss Alice was mistress's own sister, and mistress was like a mother to her, but she got married to someone mistress didn't take to, and they died out in foreign parts."

"I know," said Hugh, with interest, speaking in the same mysterious whisper. "Her portrait is in Sister Hester's room, but Aunt Verbena told me her little baby died."

"Well, that was a mistake," said Finnis;. She's alive, and growed up to be the very image of her mother, and she's come to live here always, so she'll be a playfellow for you, Master Hugh."

"As if I'd play with a little girl!" said Hugh, rather disdainfully, and looking somewhat discontented. "I'll have to get a patent lock for my cabinet now. I won't have any little girls meddling with my museum."

But little Olive, somewhat homesick at first for the Corbetts, trotted about so wistfully after him and Judy, that he gave her out of compassion a share in his games, and found her a docile and willing playmate.

The old couple did not stay long at Fernheath after this, for they were installed as caretakers at The Haven, having rooms rent-free, with Miss Verbena Bridge supplementing their allowance with a weekly pension. Thus their declining days were free from care, and, to everyone's astonishment, Finnis suggested that Kitty was "a body as one could work with in peace and quietness," and would be handy in Kilnmere Street as a fellow-helper.

The suggestion was promptly acted upon, and right thankfully Hester saw capable Kitty installed as one of their household, while Anna helped her parents at The Haven.

"At evening time it is light," said Aunt Verbena, restfully. "Praise to the All-Merciful. If He sees fit to prolong my days, may He help me to train these two children for Him."

"Dear aunt," said Hester, "will you join your prayers to mine on behalf of my brother Graham? Every day I ask the Lord that Graham may be His own."

"I will ask it too," said the old lady tenderly, "and He who has had mercy on me will yet give you, my Hester, your heart's desire."

All this time Miss Bridge had wanted to see Harold Cline and thank him for all he had done for her treasured little niece, but he had been absent in Ireland on business. He wrote several letters to Miss Bridge, and one in printed characters to the child, promising a visit ere long.

One day, Hester had been to a garden party at Oakleys Hall, given to the girls of the Usherford business houses. She returned in company with her young friends from Spruce & Kenway's, who looked all the better for their enjoyment in those beautiful grounds, and for the sympathy of the hostess they had learnt to love. They turned in at the shop, and Hester saw in the distance Olive and Hugh, and between them advanced a tall figure she recognised with a beating heart.

"Sister Hester," said Hugh, "here's Harold Cline. He came to tea, and aunt and he have had a long chat, and she said we might all come and meet you, but we're to race back now, because it's getting late."

Off rushed the happy children, and Hester was left in the moonlight in company with Harold Cline.

"Oh," she said quietly, "so you have left Ireland?"

"Yes, Hester, I have."

"How is Mrs. Riddet?" she asked, trying to speak briskly and naturally. "How are the children? How is Winnie? By the way, I saw Winnie when I was last in Woodwell, and I hope you will both accept my congratulations. I do hope you will be very, very happy."

"Thank you so much," he said, "but of whom are you speaking when you offer these kind wishes for future happiness?"

"Why, Winnie ... and ... you," said Hester, rather stammeringly.

"I think Miss Winifred would tell you there is a little mistake somewhere," he said. "The young lady is in truth about to be married soon, I believe, but the happy bridegroom is quite another person, I assure you."

"Was it broken off, then?" said Hester, in a hesitant tone.

"It never existed at all, Hetty, if you allude to an engagement between Miss Abbot and myself. Surely you hear the Woodwell news from your sister? Miss Winifred and young Gurnap have been engaged for months."

"Charley Gurnap ‒ Miss Gurnap's nephew?"

"Yes, why not? A very happy pair they look together. Have you any objection to the arrangement?"

"No, I haven't," laughed Hester, "only somehow I never associated those two at all. Their characters seemed so different."

"Opposites seem to suit each other," said Harold Cline. "Of course a clever lady like yourself ought to bestow your favours on someone specially dull and lacking in brilliance, to carry out the rule of contrary. And really, Hester, I don't know where you will find a duller, blunter fellow than myself, but I have never been able to forget you. I made up my mind that you had had enough of me, and wanted to rid yourself of me when you left Woodwell so suddenly."

Hester uttered a little sound, something between a cry and a negative. He bent down to see her eyes, and drew her hand within his arm.

"Hester, when we met again at Fernheath there was something in your face and manner, in the surprise of seeing me, that seemed to give me new hope. In all the world there is only one wife for me, and none at all unless the woman I love will trust herself to my care."

What was she to say? She felt bewildered by the sudden joy of his presence, and by the knowledge that Woodwell gossip in months gone by and her own conjectures up to the present had altogether made a mistake. She had thought it her duty to forget Harold Cline, and the Love that is above and over all had guided their pathways together again, nevermore to be disunited.

So Hester said nothing at all, and Harold was content. He told her he had accepted a post that would retain him on the staff near London, with only short journeys to make in future, and he asked her when she would be ready to make the sunshine of his home, as Aunt Verbena witnessed she had done at Usherford. And the old lady was watching for the girl's return, with a tender, smiling face, and she blessed the two in faltering words that breathed thanksgiving for "Hester, her heartsease and comforter."

Great was the regret in Usherford when by-and-by the reason of Harold Cline's deep interest in that neighbourhood and frequent appearances in Kilnmere Street became plain and apparent. The Mission Hall people were disposed at first to regard him with some degree of disapproval, since he was taking possession of their willing and useful helper. But Aunt Verbena set the example of looking on the bright side of the picture. She would by no means hear of lamentation, but said they must all try heartily to uphold the work that Hester loved, seeing she was called away to do God's work elsewhere.

Annie Alder volunteered for the class that Hester had taken in the Sunday school, and a member of the lads' Bible class came with goodwill into the temperance work, so that, as ever, it was shown the work would go on, though the workers were changed.

Soon a secret commotion among the friends, and especially among the juveniles, betrayed that the subject of the wedding present was under earnest consideration. Committees were held, and merits of electro-plate were weighed against vases and books and jewellery. Even Finnis looked mysterious and important, and she and Hugh became confidential in the kitchen, and finally evolved an idea which, by universal consent, was pronounced the very thing.

Hester was invited to a farewell gathering, at which Harold Cline was specially asked to be present. Tea and cake and music and speeches were the order of the day, the speeches being so kindly and earnest and heartfelt, that out of the fulness of her heart the girl could say nothing whatever. It seemed so wonderful that God had so blessed her and crowned her with love and service at Usherford, her soul seemed to overflow in praise and thankfulness to her Saviour.

Presently Dr. Ellis said something about begging her to accept a marriage gift from young and old around her, and Hester became conscious on the platform of the piece of furniture of her dreams. At last, she was the veritable possessor of the writing table her literary imaginings had fondly painted. It had pigeon-holes, drawers, slope, compartments, all that her wildest fancies had bestowed upon the visionary table. She was speechless for a little while. Perhaps in her heart she was asking God to bless the writings that in years to come would be linked with that memorial of Usherford. Then she tried to utter a few words of thanksgiving, but she broke down, and the clapping of those who loved her filled up the pause.

Harold Cline did not suffer from silence where Hester was concerned. He made a speech concerning the table and his authoress-bride that changed the dews fast rising round him to smiles and laughter; and then there rose a hymn and prayer of blessing.

So, garlanded by benediction, bride and bridegroom left behind them the bygone days, and started out, heart to heart, on the unknown, sunlit road. Hester's last glimpse of Aunt Verbena, when they left for their honeymoon, was beneath the blossoming trees of Woodwell, between the bright, cloudless faces of Olive and Hugh.

<><><><>

One more picture, and the tale is told. The years have passed by, changeful years, crowned, through "glad days and sad days," with Goodness and Mercy, hour by hour showing the loving kindness of the Lord.

On the lawn of a neat suburban home is gathered a little group round the garden chair of Aunt Verbena, looking, they all assert, younger than she ever did before. After acting for some time as assistant in the London practice of Graham Walton, Hugh Millard has now set up for himself in this growing neighbourhood; and he and his young wife (no other than sweet-faced Olive) have enshrined the old lady as their joint care within their happy nest.

This summer evening their guests are Mr. and Mrs. Cline, who now reside with Hester's father at Briarbloom Cottage, Alys being resident principal of a school of art. Fame and honour have come to Hester. It seems to her day by day that her cup brims over with blessing. Yet surely she has never felt happier than now, as Olive reads aloud a letter received by Hugh from a distant Indian district, the very place where once Hugh heard, as a little child, he must go forth to dwell among strangers in England.

The letter is from Dr. Graham Walton, who with his wife (once Phyllis Abbot) conducts a busy, helpful medical mission there. The two have left their fatherland to heal the sick and proclaim the Gospel of Peace across the sea. A few years since, it seemed as though Graham would have nothing to do with that Gospel, save in the way of criticism, and now he and Phyllis are working for the Lord together, and using their gifts and talents for Him and His.

Olive's loving hand is on her husband's arm as she reads the end of Graham's letter to Hugh: "Remember, Millard, that by God's grace the seeds of this mission work were sown by you. It was your brave Christian life beneath my roof ‒ faithful in word and deed to the Master, even in face of contempt ‒ that awakened my soul at last, and brought me to my Lord."

"And I found Him through you, Sister Hester," says Hugh.

They cannot speak much of the tidings of blessed service ‒ their hearts are too full ‒ but Hester thinks of days that once seemed "wasted" at Usherford, and somehow in her heart these words seem echoing to the distant chime of the evening bells:

My soul upon His errand goes:

The end I know not, but God knows.

THE END

White Tree Publishing publishes mainstream evangelical Christian literature for people of all ages. We aim to make our eBooks available free for all eBook devices, but some distributors will only list our books free at their discretion, and may make a small charge for some titles ‒ but they are still great value! All our books are fully typeset. No "photocopies" or bad OCR! Long sentences and paragraphs are broken into shorter lengths, and modern punctuation is used for easier reading. Many books are sensitively abridged.

More Books

More Christian books from White Tree Publishing are on the next pages, some of which are available as both eBooks and paperbacks. More books than those shown here are available in non-fiction and fiction, for adults and younger readers. The full list of published and forthcoming books is on our website www.whitetreepublishing.com. Please visit there regularly for updates.

We rely on our readers to tell their families, friends and churches about our books. Social media is a great way of doing this. Take a look at our range of fiction and non-fiction books and pass the word on. You can even contact your Christian TV or radio station to let them know about these books. Also, please write a positive review if you are able.

Christian non-fiction

Christian Fiction

Younger Readers

Return to Table of Contents

Christian Non-Fiction

All our books are in eBook format only, unless otherwise stated

Four short books of help in the Christian life:

Chris Wright

So, What Is a Christian?

An introduction to a personal faith.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-2-6

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9927642-2-7

Starting Out

Help for new Christians of all ages.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-0-2

Paperback ISBN 978-1-4839-622-0-7

Help!

Explores some problems we can encounter with our faith.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-1-9

Paperback ISBN 978-0-9927642-2-7

Running Through the Bible

A simple understanding of what's in the Bible.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-3-3

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9927642-6-5

Be Still

Bible Words of Peace and Comfort

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-4-0

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9932760-7-1

A Previously Unpublished Book

The Simplicity of the Incarnation

J Stafford Wright

Foreword by J I Packer

eBook ISBN 13: 978-0-9932760-5-7

Paperback ISBN: 9-780-9525-9563-2

Bible People Real People

An Unforgettable A-Z of Who is Who in the Bible

J Stafford Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-7-1

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-5-6

Christians and the Supernatural

J Stafford Wright

eBook ISBN 13: 978-0-9932760-4-0

Paperback ISBN 13: 9-780-9525-9564-9

Howell Harris

His Own Story

Foreword by J. Stafford Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-9-5

From the Streets of London

to the Streets of Gold

The Life Story of

Brother Clifford Edwards

A True Story of Love

by Brother Clifford Edwards

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-8-8

Seven Steps to

Walking in Victory

Lin Wills

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-3-5

Seven Keys to

Unlock Your Calling

Lin Wills

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-2-3

English Hexapla

The Gospel of John

(Paperback only)

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-1-8

Roddy Goes to Church

Church Life and Church People

Derek Osborne

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-0-3

Paperback ISBN: 978-09927642-0-3

Heaven Our Home

William Branks

White Tree Publishing Abridged Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-8-8

I See Men as Trees, Walking

Roger and Janet Niblett

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-1-0

Paperback ISBN: 978-1508674979

Leaves from

My Notebook

White Tree Publishing Abridged Edition

William Haslam

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-2-7

Blunt's Scriptural Coincidences

Gospels and Acts

J. J. Blunt

White Tree Publishing New Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-5-8

Fullness of Power

in Christian Life and Service

Home and Group Questions for Today Edition

R. A. Torrey

Questions by Chuck Antone, Jr.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-8-9

Faith that Prevails

The Early Pentecostal Movement

Home and Group Questions for Today Edition

Smith Wigglesworth

Study Questions by Chuck Antone, Jr.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-4-1

Ebenezer and Ninety-Eight Friends

Musings on Life, Scripture

and the Hymns

Marty Magee

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-1-1

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9954549-1-0

Twenty-five Days Around the Manger

A Light Family Advent Devotional

Marty Magee

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-1-0

Also in full colour paperback

ISBN: 978-1-4923248-0-5

The Gospels and Acts

In Simple Paraphrase

with Helpful Explanations

together with

Running Through the Bible

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-9-6

Paperback ISBN: 978-0995454958

The Authority and

Interpretation

of the Bible

J Stafford Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-9-6

Psalms,

A Guide Psalm By Psalm

J Stafford Wright

eBook ISBN 978-0-9957594-2-8

The Christian's Secret

of a Happy Life

Hannah Whitall Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-6-6

Every-Day Religion

Hannah Whitall Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-0-9

Haslam's Journey

Chris Wright

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-8-5

Real Religion

Gipsy Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-10-0

My Life and Work

Gipsy Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-4-7

Living in the Sunshine:

The God of All Comfort

Hannah Whitall Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-3-0

Evangelistic Talks

Gipsy Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-7-8

Real Religion

Gipsy Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-10-0

I Can't Help Praising the Lord

The Life of Billy Bray

Chris Wright

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-01-8

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912529-00-1

As Jesus Passed By

Gipsy Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-05-6

Real Religion

Gipsy Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-10-0

Rifted Clouds

Bella Cooke

All Three Parts

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-08-7

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912529-09-4

Building From the Top

William Haslam

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-12-4

Deeper Experiences

of famous Christians

James Gilchrist Lawson

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-15-5

Return to Table of Contents

Christian Fiction

Many of these books are classic Christian romances that have been sensitively edited and abridged by White Tree Publishing for today's readers

Silverbeach Manor

Margaret S. Haycraft

White Tree Publishing edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-4-1

Gildas Haven

Margaret S. Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-7-2

Amaranth's Garden

Margaret S. Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-6-5

Rose Capel's Sacrifice

Margaret Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-3-4

Una's Marriage

Margaret Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-5-9

Miss Elizabeth's Niece

Margaret Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-7-3

The Clever Miss Jancy

Margaret S. Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-9-7

Freda's Folly

Margaret S Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-02-5

Sybil's Repentance

Margaret S Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-04-9

Sister Royal

Margaret S Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-03-2

At Aunt Verbena's

Margaret S Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-03-2

The Secret of Ashton Manor House

Eliza Kerr

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-11-7

Keena Karmody

Eliza Kerr

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-5-4

Hazel Haldene

Eliza Kerr

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-8-5

Rollica Reed

Eliza Kerr

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-6-1

Faith Harrowby

Eliza Kerr

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-13-1

The Lost Clue

Mrs. O. F. Walton

Abridged Edition

A Romantic Mystery

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-2-6

Doctor Forester

Mrs. O. F. Walton

Abridged Edition

A Romantic Mystery

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-0-2

Was I Right?

Mrs. O. F. Walton

Abridged Edition

A Victorian Romance

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-1-9

In His Steps

Charles M. Sheldon

Abridged Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9927642-9-6

Paperback ISBN 13: 978-19350791-8-7

A Previously Unpublished Book

Locked Door Shuttered Windows

A Novel by J Stafford Wright

eBook ISBN 13: 978-0-9932760-3-3

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9927642-4-1

When it Was Dark

Guy Thorne

Abridged Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-0-3

A Daughter of the King

Mrs Philip Barnes

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-8-0

Return to Table of Contents

Books for Younger Readers

(and older readers too!)

The Merlin Adventure

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-2-7

Paperback ISBN: 9785-203447-7-5

The Hijack Adventure

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-6-5

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5203448-0-5

The Seventeen Steps Adventure

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-7-2

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5203448-6-7

The Two Jays Adventure

The First Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-8-9

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5203448-8-1

The Dark Tunnel Adventure

The Second Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-0-4

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5206386-3-8

The Cliff Edge Adventure

The Third Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-4-2

Paperback ISBN: 9781-5-211370-3-1

The Midnight Farm Adventure

The Fourth Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-1-6

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5497148-3-2

The Old House Adventure

The Fifth Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-07-0

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912529-06-3

The Lost Island Adventure

The Sixth Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-17-9

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912529-18-6

The Black Lake Adventure

The Seventh Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-28-5

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912529-27-8

The Hidden Room Adventure

The Eighth Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-39-1

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912529-40-7

The Hidden Room Adventure

The Eighth Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-39-1

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912529-40-7

Available from major internet stores

The Holy Land Adventure

An Adventure Puzzle Book

Chris Wright

A time travel adventure

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-36-0

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912529-34-6

Available from major internet stores

Mary Jones and Her Bible

An Adventure Book

Chris Wright

The true story of Mary Jones's and her Bible

with a clear Christian message and optional puzzles

(Some are easy, some tricky, and some amusing)

eBook ISBN: ISBN: 978-0-9933941-5-7

Paperback ISBN 978-0-9525956-2-5

The Holy Land Adventure

An Adventure Book

Chris Wright

A time travel story, similar in format to Mary Jones

Exploring real events in the time of Jesus

eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-912529-36-0

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912529-34-6

Pilgrim's Progress

An Adventure Book

Chris Wright

A similar format to Mary Jones

Exploring the journey of Pilgrim's Progress

eBook ISBN 13: 978-0-9933941-6-4

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-6-3

Pilgrim's Progress

Special Edition

The original story retold

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-8-8

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-7-0

Zephan and the Vision

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-6-4

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-9-4

Agathos, The Rocky Island,

And Other Stories

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9927642-7-2

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-8-7

Please visit our website www.whitetreepublishing.com for full details on all these books, and their availability.

Return to Table of Contents

