

About the Book

There are the usual misunderstandings in the small village of Royden, but one year they combine to cause serious friction. An elderly lady, the embodiment of kindness, is turned out of her favourite pew by the new vicar. Young and old residents start to view each other with suspicion when a banished husband returns, allegedly to harm his children again. Both Mary Grey and Elsa Knott want to marry Gordon Pyne, who lives in the White House. When Gordon's father returns, Gordon is accused of his murder. This is a very readable romance from 1900, with many twists and turns. It has been lightly abridged and edited.

A Daughter of

The King

by

Mrs Philip Barnes

White Tree Publishing

Abridged Edition

Original book first published c1900

This abridged edition ©Chris Wright 2017

e-Book ISBN: 978-0-9957594-8-0

Published by

White Tree Publishing

Bristol

UNITED KINGDOM

wtpbristol@gmail.com

Full list of books and updates on

www.whitetreepublishing.com

A Daughter of the King 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.

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Book

Introduction

Note

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

About White Tree Publishing

More Books from White Tree Publishing

Christian non-fiction

Christian Fiction

Books for Younger Readers
Introduction

There were many prolific Christian writers in the last part of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth. The majority of these books were fairly heavy-handed moral tales and warnings to young people, rather than romances. Two writers spring to mind who wrote romantic fiction for adults -- Mrs. O. F. Walton and Margaret S. Haycraft, whose works are still popular today. Our White Tree Publishing editions from these two authors have been sensitively abridged and edited to make them much more acceptable to today's general readers, rather than publishing them for students of Victorian prose. The characters and storyline are always left intact.

Mrs. Philip Barnes was not as well known as Mrs. Walton and Margaret Haycraft, and is almost unheard of today. She wrote a temperance book about a family living in poverty (Bingle's Widow), a couple of children's books, and this romance which is surprisingly similar in style to the romances of Walton and Haycraft, and we welcome it to our catalogue. We are considering a couple of the author's other author's books from this period. We will announce them on our website if we go ahead with them. Eliza Kerr is another Victorian writer whose stories deserve to be republished, and White Tree Publishing is releasing several of her books in abridged form.

Victorian and early twentieth century books by Christian and secular writers 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 storylines are always unchanged.

These writers were published by many different publishers, most of who published both Christian and secular books for all ages. However, The Religious Tract Society (RTS) generally published the "heavy" books with an unsubtle message that would not go down well today. Although A Daughter of the King is published by RTS, it clearly missed the unrelenting hand of the RTS editor, and is a surprisingly readable story, but with more Christian references than the books of the other two authors.

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.

£100 in 1900 may not sound much, but in income value it is worth £12,000 pounds today (about US$15,000). I mention this in case the sums of money in this book sound insignificant!

Chris Wright

Editor

NOTE

There are 14 chapters in this book. In the second half are 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 also help get our books more widely known. When the story ends, please take a look at what we publish: Christian non-fiction, Christian fiction, and books for younger readers.
Chapter 1

A Bunch of March Violets

THE sweet scent of violets filled the air. The birds sang happily because of the springtime, and all the earth looked glorious in the sunlight.

Martha Garle stood at the door of her little cottage. Her large figure filled the doorway, and she made a picture (more picturesque than beautiful) amid the bright spring scene. "I must go round to Brown's, an' see how their little lad is," she said to herself. "How them vi'lets do smell. I guess I'll pull a few for Miss Cynthy. She's real fond of such like."

Martha peered out from beneath the porch into the little garden, with its trimly kept borders and sweet, old-world flowers.

Martha Garle was the good angel of the village. All her life had been spent in working for and helping other people. Not with worldly goods, for Martha's small pittance was scarcely enough to keep life in her own gaunt body, but she gave what was of more value -- the ready help of her strong hands, and the loving sympathy of her large heart.

In illness or trouble it was always Martha who was sent for. They did not always remember to send for her in their times of rejoicing, but those who did, found her as ready to laugh with them as to weep. However, a great deal more sorrow than joy fell to Martha's lot.

It was little wonder that her face grew sterner and more rugged year by year. Strangers who came into the village were wont to remark on the exceeding plainness of Martha Garle, and were often astonished at the storm of indignation that their remark would call forth from those who knew Martha's worth and loved her accordingly.

Of all the people who knew and prized Martha, perhaps Miss Cynthia Moore, or as she was always called by the villagers, "Miss Cynthy", stood first. They had been girls together, although Cynthia Moore was in a different station of life to Martha Garle. They had both known much sorrow, and above all they loved and served the same Lord and Master. Miss Cynthy had lived all her life in the village of Royden, and her visits to the outside world had been few and brief.

The village was built on a series of natural rocky terraces, which rose from the bed of the noisy brawling stream they called "the River," right up to where the fragrant pine forest crowned the summit of the rugged hill. On the topmost ridge stood the attractive White House, wherein the Moores had dwelt for more years than the villagers could remember. As Martha Garle stood in her garden, the church bells began to ring, calling everyone around to the ivy-covered tower that nestled on the bleak hillside.

"I must hurry," she said to herself, "or I shall scarce have time to see Miss Cynthy."

Martha's cottage stood lower down the hillside, but every morning, rain or fine, when she was not tending some sick person, Martha climbed the steep slope to the White House. She had done so for years.

"We are two lone women, Miss Cynthy and I," she said one day. "We were not always lonely, but her folk an' mine lie yonder in the same graveyard."

That was long ago. Miss Cynthia no longer dwelt on her own in the White House, but Martha never failed to put in an appearance. Had she ever failed to appear, the little old maid, "Miss Cynthy", would have put on her spotless crepe shawl and picked her way down over the rough stones to Martha's humble abode.

Ten years ago, Miss Cynthy had returned from one of her brief visits to London, and to the astonishment of all Royden, except Martha Garle, she had brought with her two children, a boy of about thirteen and a disabled girl of ten.

"My sister's children," explained Miss Cynthia quietly to her elderly maid-of-all-work, knowing full well that Rhoda would save her the trouble of further explanation to the neighbours, who, as in most small places, made their neighbours' concerns their own.

It was supposed that the children had come to their aunt's on a long visit, but as time went on, and no mention was ever made of their going away, the village realized that Miss Cynthy had brought them home with her so that she, who had so long lived a solitary life, had undertaken the permanent charge of a boy, and his young sister, a disabled girl.

Great was the wonder and consternation of the good people of Royden at what they did not hesitate to call "Miss Cynthy's folly." Only once did anyone venture to openly remonstrate with the old lady. Hester Green, who undertook the task, was more than astonished at the dignity the slight, fragile form possessed, as Miss Cynthia drew herself up and replied, "The home of my dear sister's children is of course with me. It has pleased God to call their mother to Himself, and now they are mine."

Hester Green turned away without another word, but everyone decided that sooner or later Miss Cynthy would repent of having burdened herself in such a foolish way.

The years passed on. Not yet had Miss Cynthia seen cause to regret taking the orphan children to her heart and home. True, the girl Hilary Payne was a helpless invalid, and needed constant, watchful care, but Miss Cynthia was ever ready to give it. Her gentle, loving heart had long ago won the highest reverence and love from both the poor invalid and her brother Douglas Payne. No one in the world was to them half as beautiful as their Aunt Cynthy.

Martha Garle climbed up the hill slowly that lovely morning, for she had been up most of the previous night nursing a sick child, and was feeling more than usually tired.

"Oh Martha, how sweet those violets are!" cried young Hilary Pyne, as the old woman followed Miss Cynthy into the room where Hilary lay, her couch drawn up to the window so she was able to enjoy the bright spring sunshine as it danced and glistened over the great black rocks which abound on those rugged North Country hills.

"Yes, Miss Hilary, they are the first. I thought that you and Miss Cynthy would like the scent of them."

"We do, Martha, and it is very good of you to remember and bring them. Are you going down to church?" asked Miss Cynthia.

"Yes, Miss Cynthy. I haven't been for three weeks. I couldn't leave old Betty, but her daughter has come now from London and she will look after her. You'll not know Ellen now, Miss Cynthy, she has altered so."

"How long is it since she married and left the village?" asked Miss Cynthia.

"She was saying last night that it were just twelve years, and she has never been home even for a visit since. She were saying that she saw you once in London, Miss Cynthy."

"Yes, Martha, I remember, but it is a long time ago," replied Miss Cynthia quietly; but Martha, who was looking at her keenly, saw her lips quiver, and a pained, scared look come into her eyes.

Young Hilary saw it too, and her eyes grew large and dark with fear. "You must go, Martha, or you will be late for church."

"Come in after the service and have some dinner with us," said Miss Cynthia, as Martha hurried off.

As the door closed behind the good-natured woman, little Hilary turned to her aunt and held out a trembling hand. "Auntie!" she said, in a low, hoarse voice, "why are you looking like that? Was it ... that time ... when you saw that ... woman?"

"Yes, dear; but, Hilary, there is nothing to make you tremble like that. You see, he has known all the time where you were, and your father has never sought you. This woman coming from the same neighbourhood cannot make any difference. It is the memory of that dreadful time that was a little too much for me. I am getting old and foolish, dear. You must not take any notice of me."

"Auntie, if my father should come, I think I should die. We have dreaded his coming all these years, Douglas and I. Douglas used to say that if he ever came, he would kill him."

Hilary hid her face in the cool, soft cushions of the couch, and Miss Cynthia saw the thin form shaking in fear. The old lady got up and went over to her niece.

"Hilary, it is you who are being foolish now. There is no more reason to suppose that your father will come now than there has been all the ten years that you have been with me. And even if he did come, he could do no great harm. Neither you nor Douglas are children anymore. He would be powerless; and remember how God has guarded you in the past, and with what loving-kindness He has led you."

Hilary raised her tear-stained face to her aunt. "Forgive me, Auntie; but even you can never know the horrible time it was when Douglas and I were little, before...."

Miss Cynthia interrupted her almost fiercely. "Child, I do know. Did I not watch my loved, sister grow paler and thinner every time I saw her? Did I not know of the misery and shame she bore in silence so long? The misery that made even the death she died a blessed release. Oh, Hilary, I know only too well. When you and Douglas have slept the happy sleep of childhood, I have lain awake listening for the footstep I dreaded to hear, coming to carry away from me all that was left me of my dead sister whom he as good as murdered with his violent behaviour. Child, child, would to God I did not know!"

They never heard the door open, nor saw the tall form of Douglas standing just inside the room until he spoke. "Aunt Cynthia," he said, gently laying his firm, strong hand on her quivering shoulders, "I don't know what is distressing you so much, but it is not like my brave little aunt."

"Indeed there is nothing, Doug. Only a woman has come to the village who used to live near us in London, and it made us think of other days, and the old fear came back for a moment."

"Is that all? Well, you are two foolish little women who will make me late for church if I don't take care. Cheer up, both of you. There is no possibility now of the old situation returning, and the dread is just an ugly nightmare."

Douglas went off to church, and the two women were left alone once more.

"You forgive me, Auntie?" whispered Hilary as she lay back on her couch, still holding Miss Cynthia's wrinkled hand in her own.

"Forgive you, Hilary? There is nothing for me to forgive. I am a foolish old woman."

"The dearest, best old woman in the world, and not so very old either," said Hilary softly.

They sat in silence a long time after this. Presently the sweet scent of the violets reached the invalid, and she stretched out her hand for the vase, which stood near. "Auntie, don't you think that Martha is like these violets?"

"I don't quite see the resemblance, Hilary," replied Miss Cynthia, looking a little puzzled.

"No? Well, you see Martha is not very beautiful when you first look at her, but when you get to know her you find how sweet and true she is. The violets grow hidden under big ugly leaves, but you can smell them, and when you lift the leaves they are nestling in the shade."

Miss Cynthia smiled as she replaced the flowers upon the table. "You are right, dear," she replied. "Martha's life is indeed fragrant with love and good deeds."

But Martha, all unconscious of their praise, had gone to church with a pain in her honest heart, for as she descended the steps from Miss Cynthia's garden into the white road which ran across the hill to the adjacent town of Colworth, she encountered a party of strangers, one of whom, in a loud, thoughtless whisper, exclaimed, "Look at that ugly woman! Who could love her?"
Chapter 2

A King's Daughter

"WHO could love her?" The cruel words rang in Martha's ears so loudly that they almost drowned the sound of the Sabbath bells. She heard them as she took her seat in the pew where the Garle family had sat for generations, and which to Martha was full of tender memories of the mother whom God had taken to Himself so long ago.

"Aye, she loved me, though I was ugly, and God loves me too. It pleased Him to make me as I am, and maybe He will make it up to me when I get yonder," said Martha softly to herself, as she sat waiting for the bells to cease and service to begin.

Her gaze wandered wistfully over the old building, and as she noticed Elsa Knott sitting beside her aged grandfather, she smiled. If the thoughtless girl who had called the poor woman ugly had seen that smile, she would most likely have changed her mind about Martha's appearance. Elsa Knott was one of Martha's favourites. She was a quiet, gentle girl, who lived with her grandparents near Martha's little cottage.

Elsa's own parents had both died when she was a baby, and so she had known no mother but Grannie. Miss Cynthia and her niece Hilary were very fond of Elsa also, and although she was only a village dressmaker's apprentice, she was always welcome at the White House. Hilary had learned to look eagerly for her coming. Often when work was over, and Grannie could spare her, Elsa used to go and sit with Hilary, cheering the invalid to whom the days were too often long and weary. Douglas, also, was wont to listen, as he entered the little porch when his day's work was over, to the gentle voice reading aloud to his sister, or recounting for her amusement some of the little occurrences in the village.

"It is like being in a fresh breeze when one talks to Elsa," Hilary said one day. "She always does me good. I wish she could come every day."

And Miss Cynthia had answered, "Perhaps she will come here to stay some day, Hilary. I think Douglas sees her sweetness as well as we do, dear."

Hilary had looked puzzled for a second, then a light broke over her and she laughed softly. "Oh, Auntie! Do you really think that? It would be delightful."

Miss Cynthia smiled. "It would be very nice, Hilary," she replied. "Elsa is a good, true girl;. One the King's daughters. But you and I must hold our peace, or we may spoil everything. They are both young, and can afford to wait."

This conversation had taken place about Christmas. Now it was almost Eastertide, and Hilary was looking anxiously for a further development of the friendship between her brother and her friend.

Martha Garle had watched the young folks too. She had loved and nursed Elsa when she was a tiny child, and had taken pride in the girl's growing sweetness and loveliness. "They couldn't call Elsa ugly," Martha said, with grim satisfaction as she looked at the girl in church. "She is really pretty, and as good as she is pretty."

After church, old Mr. Knott and Elsa overtook Martha as she was going up the hill.

"Are you going to Miss Cynthy's, Martha?" asked Elsa.

"Yes, lass. Miss Cynthy asked me to go back to dinner, knowing I was at home and alone today."

"Then you must come to us next Sunday, Martha, woman," said old Mr. Knott. "The missis told us we were to take you back with us today. It is an age since we saw you. We are missing you this great while."

"I've been busy lately, Mr. Knott," answered Martha, "but I will come to you next Sunday, God willing -- and thank you all very much," she added gratefully.

"Tell Hilary that I will come this evening, Martha; then Miss Cynthy can come down to church whilst I take care of Hilary," cried Elsa, as Martha turned to go up the higher road. "Don't forget you are to keep next Sunday for us. I am getting quite jealous of the poor sick folk who keep you away from us. We love to have you, Martha."

Once more the tears rose into Martha's odd eyes; tears of joy this time. "Thank God! Someone does love me after all. They don't mind my ugliness."

Martha's honest heart was full, as once more she entered the White House where Miss Cynthia waited with her smiling welcome.

"I wonder what makes folks so kind?" she said to herself, as she took off her simple bonnet. "But there, I needn't wonder. It is because He puts the love into their hearts, and they love His creatures."

Very pleasant were the Sundays spent at the White House on the hill. It was indeed a Sabbath, a rest day, and a day of joy and thankfulness. As Martha sat in the little room listening to the words Miss Cynthy read out of the Bible, a sense of restfulness stole over her, and the memory of the cruel words she had heard in the morning passed away.

The girl who had spoken those careless words had forgotten them as soon as they were uttered. She never dreamt that they had pierced or wounded anyone. So our careless words fall from our lips and do (God forgive us!) untold harm, of which perhaps all our lives we remain in ignorance. Well have we need to pray, "Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips" (Psalm 141:3).

As the day wore on, clouds hid the face of the sun, and a cold, bleak wind arose. It seemed as if winter had returned, and was all the more dismal because of the sunshine of the early morning. True to her promise, Elsa had come to sit with Hilary, and Miss Cynthia had gone to church with Douglas and Martha. Hilary had her couch drawn near the window, that she might watch the people on the hills around wending their way to church.

"How gloomy it all looks now!" she said to Elsa, who sat beside her. "This morning the sun shone over the rocks, and some of them glistened like diamonds. Now they look dark and angry, as though they expected something dreadful to happen."

"We will light the lamp and draw the curtains, dear, if you like."

"No, not just yet. I like to see the lights on the other hills twinkling one by one, and the lights in the church, then I can imagine what people are doing; some staying at home with the children, or sick, helpless folk like me, and others at church joining in the music, and praising God."

"I think we can praise God here," said Elsa gently. "Grannie often says that some folks please Him more by staying at home and doing their duty, than by leaving it and going to church."

Hilary sighed a little. "You see I have no duty. I can do nothing. I must just lie here and be a burden to everyone, because I am keeping you from church."

Elsa looked pained. "I don't think you must think of it like that, Hilary. I think everyone has some duty, even those who are laid aside. Grannie says He will always show us what our duty is, if we ask Him, and He will help us to do it. You do not need me to tell you this, dear, you know it."

Hilary put out her hand, and drew Elsa closer to her side. "I do know," she said, in a low voice, "but I need reminding very often."

"I think it is doing a great deal, Hilary, when you lie here suffering day after day, and can be sweet and patient," said Elsa.

"Ah, but I am not patient. You do not know how cross I get sometimes, and how I speak to Douglas, who is so good to me, and to poor Aunt Cynthia, who is always sweet and kind. She has done wonderful things for us, Elsa, and it seems hard that she should have such hard work on our behalf."

"I know Miss Cynthy just loves to look after you, and I don't believe your brother minds your being cross. He knows you are often suffering, and he is sorry for you.'

"Ah, but that is not doing my duty, you see."

For some time the girls remained silent, each busy with her own thoughts while watching the lights being slowly kindled on the adjoining hills. Suddenly Hilary gave a little gasping cry.

"What is it?" cried Elsa anxiously.

"See!" gasped Hilary, pointing down to where the little garden descended to the road. A tall figure was slowly and painfully mounting the steps.

"It is only some poor man seeking shelter from the storm. The rain is falling fast. He would be wet through if he went on down to the village. He need come no further than the porch, Hilary. Do not tremble so, and look like that. We are quite safe; I locked the door when Miss Cynthia went out."

"It is my father!" cried Hilary. "You must not let him in. Promise me, Elsa, or I shall die!"

"Your father? And you want him kept out in the rain? Oh, Hilary!"

Hilary burst into tears as Elsa stood irresolute, and the tall figure came nearer and nearer.

"Oh hush, dear Hilary, hush! I will stay here with you, and not let anyone in, although I do not understand why you should not be glad to see your father."

Hilary drew Elsa's face down close to her own and whispered four words in her ear. Elsa grew pale, and her grasp round the form of the invalid grew tighter.

"My poor, poor Hilary, do not cry. He shall not come near you. I will close the shutters, and then we shall be all right until your aunt and Douglas comes."

"Yes, yes," sobbed Hilary.

A loud knocking was now heard at the front door, and Hilary trembled violently.

"Elsa," she cried, "what can we do? Douglas said that if ... he ... came here he would kill him; and ... and ... they will be home from church directly, and Douglas may get hurt."

Elsa stood for a moment white and trembling, then she said hurriedly, "If I lock this door and the back door, do you dare to be left? If you could manage, I would slip down and meet your brother as he came out of church, and warn him and your aunt."

For a brief second Hilary hesitated, then her love triumphed over her fears and she bade Elsa go.

"Go," she cried. "Tell Douglas from me not to come home, and take Aunt Cynthy to your house. Ask Martha Garle to come back here with you if you are afraid. Perhaps after a time he will think the house is empty and will go away; but go, Elsa dear, quickly! Quickly!"

Elsa hurriedly put on her hat, and throwing a large shawl around her, ran off. There was a path which led into the road from the back door which she locked behind her and put the key in her pocket. As she entered the road lower down, where there was a bend in the bank, she could not have been seen from the front of the house, even had it been daylight.

The rain was falling in torrents, and the road rough and slippery. They would be out of church directly, and unless she could meet them at the end of the lane they would be up to the White House before she could prevent them. She trembled to think what the consequences might be.

At last she was in sight of the turning that led to the church. No one could now pass up the hill without her seeing them from that point.

A moment more and she saw a tall figure whom she knew well, striding hastily onward. It was Douglas. Would he pass before she could reach him? She hastened on, panting and exhausted.

He passed the corner and she gave a gasp of despair. "Douglas! Douglas!"

He heard her and turned.

"Douglas!" she cried again.

"Elsa! What is wrong?"

Hurriedly and brokenly, because of her want of breath, Elsa told her tale. Just then the rain ceased and the silver moon shone out, showing how white and drawn Douglas's face had grown.

"My father!" he exclaimed. "And Hilary? Have you left her alone?"

"Yes, she is locked in the sitting room. She begs that you will not go home, but take Miss Cynthia to our house. Martha Garle will go back with me."

"I must go on, Elsa. Aunt Cynthia has gone with Martha to see old Betty. I must get rid of my father before she comes home. I will try and spare her that at least."

"But... but...." stammered Elsa. "Hilary says if you see him again you----"

"Yes, yes, I know; but you need not be afraid. I was only a child then. I know now how impossible it would be to punish him except in one way," he added gloomily.

"I will go back with you to Hilary," said Elsa.

"Will you? Come, then, and do not tell her that I have come until I have sent him away."

"Will you be able to do so?" asked Elsa.

"I will," replied Douglas firmly.

Quickly and silently they walked up the hill. Twice Douglas turned, and holding out his hand helped Elsa up a steep path in the bank.

"You go round to the back, Elsa. I will go and take him away."

Elsa hastened round, and entered the house as quietly as she could. Hilary looked up as she entered. "Have you seen him?" she asked quickly.

"Yes, dear; it is all right. Miss Cynthy has gone with Martha to see old Betty, and someone has come to take that man away."

"I thank God he will have gone before poor Auntie comes home! Hark! Someone is speaking to him, and now they are going away."

They both listened intently, and heard the sound of receding footsteps.

"It is true! They have taken him away!"

"Quite true, dear. Now I must put on the kettle. It is so wet, Miss Cynthia will be sure to want a cup of hot tea when she gets in."

"Yes, she will; but oh, Elsa, how wet you are!"

"Never mind that. I will soon run home and get some dry things on. Miss Cynthy will be here directly."

"If they let my father come back, Elsa, what shall we do?"

"I do not think that he will come back, Hilary. Try and dry your eyes, or your aunt will be so troubled."

"If you had not been here, Elsa, it would have been terrible! If I had been here with our maid Rhoda....!"

"Well, it is over now, dear, and God will be sure to send help in time of need if we only ask Him."

In a few minutes Miss Cynthia came in with Rhoda, whom she had met coming up the hill. One glance at Hilary's face told her aunt that something had occurred to ruffle the calm in which she had left her niece earlier in the evening. Going into the little kitchen, she called Elsa to her. Rhoda had gone up to take off her things, so they were alone.

"What has been wrong?" Cynthia asked anxiously.

Elsa told her aunt as gently and quickly as she could. The poor lady sank back into a chair.

"I thought so!" she exclaimed. "Betty Clark's daughter told me tonight that she thought she saw him -- that wretched man-- last night."

 Elsa stood looking pityingly at the old lady's distress, until suddenly Miss Cynthia caught sight of the girl's wet dress. "Why, child, how wet you are! Take off that skirt at once. You must either stay here all night or put one of my skirts on."

"I must go home, Miss Cynthy, thank you. Grannie will be so anxious; but I will borrow a skirt, if you will be so kind as to lend me an old one."

Just then Elsa's uncle, Joe Knott, came to see if she was ready to go home.

As they went through the lower end of the village, they saw Douglas Pyne talking earnestly to a ragged, disreputable-looking man.

"Who is that Douglas has with him, Elsa?" asked her uncle.

"I believe it is his father."

As Elsa told her Uncle Joe what had happened, Joe Knott listened gravely and with many exclamations of wonder.

"I doubt Miss Cynthy will have cause to rue her goodness to those poor things. Say nothing to anyone except Grannie and grandfather, Elsa. We must not hurt their feelings by talking of their trouble and shame."

Elsa wondered to see gruff Uncle Joe in such a gentle, considerate mood. "I should not think of talking about other people's business," answered Elsa, rather indignantly.

"No, no, you are a good lass, Elsa. But I feel for those folks, I do indeed, having a man like that in the family."
Chapter 3

Elsa's Work-a-day

THE next morning rose bright and fine, as though no such things as storm and sorrow were in existence. Elsa Knott arose with a sense of some trouble around her, in spite of the bright sunshine and the singing birds.

Old Mr. Knott, who had been ailing some time, had been very ill in the night, and Uncle Joe was going off for the doctor as soon as breakfast was over. It was, therefore, a very anxious heart and a sorrowful little face that Elsa carried with her to work that morning.

Mrs. Knott watched her granddaughter up the street, and then as she turned indoors she gave a great sigh.

"Why, Mother," cried Joe, "whatever is the matter? Please God, Father will get better when he gets some doctor's stuff."

"Aye, lad, it wasn't that, though that is worse than anything else, having him laid up and you out of work too. I sometimes wonder whether we have done right in putting Elsa to the dressmaking instead of service."

To this Joe made no answer. He had always maintained that there was no need for his pretty niece to go out to service, and it always rather vexed him to hear his mother suggest it.

On this particular morning Elsa was not in her usual spirits. Her grandfather's illness troubled her, and she was unable to shake off the memory of the previous night when she had left her friends in sorrow. She wondered how Douglas got rid of his father, and how poor Hilary was after all the news.

The girls in Miss Smith's workroom kept up a constant chatter about the new clothes they meant to have at Easter; for it was the custom of Royden folks to appear in "high feather" at that season of the year.

"What are you going to have, Elsa?" asked Alice Grey.

"I don't know," replied Elsa, rather shortly.

"Don't know, and Easter Sunday in a fortnight? My patience, you will have to be quick! I am going to have green. I shall go and buy it tonight, if I can get off in good time."

"I think it is real stupid to make such a fuss about new clothes at Easter. It is too late to buy new winter clothes, and too early to buy thin summer ones," remarked a pale, dark girl, without looking up from her work.

"Hark at Lizzie Jones!" cried Alice Grey. "Maybe the grapes are sour, Liz?"

"No, I earn my own money," said Lizzie quietly; "but I'm not going to starve myself so as I can show a bit finer than my neighbours."

Miss Smith entered the room just then, so the needles were set to work more rapidly, and no more was said about new gowns, until the time came for going home.

Elsa found her grandfather much better. He was even able to sit up in his chair.

"Aye, lass!" he exclaimed, as he saw her pleased look, "this is something like, ain't it? And please God, we'll do better in a bit."

"I am glad, Grandfather," said the girl softly, as she bent and kissed the old man. "When I have had my tea I will read to you a while, and Grannie can go out."

To this Mrs. Knott willingly agreed, for like many other old ladies she dearly loved to do her own shopping.

That evening Joe Knott overtook his mother as she stood looking in the only draper's shop the village possessed, where the new spring goods were temptingly displayed. Miss Smith's two apprentices, Alice and Mary Grey, were looking at the fine things also, and were eagerly discussing what purchases they should make. They did not notice the little old lady who stood watching them through her spectacles.

"Maybe that is what ailed Elsa," said Grannie, as the two girls passed into the shop. Grannie's keen eyes had seen that something ailed her beloved grandchild.

"Why, our Elsa has never been worrying for new clothes, surely!" cried Joe.

"She'll not worry, Joe. She's far too good for that. But I make no doubt she likes pretty things as well as most girls do."

"It has been rather hard lines for the lass lately. When I do get any luck I will see what can be done, but I fancy she is a bit upset about that Pyne man turning up last night. She has sense enough to know that it means trouble for them at the White House."

"Aye, indeed. Poor Miss Cynthy. Why, Joe, look at yon crowd. What do you suppose is amiss?" exclaimed the old lady, pointing to where a lot of people seemed to be congregated around some object of interest.

Joe ran off to see, and Mrs. Knott waited where she stood, for she dreaded being in a crowd of any sort, even a village one.

It was a pitiful sight that met Joe Knott's view. A man, whom Joe had no difficulty in recognising as the same whom he had seen with Douglas Pyne on the previous night, was rolling about helplessly drunk, while those around jeered and laughed at his vain efforts to rise to his feet. Joe's honest heart fired with indignation.

"Well," he cried, "if anyone had told me that Royden folks could make game of a sight like that, I should have knocked him down. Where is the poor wretch staying? We had better help him home, and let him come to his senses."

"He is lodging at Grey's. He is young Douglas and Hilary Pyne's father. I reckon Douglas has no cause to be proud of such a father, though he does hold his head so high above some on us," said one man who resented Joe's interference..

"Aye," called out another man, "he is the lad's father. Not as the lad can help that, but they should keep him out of harm's way."

"It takes a lot o' care to keep folks out o' harm's way when they love their drink," retorted Joe, turning the laugh against the last speaker.

Just then Douglas Pyne himself came out of the works on his homeward way. The little crowd turned instinctively toward him, and waited. The young man's face flushed hotly as he looked at the prostrate form, and then to the wondering people around.

"Yes, it is my father," he said, in a hard voice. "My father who killed my mother, and made my sister the invalid she is. Now you know why we cannot welcome him to the White House. Still," he went on, "he is my father. Will any of you help me to take him to his lodgings?"

Two or three volunteered at once, and a murmur of sympathy with the young fellow who had a murderer for a father ran through the crowd. Joe Knott was one of those who helped Douglas take the wretched man to the lodgings. Then he went back to his mother, who was still waiting for him.

"What is it, Joe?" she asked. "Is anyone hurt?"

"Aye, hurt by drink," he cried, and he told her all that had passed.

"Dearie, dearie, what a trouble to come on poor Cynthy Moore after all these years. I mind well her sister, the one yon scamp married. She was as bonnie a lass as ever trod shoe-leather. Poor girl!"

They did not tell Elsa what they had heard and seen that night. It would do no good, Grannie said, and would trouble the lass still more. But Elsa heard all about it the next morning when she got to work, for Alice and Mary Grey made merry over the fate of their new lodger, and they were accustomed in their home to seeing drunkenness.

Elsa listened with white, troubled face as her heart bled for poor Hilary and Douglas. It was better to have never known her father than to have had such a one as theirs.

"I reckon it'll take Douglas Pyne down an inch or two, having his father come to live in the village," said Mary. "He is mighty civil to us already."

"I should think he feels grateful to you for taking such a lodger in. It is not everyone who would care to have a drunkard live in their house," said Lizzie Jones.

"Law, we don't mind. We are used to it. As long as he keeps civil to us, he may get as much drink as he likes for all we care. Douglas pays his board, and it is a good help to mother."

"Have you settled what you are going to wear this Easter, Elsa?" asked Alice Grey.

"I am not going to have anything new," said Elsa. "Grandad is ill, and Uncle Joe has been out of work this great while. You see, I am not earning anything yet."

"Oh, I say, what a shame. Nearly all the girls are having something new except Lizzie yonder, and she is too mean for anything. Can't you coax your grandmother to give you something?"

"She will if she can, I am sure," answered Elsa; "but, after all, I don't mind much. It is rather early to get new things, as Lizzie says."

"Oh, that is her meanness. I tell you, Elsa, you will have to look out if you mean to keep your beau. Our Mary has set her mind on getting him from you. You need not look so angry;. You know you are fond of Douglas Pyne, and all the village knows what a fuss they make of you at the White House."

Elsa's indignation was almost too great for her to trust herself to speak. At last she said, "I don't exactly know what you mean, Alice. It is true that I often go to the White House, but it is to sit with poor Hilary, and I do not often see Douglas then. He is nothing to me more than any other friend. I never thought of anything else."

"Oh, well, that is all right then. I am glad that you do not care."

Miss Smith came in just then, and they worked busily until dinnertime; but Elsa's face burned, and she longed to go away and have a good cry. But she must work on, and choke down the too-ready tears. Did she really think no more of Douglas Pyne than of any other friend? She dare hardly ask herself the question. True, he had never spoken to her save as a friend. As Hilary's brother, Elsa knew Douglas had been grateful to her for her attention to his disabled sister, although he had seldom mentioned it.

And now she knew that Mary Grey had made up her mind to steal Douglas's friendship for her away! Well, if he preferred Mary's friendship to her own, she had nothing to say about it. Mary was a good-looking girl, and she did what it was impossible for Elsa to do -- dressed brightly and well.

"How is Grandad this morning?" she asked, as she entered the cottage at noon.

"He seems so weak and low that I hardly know what to do. I don't know what I can get for him. The doctor says, 'Get him plenty of nourishment,' but he does not say where we are to get it from, does he, my girl? Go in and speak to him while I dish up the breakfast. He's been asking after you."

"Good morning, Grandad," said Elsa cheerfully, as she went up to the old man's bedside. "How do you feel now?"

"Hello, my little lass, is that you? The old man is better this morning, only so weak, so terribly weak."

"You are sure to be weak, Grandad. You have been so ill, and only able to get out that once to church. But the weather will get brighter and brighter now, and you will soon be quite well."

"Aye, aye, lass. I hope so, I hope so."

"There is not much of a breakfast, Elsa, this morning," said Mrs. Knott. "But I wanted to get some eggs and beef tea for Grandad, so I thought we could manage."

"Of course, Grannie, this will do beautifully. Oh, is that for me?" as the old lady took down a letter from the shelf.

"Yes; the postman brought it soon after you went out this morning. It is from your Aunt Sarah, I think, but I didn't look at it."

"Oh, Grannie, you should have opened it. Yes, it is from Aunt Sarah, and she sends me a postal order for a pound to get a new dress. See, I will read it aloud to you, and you can read it to Grandad after I have gone back to work."

"Yare Street, York,

March 22,

My dear Elsa,

I have been thinking a good deal about you lately, and wondering how you are. I know you have not much time to spare, but I should like you to write me just a few lines, telling me how you are all getting on. I hope, dear Elsa, you are trying to be a help and comfort to your dear grandmother, and that you are walking in the right road, loving and serving the Lord.

I know nearly all the girls in Royden have new clothes at Easter, and I suppose you like to do the same, so I enclose a postal order for one pound, which will buy you a new dress. I expect by this time you will be able to make it yourself. Give my love to father and mother and Uncle Joe. Be a good girl, and the comfort to them that your dear mother used to be.

Uncle Ben has got a nice business together, and perhaps in the summer we may come over and see you all.

Your affectionate aunt,

Sarah Sharp."

"Well, well, just think, it is the first time I ever knew your aunt to send anyone a farthing. A whole pound! Well, my girl, you can buy some finery now! You had better change the order as you go to work. It will be too late when you come home tonight."

"Very well, Grannie," replied Elsa. She hurried over her breakfast and ran off, calling at the post office and exchanging the order for a bright golden sovereign.

"My word, Elsa, you are in luck after all," exclaimed Alice Grey, as she came into the workroom a few minutes after Elsa. "I called at your house for you, and Mrs. Knott told me about your letter. Now you can make up your mind what you are going to have."

"No, I can't," laughed Elsa. "I must think it over."

"I brought a piece of my dress to show you. See, isn't it a sweet pretty green?"

"Very pretty, but isn't it rather pale?"

"Not it. That is the fashionable shade," explained Alice. "And I am having a hat with a feather to match."

"It will cost a lot of money," said Elsa doubtfully.

"Rather, but it can't be helped. I must have them. Mother complains, but Aunt Susan says, if girls do not have pretty things while they are young they never get them."

Lizzie Jones was sitting next to Elsa, so when the rest of the girls were busy talking, Elsa whispered, "Lizzie, you have had a lot of experience with sick people, haven't you?"

"I should think I have," said Lizzie. "A sight more than my share. Why, Elsa?"

"When the doctor says they must have nourishing food, what does he mean?"

"Mean? Why, chicken, wine, eggs, soup, jellies, and all such like. It depends what they can take, and who they are."

"Grandfather, for instance."

"H'm, well, I can hardly say. Your grandmother , I know is a clever old body."

"Yes," said Elsa, "but Aunt Sarah sent me some money today. Because Uncle Joe is out of work, and Grandad ill, I want to spend it on them, and I am afraid Grannie won't take it."

"Elsa Knott, you are a good sort."

"Nonsense, Lizzie. You would have done the same yourself."

"I am not so sure of that. Anyway, Elsa, you must make the old lady take it, or you will be wasting it, not knowing what to get. You will have to talk her round."

With this Elsa was obliged to be content. She felt that it was true, Grannie would spend the money to much better advantage than she could.

There was a great deal of work to finish that night so it was late before Elsa got home to her tea.

"Come, my lass," cried Grannie. "I thought you would have been home to your tea before you went shopping."

"I have not been shopping, Grannie. We have had to work late. Grandfather is up now! That is better; I am glad."

"Aye, lass, he's up, though he feels but sadly. But come and get your tea, and then tell us what you're going to buy with that money. Your uncle is fine and pleased about it, I can tell you."

When Elsa had finished tea she called her grandmother into the little back kitchen. "Grannie," she said softly "I want you to do something for me."

"What is it, my girl?"

"I want you to take that pound, and buy all kinds of nourishment for Grandad."

"No, my girl, the money is yours."

"And because it is mine I can do what I like with it. If I don't need a new dress yet, and don't mean to have one, why must I? And oh, Grannie, you've done for me all these long years, and I've never earned anything yet for you. You don't know how I think about it. Do take it, Grannie dear, do! It will maybe help to make Grandad well." Elsa knelt down beside the old lady and looked up into her furrowed face, down which the tears were slowly trickling.

"Let the bairn have her way, mother," said a husky voice.

Looking up, Elsa saw her Uncle Joe, who had come in from the garden and heard the conversation.

"But her dress and hat?"

"Never mind that, Gran; I'll fix it," cried Elsa, jumping up. "Now you put on your bonnet, and go and buy a lot of things for Grandad."

Grannie looked up in a bewildered sort of way at Uncle Joe, but he said, "She is right, Mother. Trot along."

So Mrs. Knott went shopping again, not without kissing Elsa, and saying heartily, "God bless you, my bairn! You are a real comfort to us."
Chapter 4

The White House

A shadow lay over the White House and its inmates. For years they had been dreading what had now come to pass -- the coming of Bertram Pyne. Only those who knew what his wife and children had suffered through his violent drinking habits in the past could realize what a terror his presence in the village was to his disabled daughter. All Douglas's powers of persuasion had failed to induce his father to leave the town. As yet they had managed to keep him away from Hilary, but she lived in constant dread, and grew so weak and nervous that it became plain to all that a very short time must elapse before they said farewell to her.

Douglas did his best to cheer and comfort her, and Elsa came more constantly than ever, only choosing such times as Douglas would be out. Since her conversation with Alice Grey, Elsa had felt that it was better to avoid meeting him more than she could help. Her friendship with him had been very sweet, and she missed it now, but it was impossible to share his favour with a girl like Mary Grey.

Hilary was distressed about that also. The friendship they had hoped to see develop into love seemed likely to die away altogether. Only once since the night of the storm had Douglas seen Elsa to speak to. Then he had thanked her for her services on that wet night, and he had been pained by her avoidance of him afterwards.

On the night that Mrs. Knott had gone out to spend Elsa's sovereign, she had met Miss Cynthia, and had told her all about Elsa's generosity. Miss Cynthia was much pleased and touched, and even in the midst of her own anxiety did not forget to tell Hilary and Douglas of Elsa's self-denial.

Hilary said, "Yes, we know Elsa is good, don't we, Doug?"

Twice in his drunken state already had Bertram Pyne come up to the White House, and Douglas dreaded to leave them alone, even while he went to work. Douglas had a good position at the ironworks, and was much respected both by the masters and men. Miss Cynthia had used a big portion of her little savings to apprentice her well-loved nephew in those works, and she heard with pardonable pride of his steadiness and success. But how would it be now that his disreputable, drunken father had appeared upon the scene? Sometimes the little lady trembled with sorrow and indignation for her boy.

Then, too, the father had to have lodgings provided for him. They could not let him lie about in the roads, as he certainly would have done if they had refused to admit him into the White House, and there had been no other door open to him.

One afternoon Hilary lay with her eyes shut for some time, and her aunt, who was knitting beside her, thought that she had gone to sleep, when suddenly the girl spoke.

"Auntie," she said, "do you think if we were to bring Father here, and be kind to him, he would change? I have been wondering whether God would like us to do that. Or perhaps Douglas and I ought to go to him, and leave you here in peace."

To say that Miss Cynthia was startled would be saying little. She was horrified. "You must not think of such a thing, Hilary! You could not bear to see him, dear. It would kill you, and me too, I think," the old lady added.

"But, Auntie, if we ought to do it, I must."

"Hilary, your poor mother thought that she could lead your father to better ways, and for many years she tried. He caused the accident which killed her and crippled you. He made the life of his little lad a burden so heavy that he would often have been glad to lie down and die. But your father never repented, never turned from his evil ways, although he knew the sorrow and suffering he had caused. Now he is in this village, a burden and a disgrace upon the son he treated so brutally years ago. Do you think that he would change now? No, dear, nothing can change those who refuse to listen to the voice of warning that God sends to speak to them."

Hilary sighed. "I wish I could give over thinking about it," she said sorrowfully.

But Hilary could not give over thinking about it, and Miss Cynthia, once having her own thoughts led in that direction, was obliged to think of it also.

Bring Bertram Pyne to that peaceful homestead? It seemed like sacrilege! He had wrecked the life of her dearly-loved sister, and done his best to wreck the lives of her children also. And now, here was the thought come to haunt her -- that perhaps, if they held out a loving hand to him, he might be won from his evil ways, and by God's help become a changed creature. Was it needful for them to make this sacrifice?

All that night the little lady lay awake, and when dawn came she was still asking the question, "What ought we to do?"

The battle went on fiercely for some time, but at last came the cry from that faithful heart, "Lord, not my will, but Thine be done." She would do even this for His sake.

Douglas had grown strangely silent lately, and his aunt thought it was not to be wondered at, for his was a heavy burden to carry.

Hilary looked anxiously at her aunt as she took her cup of tea from her hand. "Is anything worrying you more than usual, Auntie?" she asked.

"No, dear. We will have a talk together after breakfast," said Miss Cynthia, rather hurriedly.

When Douglas had gone out, and Rhoda was busy in the little kitchen, Miss Cynthia went into Hilary's room again. She went close up to the bed, and bent lovingly over the wasted form which lay there.

Something in her face startled Hilary. "What is it, Auntie?" she cried.

"Hilary, if you can bear it, we will do this thing ... you and I."

The girl looked up inquiringly into the pale face. She knew then that Cynthia Moore was ready to give up everything in her Master's service. That she was ready to take that poor, wretched man, who had done her and those she loved grievous wrong, into her peaceful home, and to try and win by loving-kindness that blackened soul for Christ.

"Auntie, Auntie!" was all Hilary could say.

"We must tell Douglas first," Miss Cynthia went on; "and then...."

"Poor Douglas!" Hilary found her voice again at last. "He will be very angry at first, Auntie, but after a time he will come to see that it is the right thing to do. God will help us, Auntie, if He sends him here."

At noon Douglas was told of the new plan. He shook his head. "No, no, Aunt Cynthia. You have done quite enough already, and Hilary would be dead in less than a week. He would frighten her so, when his drunken fits were on. Remember, that even two days ago the very thought of his nearness made her ill and nervous."

"Douglas, my poor boy, don't you see that your dear sister is drawing very near Home, and she is anxious to do something for her father before it is too late? It is for Christ's sake, Douglas."

"It will not do, Auntie," he answered gently. "If my poor sister is so near ... near leaving us, I will not have the peace of these last days destroyed. Has that man not done her mischief enough?" he added fiercely. "He shall not come here. I will kill him first! Let me go, Aunt Cynthy. I cannot talk any more about it."

Miss Cynthia watched him sadly as he strode hastily down the hill.

"Not yet, Hilary," she said, going back into the pretty room. "It will come right in time, dear. We must wait and trust."

But the shadow over the little house grew darker.
Chapter 5

Sunshine and Shade

One morning when Elsa entered the workroom, Miss Smith called her into her little office, and said kindly, "Elsa, you have worked very well for me for three years, and now I intend to give you wages. We get most of the work around not only Royden, but also Colworth, and I am thinking of having more hands, but of course I must move some of you up first. Your work is done better than that of many whom I pay well. I intend therefore to pay you at first only eight shillings a week. In six months I will give you more, if you continue to do well. Oblige me by not mentioning the amount I pay you to the others. And, Elsa, do your best to make the others to be more like yourself. Here is your first week's money."

"Thank you very, very much, Miss Smith!" exclaimed Elsa. "It will be such a help at home, for uncle has no work, and grandfather is ill."

"I heard so from Martha Garle, and also a good account of what you do outside work hours, Elsa. Go on as you have begun, my child, and God will recompense you."

It was with a heart full of thankfulness to God that Elsa begun her work that day. Her needle flew in and out rapidly, and Miss Smith soon saw that she would have no cause to regret the encouragement she had given her.

Elsa walked quickly home when the dinnertime came, eager to take the good news and the money to Grannie.

"Well done, Elsa!" cried Uncle Joe.

Mrs. Knott could not speak for a few minutes.

"God is good," she said at length. "His mercies are renewed every morning."

"When are you going to show us your new dress, Elsa?" asked Alice Grey that afternoon.

"I am not having one just yet, Alice. I shall wait until the weather is a little warmer."

"Well, you are a funny girl," said Alice.

But Lizzie looked up and gave Elsa a bright smile. "Sensible, I call you, Elsa," she said.

When Elsa got home that evening she washed the ribbon that had trimmed her last summer's hat and ironed it carefully. Then she took the trimming off her best hat that was getting rather shabby, and put the ironed ribbon with a pretty steel buckle which Grannie had rooted out from among her treasures.

"I declare it looks quite new, Grannie!" she cried as she held it up for inspection.

"Yes, it is fine, dear; and if you will take the trimming off that grey dress you wore last year, I will wash it, and if it is carefully ironed it will look very well."

Elsa did so gladly, and the next day when she came from work she found the dress all ready to have the trimming replaced; but Grannie was eyeing it with what Elsa called her "considering cap" on.

"Seems to me, Elsa," said she, "that I have some grey gimp trimming somewhere that would just match this, and it would freshen it up a bit. Go and fetch me that sandalwood box off the bureau in my room, and I will have a look."

Elsa had always loved to see that box opened when she was a child, and even now she liked to see Grannie searching through its long-treasured stores. With eager eyes she watched her tonight. Yes, there was a piece of gimp trimming that would just do.

"Well, now, whoever would have thought of that coming in after all these years! 'Keep things seven years,' folks say, but this has been here more than three times seven. Aye, take it, lass. You're welcome."

"If you do not want me tonight, Grannie, I will run up and stay with Hilary a little. Perhaps Miss Cynthy would like to go to the church service, and it is the night that Douglas has to be at the Institute."

"Aye, do, lass. I doubt the poor girl has but a sorry time of it now, for Miss Cynthia must be well-nigh crazed having that man come to live so near them."

When Elsa got to the White House it was dusk, but Miss Cynthia and Hilary were sitting in the gloom.

"Oh, Elsa, I am so glad that you have come. I want Aunt Cynthy to go out for a while. She has had such a bad headache all the day, I am sure it would do her good to go to the service."

"Yes, do go, Miss Cynthy. I came on purpose to stay with Hilary if you were going."

After a little hesitation Miss Cynthia was persuaded to go.

"Come and sit close beside me here, Elsa," Hilary said. "I want to have a good talk to you."

Elsa obeyed, but she could not help starting at the change that had come over Hilary during the two days that had elapsed since her last visit.

"How have you been, Hilary?" she asked.

"Oh, the pain is not so bad today, but last night it was awful." cried Elsa. "I couldn't help it, and Doug got up and held me in his arms until it was easier. He is a good brother, but I am selfish, and Rhoda says that I cannot really care for him, or I should never ask him to help me when he is so tired."

"Hush," said Elsa, as Hilary began to cry a little. "Rhoda loves you both, and she does not mean to be unkind; but she does not know how bad the pain is, nor how hard it is to bear."

"It is bad sometimes, and I am not a bit brave, but I do love Douglas."

"Yes, dear, I know you do, and Douglas knows it too. I am sure he is glad to do anything to ease your pain."

"Aunt Cynthia and I think perhaps we ought to get Father to come and live here, so that we might try and coax him from his bad ways and get him to love God."

"Here?" exclaimed Elsa. "Why, Hilary, I thought you could not bear the sight of him."

Hilary flushed, and her voice trembled as she replied. "Yes, I said so, and I thought so. I do dread seeing him, but I think now we ought to try it. We have prayed about it and thought about it, Aunt Cynthia and I, but Douglas will not be willing. He says that he will kill him before he comes here."

"I don't know what to say, Hilary. It doesn't seem right that a man like that should come here. Oh, it is sweet and good of you and Miss Cynthy, but I don't want you to be troubled like that," said Elsa earnestly.

"You see, Elsa, it would be doing something for Jesus, and I can do so little."

Elsa was silent. It seemed to her a very noble thing of those two women to wish to do, and yet she was thankful to hear that Douglas objected.

"Have you settled anything yet, Hilary?" she asked, after a somewhat lengthy pause.

"Not yet. Douglas feels so strongly about it, but in time he will get used to the idea, and see that it is what we ought to do."

As Elsa went home that night she met Douglas Pyne.

"You have been to see Hilary, Elsa?"

"Yes, I have been sitting with her a short time. She is not so well, I fancy. She told me how ill she was in the night and how good you were to her."

"Good? I would do anything to ease her when she is in such terrible pain. But we are helpless. We can do nothing. Oh, Elsa, is it not hard that she should have to suffer like she does, all because of him, and now.... Have they told you? They want to have him live up there with us."

"Hilary said they thought they might perhaps be able to lead him into better ways."

"We might as well try to stem the river yonder by putting a few rushes across. I tell you, Elsa, he shall never go there. I would rather see him dead!"

Douglas had turned back with her, and now they had reached the cottage gate. As they said goodnight, Douglas held Elsa's hand for a moment. "I have not vexed you, Elsa?" he asked.

"No. How should you?"

"I have fancied that you have avoided me lately. Promise me, Elsa, that you will always be my friend."

"Always. I can promise that from my heart."

"Nothing more, Elsa?"

At that moment the cottage door opened, and Joe Knott came quickly down the garden path. "Hello, Elsa, I was just coming to look for you. How are you, Douglas? Won't you come in?"

"Not tonight, thank you. How is Mr. Knott tonight?"

"Well, he seems to be mending nicely, but he is still very weak."

"Aye, it takes a good while to get over an illness such as he has had. I haven't thanked you yet for your help the other night with my father."

"Oh, all right, lad, it was little enough I did. I am sorry you are so worried just now. Goodnight, if you won't come in."

Elsa's heart was full. Was it possible that a new joy was coming into her life? Was Douglas going to tell her that old sweet story when Uncle Joe came out and spoilt it all? Well, if it was really so, it was only postponed for a short time, and she could wait patiently. She was glad that Grannie had thought of washing that grey dress. She wanted to look nice now. Mary Grey had been mistaken. She had not been able to take Douglas Pye away from her after all. It was almost too good to be real.

Grannie's keen eyes saw a new light in Elsa's face, and drew her own conclusions, only breathing a devout prayer for the girl's true welfare.

Two days after this, when Elsa got to work she found Alice and Mary Grey in a state of great excitement about something. They both looked at her rather oddly, but she was too happy to take much notice of them, and set to work quickly, for there was a great deal of work to be got through before Easter.

"You did not come to the Institute the other night," remarked Alice.

"No, I went up to stay with Hilary Pyne for a while. Was it a nice meeting?"

"Splendid! You ought to have been there," and both the girls giggled, but Lizzie Jones looked vexed.

"Don't be such idiots, you two!" she said crossly. "Do you think Elsa didn't know that he would be at the Institute that night?"

"Who?" asked Elsa. "Douglas Pyne? Why, of course, he is always at the Institute on Thursday night. That is why Hilary is alone if Miss Cynthia goes to church. But of course she never goes unless there is someone in the house besides Rhoda."

Alice and Mary coloured, but they said no more. When they were interested in something else, Lizzie Jones said to Elsa quietly, "Elsa, Douglas Pyne went home with Mary on Thursday night. I saw him, and they don't know how to make enough of it. It is my opinion that it was an accident, but don't say anything."

Elsa felt the colour leave her face, and she grew white and cold. Lizzie poured her out a glass of water, and interposed her rather bulky person between Elsa and the others.

"Feel better now?" she asked presently. "That's right. I thought I would be the first to tell you. I am glad I was," she added significantly.

Mrs. Knott noticed the girl's pallor, and asked if she was tired; but when Elsa answered, "No, not very, Grannie," the old lady guessed pretty shrewdly what was wrong, for Joe had seen Douglas with Mary Grey.

"I hope he isn't going to play fast and loose with our lass," the old lady had said, anxiously.

"He'll have me to reckon with if he does that," replied Joe fiercely.

"Aye, lad, but neither blows nor hard words can mend a broken heart."

"Let be," said grandfather. "They are both young yet. Maybe they neither of them know their own mind."

Alice called for Elsa on her way to work that afternoon, and they went out together. "You are not mad, Elsa?" asked Alice, as they walked along.

"Mad?" queried Elsa.

"Vexed, I mean, because Douglas Pyne went out with our Mary."

"Why should I be vexed? Douglas has a right to go out with anyone he pleases. At least, so far as I know," answered Elsa.

"There, I am glad you are not cross. Mary said you would be."

As they drew near the workroom they saw Mary at a corner of the street apparently just saying goodbye to Douglas Pyne.

"Oh!" exclaimed Alice, "that is why she was off in such a hurry. She is a deep one, is our Mary."

Elsa's heart was sad that afternoon, but did not waste her time in vain regrets. "Now is just the time for me to 'trust,' and I will," she said to herself.

But for all that, her heart ached, and she felt overwhelmed with shame that she had been so mistaken and foolish as to imagine Douglas Pyne's behaviour meant anything more than friendship. She had no word of blame for him. It was all her own foolishness.
Chapter 6

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday! The sun was once more shining brightly, glorifying everything, and filling the earth with true Easter gladness. The church bells rang out their joyous melody, and the village streets were thronged with brightly dressed folk.

Old Mrs. Knott looked at Elsa with a proud light in her eyes, as the girl put on her newly-trimmed grey dress, her neat black jacket, and the hat she had managed to make look fresh and dainty even with its washed ribbon. Elsa looked good and pretty, her grandmother thought, and the simple attire just suited the brown eyes and sweet face.

Grannie watched her up the street, then turned into the cottage and closed the door with a sigh. "I doubt my lass has a sore heart," she said to herself.

"Why, Elsa Knott, how nice you look!" exclaimed Alice Grey. "You said you were not going to have anything new."

"I have got nothing new, Alice. It has all been washed and done up," replied Elsa.

"Well I never!" exclaimed Alice, while Mary said nothing, but eyed Elsa with no little displeasure.

"Little sneak!" she whispered to Alice, as they went into church; but Elsa did not hear.

How beautiful the old church was with its freshly twined azaleas, its Easter lilies, and all the other profusion of flowers. Everything spoke of joy and gladness, and in spite of Grannie's uneasiness about her, Elsa's heart was glad. Glad because she was resting in the love of Christ, and she had His peace in her heart.

Even when she saw Mary meet Douglas after service, and then saw them go off together for a walk, she did not feel disturbed.

In the afternoon she went out for a short walk with her grandfather, who was much better, and who was always delighted to have his "bonnie lassie" with him.

After church in the evening, Elsa went up quickly to see Hilary, but she had time to catch sight of Douglas talking to Mary and Alice, who were radiant in their new garments. Perhaps she looked plain and dowdy beside such finery. For one half-minute a flash of longing came into her heart, but she felt ashamed of it directly. Was she not one of the King's daughters? The verse that Grannie had repeated to her in the morning came into her mind again.

"The King's daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold" (Psalm 45:13).

Yes, she was a King's daughter, and with that unspeakable joy in her heart she could bear much that otherwise would have caused her sore trouble.

"I was almost afraid that you would not come, Elsa," said Hilary.

"Why, Hilary, I promised that I would come."

"Yes, I know, but Douglas said that you might not be able to."

"Douglas should not have said that. I wonder what made him think it," said Elsa wonderingly. "But never mind, here I am."

"You look very pretty, Elsa. Doesn't she, Rhoda?"

The old servant looked at Elsa only half-approving. "I thought you had more sense than go buying new clothes at Easter," she remarked with her customary freedom, which Elsa understood so well and never resented.

"I have not bought any new things, Rhoda. These have all been washed and freshened up."

"You are clever, Elsa. They look lovely."

"Aye," said Rhoda, "they look a fine sight better than Mary Grey's fine feathers."

"Has Mary been to see you this afternoon, Hilary?" asked Elsa.

"Yes, she came up and got Douglas to go down with her and get those flowers for me. I didn't want them, but she is always trying to get Douglas to go there for something. You see, since Father went to lodge there, Douglas has had to go every now and then on Father's account, and it would not do to vex them. It is not many people who would have a man like Father living with them. Douglas won't consent to his coming here yet, Elsa."

"No, dear. Perhaps he wants you to get a little stronger first," said Elsa gently.

Just then the door opened once more, and Martha Garle came in. "Miss Cynthia has gone to see Betty Clark. She is much worse, so I promised to come back and stay with you awhile, Hilary. But I see you have got company. How are you, Elsa? Dressed up like all the rest, I see."

"It is not new, Martha," cried Hilary. "Elsa has had it all washed and done up. Doesn't she look nice?"

"Hmm," was Martha's reply. "Handsome is as handsome does."

"I hope I'll do handsomely any way, Martha," said Elsa, laughing.

"Aye, but there is them as won't do handsomely by you, child, if you don't take care. Mark my words, Elsa, and don't have more to do with Alice and Mary Grey than you can help. Maybe I've not much reason to say so, but I feel they are not to be trusted."

"They seem kind to me," said Elsa. "I see them pretty often, as we work together."

"Aye, but all is not gold that glitters."

As Elsa went home that night she pondered over what Martha Garle had said to her. She never cared much for Alice and Mary, it was true, but she had tried hard to overcome her dislike of them, and to treat them with that charity which she had learned to use toward all with whom she came in contact -- to "suffer long and be kind." They often jeered at her Christian faith, and tried to put her out of temper, but Elsa's faith was too deep to be ruffled by trifles.

Before she got to the lower end of the village she passed Bertram Pyne, rolling unsteadily along in the direction of the White House. He did not see her, but directly afterwards a voice called out: "Goodnight, Elsa." It was Douglas, and as she replied he passed quickly on, although he was alone.

What could it mean, this change in Douglas's demeanour toward her, so sudden and so strange? She could not understand it; and when she tried, unworthy suspicions of possible treachery forced themselves on her mind.

But she had much to do and think of in which Douglas had no part. She was earning money now, and there was Grannie to help, and Miss Smith to please. In short, there was the home Christ-life to live. It would be full of love, this life of hers. She must leave no room for vain regrets, and as for the pain at her heart -- perhaps God would heal it soon. If not, He would give her strength to bear it bravely.

"You are home nice and early, Elsa," said Mrs. Knott, giving her granddaughter a keen glance over her spectacles. "Did you come home alone, child?" she added.

"Yes, Grannie," replied Elsa quietly.

Joe Knott gave a dissatisfied grunt, as Elsa went upstairs to remove her hat. "I would like to give young Pyne a bit o' my mind," he said.

"Nay, lad," answered his mother, "don't interfere. They are best left to themselves; but I cannot but think there has been mischief made somehow."

Elsa came down directly, bright and cheerful, to help Grannie with supper. "No one makes such nice bread as you, Grannie," said Elsa, as she ate her bread and cheese.

"Tut, tut, child," replied Grannie. "It is but little other you have tasted."

"Elsa is right anyway," said Uncle Joe. "I remember when I was working at Birmingham how I longed for a bit of Mother's bread. It always puzzles me what folk can put in their bread to make it so nasty."

"Aye," said old Mr. Knott, "they all want to make their fortunes, so they put all sorts of adulterations in it, till folk cannot eat it."

"So they don't get their fortune after all, father," said Joe, laughing.

"Nay, there is not much fortune to be made by cheating in the long run; and to cheat poor folks out of pure bread is the very worst kind o' cheating, to my mind."

"So it is," said his wife. "And depend upon it, God Almighty will punish them as do it."

"Well, very good folk cheat like that sometimes, Mother," said Joe.

"Don't tell me that, Joe. To be a Christian means to follow Jesus Christ, and no one can do that and cheat."

"They don't call it cheating, mother. They call it 'trade' -- the 'ways of trade.'"

"Call it what you will," retorted Grannie, "the question is, would Jesus do it?"

"That is right," said Mr. Knott. "There is a great deal more adulteration nowadays than there used to be."

"Folks are getting a great deal too clever now. Will you read a verse or two, Father? And we'll have prayer. I must be off early in the morning and see after some work."

"Aye, lad. Reach down the Bible, Elsa."

The old man read a Psalm, and then they lifted up their hearts in prayer to God, full of thankfulness for His restoring mercy. So the household went to rest, at peace with God, and with all mankind.

The girls in Miss Smith's workroom were very busy that week, for there was to be a grand wedding at Colworth, and Miss Smith was making the dresses. The girls were all interested in seeing the pretty things, and some of them meant to get leave to go and see the ceremony.

"Will you come too, Elsa?" asked Alice Grey.

"No, Alice, I think not. I do not care much about it, and Miss Smith will be better able to spare the others if I do not go."

"Elsa don't care for such pomps and vanities," sneered Alice's sister, Mary.

Elsa flushed a little, but she said nothing, and Alice did not press her further.

There was rejoicing in the little cottage, for Uncle Joe had at last got work. What was best of all, it was likely to be permanent.

Grannie's eyes filled with happy tears as she exclaimed: "The Lord's mercies fail not."

Uncle Joe patted Elsa on the back, saying: "Brighter days in store, my lass. You shall have a new gown."

Elsa did not care a bit about a new gown then, for the grey one did very well; but she was glad of the good news, and went back to her work with a bright face. On the way she met Douglas, and she stayed to ask him how Hilary was.

"She is very bad, Elsa. So bad that I fear we shall lose her soon now ... and ... and, she is all I have, Elsa." So saying he passed on. Elsa watched him go. All he had? But he had Mary Grey. She would comfort him.

Chapter 7

What they Found in the River

"Elsa, come here!" cried Joe Knott one evening, as Elsa sat sewing beside her grandmother. Joe had come trough the back kitchen on his way from work, and by the sound of his voice, Elsa knew he was disturbed about something. Grannie looked up rather surprised, but she made no remark as the girl went out and Joe shut the door behind her.

"Elsa, when did you see Hilary Pyne's father last? I had an idea you told us you met him the night afore last?"

"So I did, Uncle Joe. I met him on the hill as I was coming from the White House, and I met Douglas directly afterwards."

Joe Knott uttered an exclamation. "Well, lassie, don't tell that story to anyone else, if you have not done so already."

Elsa looked surprised. "But it is true, Uncle Joe," she said. "I did see him then."

"Aye, lass, and I wish it were not true. Do you know, Elsa, that was the last time he was seen alive, and now they have just found his dead body in the river!"

For one brief second Elsa stood bewildered; then, as the meaning of his words dawned upon her, she sank in a senseless heap at her uncle's feet.

"Mother! Mother!" cried Joe, and Mrs. Knott rushed in to meet her son at the door with Elsa in his arms.

"What has made the lass go off like this, Joe?" asked the old lady, as she busied herself in trying to bring the colour back into those pallid lips. "Don't be frightened, lad. The girl has only fainted."

"I was a fool to blurt it out to her like I did, but I never thought she'd take it in that way," said Joe. "I was telling her that they had found Bertram Pyne in the river. He had not been seen for three days, and Elsa met him the night before last on the hill with Douglas."

Then Grannie's face grew almost as white as Elsa's.

Presently the poor girl opened her eyes. "It is not true, Grannie. It was not Douglas."

"No, no, my lass, it will be all right. Of course it was an accident, a terrible accident."

Elsa gasped. An accident! But many had heard Douglas say that Bertram Pyne would not live to come to the White House.

Now the whole village was talking about it before the news was carried up the hill to those most closely concerned. Hilary Pyne was slipping quickly away. She had asked for Elsa, and Rhoda was dispatched to bring her if possible.

When the old servant got to the village she soon found that there was some great excitement on; and when she found out what the excitement was about, she was almost as much taken aback as Mrs. Knott and Elsa had been.

"Well," she exclaimed, "there will be no more talk o' him coming to live at the White House now. It were only the day before yesterday that Mr. Douglas was saying he wouldn't have him there on no account, although Miss Cynthia and the poor lamb as is going home fast seemed wonderful set on it."

Mrs. Knott, to whom this was said, drew the woman quickly indoors. "Rhoda, woman," she said, "don't you get talking like that to anyone else. You might do untold harm to those you love best."

"What do you mean?" asked Rhoda, half-affronted.

"Just this. Folks have all heard how bitter Douglas was against his father -- not without reason, poor lad. If they hear that they were together, and bad friends, on the very night the wretched man must have got in the water, they may suspect foul play."

Rhoda grew pale. "Do you mean as ... as he drowned his own father?" she gasped.

"I don't mean that, Rhoda. Other folks may not know him as well as you and I do, so take my advice and just say nothing."

"It's awful strange, when you come to think of it," said Rhoda, trembling in every limb.

"Nothing very odd that a man who is always worse for drink should walk into the river," replied Mrs. Knott sharply.

"It'll be an awful shock for the missis, and the other trouble too. I came to see if your Elsa would come up and see Miss Hilary. She is going fast, and she keeps asking for Elsa."

"I can go, Grannie," said Elsa, as her grandmother hesitated.

"I doubt if you are fit," said Grannie anxiously. "Elsa got such a turn with the news," she explained to Rhoda.

"No wonder!" exclaimed the woman. "It is enough to give anyone a turn. But if she is any way able to come, it will be a real comfort to Miss Cynthy. Martha Garle is there. She has been staying with us ever since yesterday morning, when the poor lamb was taken worse again."

"They don't know about this business up there, then?" said Mrs. Knott.

"They didn't when I came away, at any rate."

Uncle Joe put on his coat and walked up the hill with Elsa and Rhoda, for neither he nor Grannie liked the idea of the girl going there alone.

When they entered the house, Miss Cynthia met them at the door of the little passage. "My darling is going from us quickly," she said softly.

It was true. The worn-out sufferer was going on the last short journey.

As Elsa stood beside the bed, Hilary opened her eyes. "Elsa! My dear Elsa!"

Elsa bent and kissed her. "Are you in much pain, Hilary?" she asked.

"No, I have no pain now; but I am tired ... so very, very tired. Come and sit by me, and let me look at your face. I am so glad you have come, Elsa. I am going away, and I was afraid you would not come to say goodbye."

"You are not afraid to go, Hilary?" whispered Elsa.

"Afraid? No, I am going to be with Christ, to be a King's daughter, all glorious and clad in robes of wrought gold, Elsa. Gold of Ophir. You remember our reading that one Sunday when I was so wrong and discontented because I was a misshapen invalid. It is going to be beautiful, Elsa."

"Yes, dear, it will," answered Elsa.

"When I am gone, Elsa, you'll speak kindly to Douglas? I asked him why you did not see each other so much now, and he said, "Elsa does not want me." You are not vexed with him, Elsa?"

"No, oh no, Hilary;" and Elsa bravely choked her rising sobs.

"Then you will be kind to him. Promise me, Elsa?"

"I do promise, Hilary."

"And, Elsa, when I am gone, Auntie will feel so lonely, even though I have been so much trouble. Will you come often and see her?"

"Yes, Hilary dear, as often as I can."

"There's my own good Elsa. Oh, Elsa, I hoped you and Douglas would have liked each other. I wanted you for my sister, but it has all gone wrong somehow."

"God knows best, Hilary."

"Ah, yes, I know; but my heart is sore for Douglas."

"God will take care of him and help him, Hilary."

"Yes, I'll not talk any more just now, Elsa. I am so tired." Her eyes closed, and the tired head sank wearily back upon the pillows. In a few minutes sleep came, and the breath still came faintly from between the white lips.

"I had better go now, Miss Cynthia," said Elsa, stealing quietly out of the room. "I will come again tomorrow."

"Yes, dear, do. It is a comfort to see you. But, Elsa, wait a moment and answer me truly. Has my nephew been treating you shabbily?"

The bright colour mounted into Elsa's pale face.

"Answer me truly, Elsa," insisted Miss Cynthia.

"No, Miss Cynthia. Douglas has not treated me badly, although sometimes I think that I should like to know how I have offended him."

Elsa waited for no further words, but passed hastily out into the little kitchen where Uncle Joe was waiting for her.

"Mother," said Joe that night, after Elsa had gone to bed, "I saw Douglas Pyne today, before ... before they found his father, and he was telling me how bad the poor lass were, and how fond she were of our Elsa; so I said, 'What has our Elsa done to offend thee, Douglas?'"

"What did he say?" asked Grannie breathlessly.

"Why, he looked straight at me for a minute, and then he says, 'Mr. Knott, I'll be as open with you as I can. I am very fond of Elsa, and for a long time I have counted on winning her for my wife. But now I hear there is someone else she cares for, and I should not be a true man if I tried to win her from him, whoever he is.'"

"Someone else?" repeated Mrs. Knott incredulously.

"Those were his words," replied Joe.

"Who is it?" asked Grannie.

"That he would not tell me, nor yet who told him; but he said Elsa had not told him herself. So I said there was some mistake, but he just shook his head and said, 'I think not.' I tell you, mother, I am real sorry, for he would have made the lass a good husband, and he is in a fair way to do well -- at least he was; but I fear this drowning business will be awkward for him."

Mrs. Knott was silent for a few minutes from very astonishment, but at last she found her voice. "It's all wrong, Joe. It's all wrong somehow. Elsa never deceived me, nor told me an untruth in her life, and I'll not believe she ever could."

Chapter 8

Gone Home

All through the long night poor Grannie lay awake. "Someone else." What could it mean? Not that Elsa had deceived her. Surely not that.

As soon as it was daylight she got up, and when Elsa came down she was sitting by the fire with a troubled look on her kind old face.

"Why, Grannie, you are up early, and you've done all the work, and never called me! Oh, it is too bad of you."

"Elsa, my lass," said the old woman brokenly, "I couldn't sleep. No, nor I can't eat neither, until you and I have had a talk. Tell me, Elsa, have you ever had a secret, or deceived me in any way?"

Elsa looked surprised, but answered quite firmly, and without a moment's thought or hesitation. "Never, Grannie," she said quietly. "Why do you ask me such a strange question?"

Then Mrs. Knott told her word for word what Uncle Joe had said, and as she listened Elsa's face grew white.

"I don't know who it is, Grannie, or why they have done it, but someone who wishes to separate us has made mischief. It is cruel, for I don't know that I have ever harmed anyone. There is no one else, and there never will be anyone else. I mean to stay with you, Grannie, and Grandad, but do not get thinking that I could deceive you."

"My dear, true lassie!" cried Grannie, "I thought I could trust you, and now I know."

All through the day the words that her grandmother had spoken kept running through Elsa's mind. Someone had played a traitor's part. Who it was, it was at present impossible to find out. In her heart she was glad that the change had not been in Douglas himself. It was because he really thought that she cared for someone else that he had not spoken. At dinnertime Grannie told Elsa that she had been up the hill to see how Hilary was, and had found her, as Elsa said, "Just slipping away from them."

"I promised that you should go in after tea, Elsa."

"Very well, Grannie, so I will. Dear Hilary. How I shall miss her!"

"Aye, lassie, but she will be better off yonder, for she has had but a wearisome time here. 'Tell Elsa to come,' she said, as I came away. 'It was Elsa who first made me see what a good thing it was to love Jesus, and how beautiful it will be to be with Him for ever.' You have done some good, my girl, if you have made the way a bit smoother for yon poor lass."

"I wish I had done more," said Elsa wistfully.

"Aye, that's what we all wish to our dying day. But He knows, and He'll forgive us what we've missed. You have done your best, Elsa, and you have been a good girl to us at home, but God will reward you in His own good time."

"Will you come for a walk after tea, Elsa?" asked Alice Grey, as they were going home that night.

"No, thank you, Alice. I promised to go in and see Hilary. You know she is dying?"

Mary Grey overheard this conversation, and flushed angrily. "I should think you thought too much of yourself to go running after Douglas like that, Elsa," she said.

"Especially when people are all saying that he has murdered his poor father," whispered Alice.

The hot blood dyed Elsa's face and neck. It was difficult for her to answer calmly, but she only said, "You should not talk like that, either of you. I am going to see, not Douglas, but Hilary, who is dying, and asks for me. If people are saying such a cruel, wicked thing about Douglas, you ought to be the last to repeat it, for you know him well enough to know he could not do such a terrible thing."

"I know he threatened to do it," said Mary.

Elsa went on her way with a feeling of dread, and she turned cold as she thought of the consequences of the report that had got about concerning the relations which existed between Douglas and his father.

Hilary was sinking rapidly. Miss Cynthia and Douglas were both with her, and when Elsa entered she opened her eyes and smiled.

"You have come to say goodbye," she whispered. "It is only for a little while, Elsa."

Then the loving eyes closed again, and there was silence. Douglas looked across at Elsa, and as their eyes met there passed a world of unspoken sympathy between them.

Then Hilary spoke again. "Dear, dear Douglas," she said, "don't let Auntie fret. I shall be so happy, for I shall have no pain ... and ... Elsa will love you both."

Miss Cynthia broke down then, and her slight form was convulsed with sobs.

"Don't, Auntie, don't!" whispered Hilary, stroking feebly the wrinkled hand.

"No, Auntie, don't give way like that. It is distressing her so," said Douglas very gently.

But the grief once given way to was uncontrollable, and poor Miss Cynthia had to go from the room.

There was another whisper from the pallid lips, and they bent to catch it.

"Wrought gold ... it is beautiful ... goodbye, dear ... Doug."

With one more smile upon her anguished brother, she sank into the coma of death.

They could only watch lovingly and sorrowfully, until at length, with a long gasp, the spirit passed away.

Miss Cynthia had crept back again. "Safe home," she said softly, through her tears. "Our weeping cannot disturb her now."

Elsa found Grannie waiting at the open door of her cottage. "So the dear lamb has gone home?" she said.

"Yes, Grannie, she has gone;" and then, worn out with sorrow of heart, Elsa found relief in tears and sobs in dear old Grannie's loving arms.

"There, there, lassie, cry on a bit, it will do you good. You've carried a sore heart for many a day. Cry a bit. There is no one to see but old Gran."

Grannie was a wise woman, and knew full well that there was more cause for Elsa's tears than sorrow for the poor girl being taken from pain and sorrow, and she showed her good sense by letting those tears have free course. She knew they were nature's own relief for an over-burdened heart, and were best left alone.

The next day Elsa felt ill and altogether out of sorts. She was a sensitive girl, and had loved Hilary truly. The thought that she had lost her friend was sufficient to cause her much grief, even if there had not been the other trouble. However, she managed to get through her work, and tried not to notice Mary Grey's sneers about her pale cheeks and swollen eyes.

"Making such a fuss about a cripple," said Mary. "I should think it was a happy release."

"So it is in one sense, Mary," replied Elsa gently. "But when you love anyone very much, you are more apt to think of your loss than their happiness when they are taken from you."

"She would have been a burden to Douglas all her life," said Alice. "And a young man should be free."

Elsa could not help thinking that Douglas would have been glad to have the precious burden, but she did not say so, and perhaps it was as well she did not.

Before the day was over Elsa had another trouble to bear, for at noon Joe Knott brought in the news that Douglas Pyne had been arrested on suspicion of having caused the death of his father.

"Don't you worry about it, lass," said Uncle Joe kindly. "They are sure to release him. They have no evidence against him that would convict him."

Elsa shuddered. It was all so terrible. She knew he was innocent. She knew also that the very suspicion that was resting upon him must be horrible for him to bear.

"You will do your best to get him released, Uncle Joe?" she begged.

"There would be no need to ask me that, Elsa, if I could do anything toward it. I will go to Colworth this afternoon and fetch Lawyer Pearson. He is Miss Cynthy's lawyer, and he will know what is the best to do. Of course the lad is innocent. Everyone knows that, who isn't a fool."

"Who is with Miss Cynthy?" asked Elsa.

"Martha Garle is there, and I promised that mother would go up this afternoon, for the poor soul is overwhelmed with sorrow. The time for Miss Cynthy to grieve has come at last."

"She will never regret being kind to Hilary and Douglas, but, oh, who can comfort her now?"

"No one, my lass," said Grannie solemnly. "No one, but only God. Aye, aye, God can do all that is needful. Let us kneel and ask Him to establish Douglas's innocence, and comfort yon poor woman."

How Elsa got through that afternoon at work she could never afterwards tell. Mary Grey had got some work to finish which was quite beyond her. Alice laughingly refused to help her, which made Mary more angry. At last Elsa offered to do it.

Mary threw the work across to Elsa rudely. "I don't care if you do it. I am sure it is no more than you ought to do, for you have not had much to do today."

Elsa said nothing in reply, but finished the work while Mary amused herself by talking about the arrest and the excitement it had caused in the village.

"Oh, you've done it, have you? Well, I think you might have offered before, instead of seeing me struggling away with it for an hour."

"You don't deserve to be helped," said Lizzie Jones. "If I were you, I would be ashamed to let Elsa help me. You might see that she has a headache."

"More like she's been blubbering because she's lost her sweetheart. Eh, Elsa?" said Mary.

"Don't be so silly, Mary," interposed Alice. "Even if she has lost him, you ain't got him."

"All the same, I might have had, most likely, if he hadn't been took for murder."

"No fear," said Lizzie Jones. "You are not his sort, Mary."

"Pshaw! You don't know how saintly I can be when I choose. Better than Elsa."

"You are deceitful enough for anything, I know," returned Lizzie.

Just then Miss Smith was heard returning to the room, and so for the present the discussion ended. But many times afterwards the same sort of conversation took place, and Elsa sometimes wished she could run away from it all.

That night, up at the White House, where there was so much sadness dwelling, Rhoda startled Martha Garle and Miss Cynthia by rushing into the room where they sat, with a white, scared face and dishevelled hair.

"Oh, Miss Cynthy! Miss Cynthy, there is his boggart a-sitting on the road at the bottom of the garden steps! Oh, whatever shall us do?"

Miss Cynthia looked up sadly enough. "Rhoda, you are a silly woman. What is it that you mean? A ghost?"

"I'll go and see, Miss Cynthy," said Martha Garle. "No, don't you come."

But Miss Cynthia insisted, so the two women went down the garden together. True enough, on the dusty road just below the garden steps there was seated a figure, a very substantial sort of ghost, and both Martha Garle and Miss Cynthia had little difficulty in recognising Bertram Pyne. Bertram Pyne in the flesh it was.

"Yes," he said humbly, in answer to Miss Cynthia's exclamation. "Yes, I am here, alive and sober. But that stupid woman took me for a ghost, and went shrieking indoors. I was only resting on my way to the village, for I have walked from Manchester. I've come to save my boy."

"Come in, and rest and eat," cried Miss Cynthia, but Bertram Pyne shook his head.

"I couldn't touch a morsel until I know my poor lad is out of jail. I have done him harm all his life, but when I went away the other day I thought to do him a kindness. He has been good to me since I came to Royden. He has talked with me, helped me, and done his best to keep me right. On that Thursday night he had been talking to me a long time, and I had promised him that I would turn over a new leaf. He told me the poor lass was dying. When he left me he must have called somewhere in the village, for although I set out directly after him, thinking to overtake him and ask him to let me see my poor child once more, I did not overtake him. Instead, he overtook me, and he promised that I should see her the next day if I was sober. I saw him go into the house there."

Bertram Pyne paused for breath. He looked exhausted. "My boy said goodnight when I said I could get down the hill alone, for I could see he was tired. I had been sober all the day, thinking what a brute I had been to my poor wife and children, and determining to turn over a new leaf, and by God's help be a better man. I turned, and began to go down the road, and suddenly the thought came over me that the best thing I could do would be to leave Royden right away, and rid you all of me and my sins, but I had neither money nor food with me. Just then a man came along from the direction of Colworth. He was ... as I have been too often ... the worse for drink. It occurred to me that I might sell him my coat, for in the moonlight I saw that his was mud-stained and torn. I entered into conversation with him, and had not much difficulty in getting him to give me a shilling for my top coat. He thought he had a good bargain, and so he had, but I wanted the money to get food on my journey to Manchester. We separated. He went down the hill toward Royden, and I went on to Colworth. He must have missed his way, and got on the crags above the river. I suppose it was he they found and took for me, as he was wearing my coat."

"His face was too cut and bruised for them to know him by that," said Martha Garle.

"I went to Manchester, and got two or three little jobs to do the next day. But this morning I read in the paper that my boy had been arrested for murdering me, so I came off at once. Have they taken him away, or is he in the village station?"

"He is still in the village lockup," cried Martha, for Miss Cynthia had lost her voice.

"I'll be off at once, then. I am glad I saw you to tell you. You will soon have him with you now. Goodnight, and God bless you, Cynthia, for all you have been to my neglected children!"

"Stay!" cried Miss Cynthia, putting out her hands appealingly. "Thank God you have come! But promise me that you will return here with Douglas. For Hilary's sake, promise," she repeated.

"If he.... If Douglas wants me to come, I will come, Cynthia," he said, and he passed on into the darkness, leaving behind him two thankful, wondering women -- nay, three, when Rhoda could be made to understand that she had seen no boggart.

Chapter 9

Changes in Royden

The days passed on. Douglas Pyne had been released, and they had laid Hilary to rest in the little cemetery where flowers bloomed nearly all through the year.

It seemed to be Elsa's chief walk to visit that mound in the graveyard, and one day she met Douglas there. He told her, as they walked home together, that he was going away. He and Miss Cynthia were for a time to make their home in Manchester, where the firm had offered him a good situation, and also made room for his father \-- for Bertram Pyne was a changed man at last, and the change had every appearance of being a permanent one.

"They tell me that I may possibly come back one day as manager of this branch, but that is far off, and just now I am glad to go. You will wish me success, Elsa, won't you, even it you never see me again?"

"I do indeed, Douglas."

"And you will come here sometimes for the sake of Hilary. I shall like to think that you will still come here to the grave, Elsa."

"Yes, I will come," she answered sadly.

"God bless you, Elsa, and make you very happy!" Wringing her hand he strode hastily away.

He was gone. Gone, believing that she cared for someone else, and she could not tell him that it was not so. No, she could not call him back and say, "You are mistaken. I don't care for anyone else. Only for you, Douglas."

Grannie, who would gladly have made things right between them if she could, never saw him.

So that was over. She must bear it as well as she could, and work on for a time, or it might be for years and years until she was old and grey like Grannie.

But, though Elsa's heart was often sad, her step was light and her face bright. What were her troubles, she argued, in comparison to those of her neighbours? Besides, was she not a King's daughter! And that was indeed a matter for rejoicing, and not to be forgotten. In her daily life her character grew, although she was unaware of it herself, more Christ-like, more and more full of that holy love without which all one's goodness is but as sounding brass or tinkling cymbal.

In the summer time Aunt Sarah came on her promised visit. She would gladly have taken Elsa back with her to York, but Elsa would not leave Royden.

"It is very good of you, Aunt Sarah, but Grannie has taken care of me all these years. I cannot leave her and grandfather now."

So Aunt Sarah said no more about the matter, but she settled a small sum on the old people so that they no longer needed to be dependent upon Uncle Joe, who was thinking of taking a wife of his own.

Alice and Mary Grey left Miss Smith and began a business of their own, and neither Elsa nor Miss Smith were very sorry. Soon afterwards, Lizzie Jones married a respectable man and left the village. Then Miss Smith made Elsa forewoman, and as the business was still growing -- for Royden was no longer the small village it had once been -- gave her good wages.

Under Elsa's gentle influence, work was well done, and a quiet, Christian atmosphere pervaded the workroom.

So the summer days passed away. Autumn came and went, and winter set in with unusual severity, unusually early. Old Mrs. Knott was kept indoors by the rheumatics, but Elsa had persuaded her to have little Agnes Martin to help her, although Grannie had objected strongly at first.

"You must have someone, Grannie," Elsa had said, "or I shall have to stay away from business."

So the thing was settled, and little Agnes, who was a willing, handy lass, was installed to wait upon the old folks while Elsa was at work.

One day, when the snow lay thick over the earth, Agnes brought a message from her mother. "Please, ma'am, mother said as I were to tell you as Mrs. Grey were very ill, and they're ever so badly off."

"Dear, dear," said Grannie. "Badly off are they? They shouldn't be, with two big lasses and a lad away at a good place."

"Mother ses as he's bin left 'is place a long while, an' the girls ain't got no work."

"Well, well, maybe Elsa will go round and see them some time," replied Mrs. Knott.

"I don't know, Grannie," said Elsa that evening, when Mrs. Knott told her. "I don't think they'll care for my going to see them."

"If the girls don't, Mrs. Grey will. I would go myself if I could."

"But you cannot, Grannie. I will go, and if they don't want me I need not stay."

"You can always be sure of Elsa doing what you want her to," said Mr. Knott, as his granddaughter went out.

"Yes, she is one of those that's always willing," said his wife. "I don't wonder at her not caring to go there, though," she added, "for I've a pretty strong opinion that it were one of those girls that made mischief between her and Douglas Pyne."

"Aye, sure, you always said so."

"And always shall, until it is proved different. She has borne up bravely, but I believe our lass has a real cross to bear."

Meanwhile Elsa was trudging through the snow to the house in Brook Street where the Greys still lived. It was rather a long way, and she was feeling weary.

At last she reached the house, and the door was opened by Alice, who looked dreadfully untidy and downhearted.

"Why, Elsa, is it you? What a stranger you are. Come in. Mother is ill, and the place is all upset."

"Never mind the place," said Elsa. "It must be hard work to keep that straight when there is illness in the house."

"Why, it is never Elsa Knott!" cried the sick woman as they entered the room where she lay. "I thought everyone had forsaken us, child," and poor Mrs. Grey began to cry bitterly.

"I would have come before if I had thought you wanted me."

"I believe you would, lass, but I did not like to send, though I'd often a mind to. Aye, sit down, if you can find a place near what bit o' fire we've got. It is all the coal we have, Elsa," she whispered, as Alice went out of the room.

Elsa looked, as she felt, deeply pained. It was dreadful to find her old acquaintances in such a plight. When Alice came into the room again, Elsa asked her how long Mrs. Grey had been ill.

"She was ailing all the autumn, and since the cold set in she seems to have got a fresh chill, and can't throw it off. The truth is, Elsa, we have no money for food or firing, and I have no work either. We must just make up our minds to go to the workhouse. It is no use hiding it any longer."

"Why did you not let us know?" asked Elsa.

"Well, you could not be expected to help us, and of course we have kept it as quiet as we could. But now Mary is gone, mother and I must face it out somehow."

"Where is Mary?"

"That is more than I can tell you. She got sick of it at home, and so she went. To no good, you may be sure of that."

"Why don't you ask Miss Smith to give you some work?"

"I don't believe she would," replied Alice.

"I feel sure that she would," said Elsa. "I will ask her for you tomorrow, and let you know. Meantime you must let me lend you some money. I got paid tonight, so I can lend it you now. Go and buy some of the things you need, and I will stay with your mother till you come back."

"Elsa, you were always good. I think you are an angel."

"Don't talk rubbish, Alice. I am a tired angel, and I want to get home. So be quick, there's a good girl."

Alice ran off, and whilst she was gone Elsa had to listen to a sad tale from Mrs. Grey. Things had gone from bad to worse with them. Mary had run away; the son was gone, none knew where, but they fancied to America; and there was only Alice who stuck to their mother at all.

"She always were a better girl than Mary, you know, and she is the only one I have now," and the poor woman's tears fell fast.

Elsa felt very grieved to hear all this. She had known that the girls were careless and fond of dress, but she did not know to what lengths their foolishness had led them.

The next morning, when Elsa got to work, she had a long talk with Miss Smith, the result of which was that Alice was sent for and reinstated in her old situation, Mrs. Martin, the mother of little Agnes, undertaking to look after Mrs. Grey in her absence.

Alice seemed grateful to Elsa, and she really did her work well and pleased Miss Smith. She had lost her old impudence, and appeared heartily ashamed of the past misuse of her time. She was really fond of her mother, too, and waited on her most anxiously and lovingly when she was at home.

"What made you so ready to help us?" Alice asked Elsa one day.

"I cannot tell you, Alice, except that it seemed the only thing possible to do when you were in such trouble," Elsa replied gently.

"You are a strange girl," was all Alice remarked then; but often Elsa, on glancing up, would find Alice's dark eyes fixed on her face with a look of wonder.

"Why do you look so at me, Alice?" she asked at last.

"I was just wondering how you came to be so different from other girls," Alice replied,

"Am I different? How do you mean?"

"There's no other girl in the world who would have done so much for me and for my mother. We had no claim upon you. Not only that, but those belonging to us have injured you."

"I hope there are very many who would have helped you as much as I have, or even more. I have done very little, and it would have been wicked of me if I had not done all I could."

"Even after Mary treating you so?"

"I don't quite know what you mean. If you are thinking of Mary and Douglas Pyne, you know he was not engaged to me, and he had a right to choose Mary if he liked her best."

Alice laughed rather harshly. "Liked her best! Why, Elsa, he did not like her at all. But she told him lies about you until he believed her, and so he left you."

Elsa paled a little, but replied steadily, "If he could believe wrong of me, it was better that he should go. Unless people can really trust each other, there can be no true love. It is all over now, and we won't talk of it. I am not troubled. I have my work to do, and I am happy."

"Happy, Elsa? Working hard day after day with nothing to look forward to?"

"I have a great deal to look forward to, Alice. Whatever happens to me here, there is great joy in store."

"Oh yes, I suppose you mean in Heaven. I know you're religious, but I ain't. I don't believe in being any more miserable here than one can help. And if you set up for being good, there are heaps of things you mustn't do."

"Such as what?" asked Elsa.

"Oh, I don't know. Lots. But it puzzles me, Elsa, how you can be so happy."

"Oh, Alice, there is no happiness in the world, no true happiness, except by following Jesus and doing His will."

"Do you suppose it was His will that you should be good to us and help us so much, when we had treated you so, and we ain't religious?"

"I am quite sure it was," replied Elsa.

"Well, you are strange," returned Alice.

Chapter 10

Martha Garle

Martha Gargle's cottage was empty. No smoke curled out of the red chimney. Martha had gone, and everyone in the village missed her.

In spite of her plain face and gaunt form, everyone in Royden had loved and respected Martha, except, perhaps, one man, Samuel Brown, the village sexton. Samuel fancied that he owed Martha a grudge. It had all come about through Martha's intense love for the old pew, where the Garles had sat for so many years in the village church, and through Samuel's exaggerated idea of his own importance as an official connected with the church.

Once that pew had been filled by Martha and her family every Sunday morning, but at last there was only Martha left, and to her the spot was hallowed with memories and associations of the mother whom God had called away nearly twenty years before. So Martha sat on there, and allowed no stranger to enter.

As long as the church had been half-empty, it was easy to let Martha have her own way. But there came a day at last when it was thought that she should take a more humble position, and leave the front pew for some of the more wealthy folks whom the building of the great mills had brought to the place. But, rightly or wrongly, Martha refused to move, and the vicar upheld her in her decision, much to the anger of the sexton who at first spent many fruitless hours trying to show Martha how wrong she was.

"Never mind, Brown," said the vicar, who was a gentle, peace-loving man. "Never mind. Of course Martha must keep her old seat. I should be quite lost if I did not see her sitting there."

Brown gave a dissatisfied grunt, but after that he held his peace, although he cast many an angry glance at Martha as she walked to her accustomed place.

The vicar knew Martha's real worth, and that under her plain exterior she had a true, loving, womanly heart. But now the dear old vicar had gone home to God, and a new vicar had come who knew not Martha.

It happened that for some weeks after the arrival of the new vicar, Martha had been detained by the bedside of a poor old woman who had met with a bad accident. At last she found herself at home again, and free to go to church one Sunday morning just before Christmas.

She was in good time for service, and as she passed to her seat she heaved a sorrowful sigh, and a great tear dropped down upon her wrinkled hand -- a tribute to the loved memory of the vicar who had passed away from his flock.

When the new pastor ascended into his pulpit, he saw the strange, uncouth figure sitting right before him, and he wondered vaguely what such a strange-looking woman was doing in one of the best seats in the church.

The sermon that morning was scholarly and well thought out, but the preacher's careful deductions and gracefully-turned sentences were lost upon Martha. She sat with her strange eyes fixed upon the clergyman until he begun to feel uncomfortable, then he grew absolutely nervous, and he finished his sermon in a cold perspiration.

"I never saw such a weird-looking creature. She made me feel quite creepy," he said to himself as he took off his surplice. "She had the look of some hungry animal waiting for food," he added.

He was more nearly right than he thought, but it was for spiritual food the poor soul was hungering. That evening, the vicar, glancing into church from the door of his vestry, beheld Martha already seated in her place. "That strange woman is there again," he said. "I must have her moved. I really cannot go through another service under her gaze. She is quite uncanny."

Beckoning the sexton to come to him, the vicar determined to speak out. "Brown, who is that very peculiar woman who sits directly in front?"

"Yon's Martha Garle. She ought to know better than to sit there, but I reckon she's noan gradely reet in her head."

The vicar had only a hazy idea what the sexton's speech meant. He was new to that part of the country, and the dialect was to him a fearful and wonderful thing; but he came to the conclusion that the woman had no right there, and that it would be a simple thing to ask her to move into another seat.

"Well," he said slowly, "she is really so strange-looking that it quite distresses me. Speak to her gently but firmly, and ask her to sit further back."

Samuel grinned. Here was a good chance to annoy Martha and avenge his own fancied grievances. "I'll move her, sir, no fear," he answered.

"Be gentle with her," called out the vicar as Brown left the vestry.

But gentleness was a virtue almost unknown to the sexton. He went round and lit some of the lamps and performed several other duties, so that he did not get to Martha until service was just about to begin. Then he walked to the end of the pew in which she sat and called, "Come out!"

Martha looked at him gravely and shook her head.

"Come out, canna you?" he repeated

But she took no notice, and getting angry he went and took hold of her arm. "Come out, I say. The parson says so."

Martha turned and looked at him in wonder. "What for?" she demanded.

"'Cause you're ugly," he replied brutally.

"Well, even if I am ugly, I fear the Lord," she answered quietly.

"Aye, an' thou frightened the parson an' all," he chuckled maliciously.

For one brief second she looked at him incredulously. Then she rose and walked slowly past him out of the pew, down the aisle to a seat far back under the gallery where the light was dim. There she sat hunched in a corner all through the service and all through the sermon, seeing no one, hearing nothing except the cruel words, "You're ugly; thou frightened the parson."

It was an eloquent sermon that night, and the vicar took for his text: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me."

Martha did not hear a word of it, and when service was over she crept away home to her little cottage. Falling on her knees beside the old armchair in the corner, she wept long and bitterly. She had been turned out of the pew where she had sat for years, and which she had learned to love for old associations' sake, not because she was wicked, but because she was ugly. A long, long time she knelt there in the darkness and cold; but at length a little kitten, which out of pity Martha had taken in and cared for, crept up and nestled in her arms.

It seemed like a message from God, telling her that all love had not gone out of His world. "Poor, wee thing!" Martha said, stroking its soft fur gently and feeling comforted. "Poor, wee thing, tha' art hungry."

So she lit the lamp, and gave the little creature some milk which she had saved from her own tea. She sat watching the milk fast disappearing, and talked to herself as she sat. "I'm as He made me, and I must bear it. Happen God will make it up to me when I get yonder."

But when the next Sabbath came, Martha's place in church was vacant.

It was a week later, and Martha was just going to bed after a lonely day spent in her own cottage. She had sat with her fingers pressed in her ears, that she might not hear the sweet tones of the church bells as they rung out through the frosty air. She was startled by a loud knock at the door. It was Barbara Brown, the sexton's eldest daughter.

"Martha, will you come and see if you can do awt for our Johnnie? 'Ee's fearful bad, an' mother says 'ee's going, an' she wants you."

"Aye, lass, I'll come," replied Martha, taking down her shawl and throwing it over her head.

Little Johnnie Brown lay gasping for breath. His father and mother bent over him in an agony of helplessness.

"Oh, Martha, this is fearful! I'll lose my lad, my little lad!" cried the poor mother.

"Hush, lass, hush thee now. Cannot the poor lad breathe through yon tube as the doctor put in?" asked Martha.

"No, I reckon it's getten stopped up, but the feather doesn't clear it, an' the doctor has gone to Rochdale."

"I've heerd o' summat as might help," said Martha thoughtfully, her strange face softening with tender pity as she looked at the little sufferer.

"For goodness sake tell us what it is, and we'll do it!" exclaimed Brown.

Martha turned and looked at the sexton, a gleam of triumph in her dark eyes as she said, 'You cannot do it, but I can. And I will!" she added. "I see a nurse do it when I was in the hospital. Get me a bit o' thin muslin, Barbara."

Barbara brought the muslin, and Martha tore a strip off. Then she knelt down, and with the strip of muslin held loosely across her mouth, she put her lips to the tube in Johnnie's throat, and blew and sucked her breath to get the child's lungs working properly again. The effect was wonderful, in a moment the child was breathing easily.

"God bless thee, Martha! Tha's been an angel to me an' mine this day!" cried Samuel Brown, while the tears rolled down his face.

Little Johnnie was saved, but when the doctor heard what had been done he looked grave, and he called at Martha's cottage on his way home. "It was a mad thing to do, Martha," he said.

Martha looked puzzled. "The lad is better," she said simply.

"Yes, the boy is better, but you may have to pay for it yourself. A child might be able to fight off that severe infection, but not someone your age."

She shook her head. "It is all right," she replied. "I could not do anything else. God knew all about it when He sent me there."

The next day the vicar called. "I should like to shake hands with you," he said, "and thank you for the noble thing you did yesterday. Brown has been up to me this morning and told me about it, and also of your love for the old pew. Please sit there as usual in future."

Martha shook hands with the clergyman, but she could not find anything to say in reply. Only in her heart she felt that she could never again sit in the place from which she had been turned so roughly.

Later that day, Mrs. Mary Brown called to see Martha. "It will be Christmas Day on Friday," she said. "I had thought to have spent a miserable Christmas without my little lad, but you have saved him for me. You must come and spend your Christmas with us, Martha."

Martha smiled, and young Barbara, who was looking at her, thought how the smile altered the plain, hard face.

"It was God who spared the boy to you, Mary. He only used me. As for spending Christmas with you, I had better not promise, for I might be needed somewhere else."

She had only meant that she might be called to some sick person; but a week later her words were thought of with another meaning. She was needed somewhere else. God had other work for her, so He took her home to spend her Christmas yonder; and as they bent to catch the last words which fell from her lips, they heard: "We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."
Chapter 11

A Wanderer's Return

DARK winter had passed, and spring had come once more. The leaves were beginning to burst forth, and the pink almond blossom spoke of the glad time that was so soon to come. Mrs. Grey was better, and able to go about her work once more. She often called in at the cottage to talk with Mrs. Knott about Elsa's goodness, and the wonderful change that had taken place in Alice.

"It is all Elsa's doings," she said.

But Grannie shook her head. "Nay, it is the Lord's doing, neighbour. He has but used our lassie to do His will."

Grannie knew that the constant example of Elsa's firm trust in God, her self-sacrificing love, her gentleness, her longsuffering kindness, had had effect. Hers was a living testimony to the real, living Christ-life, and Alice's hard heart and unbelieving spirit had yielded at last.

"I am a believer now," she said to her mother one day. "If all Christian folks were like Elsa, there would not be so many folks think Christian faith a sham. Elsa is as true as steel, and as she says, she only tries to copy Him as lived on earth and died on the cross to save us poor sinners. It stands to reason it is the right thing to do, and we should all do well if we followed in the way Elsa does."

Through Elsa's loving guidance Alice was led by the Holy Spirit to give her heart to the Saviour, and taste for herself the happiness that comes to all who trust and serve Him. Elsa's life was full and complete in the measure of service possible, and she rejoiced as a King's Daughter.

Of Alice Grey's sister, Mary, no news had come, and the hearts of both her mother and sister longed for news of her, and yet dreaded what that news might be.

At Christmas there had come word that Aunt Sarah's husband, Ben Sharp, was dead; and that Aunt Sarah herself, feeling very lonely, thought of coming to Royden in the summer, to live near her aged father and mother.

"Poor Sarah!" said Grannie. "She will never be content in this small place, I doubt; but we shall see, we shall see."

Elsa had fond memories of Aunt Sara, who had sent her the order for one pound to buy a dress, but Aunt Sarah never came. She went where there would be plenty of room, for God called her. Elsa and her Uncle Joe were sent for, and were with the poor woman several days before she died

"I'm going fast, Elsa," she said; "I'll not be long after Ben, and maybe it is best. One feels rare and helpless with the other half on you gone. I don't think that I could ever have settled without him. But as it is I have no call to think of it. I'm going afore poor mother and father. I might have been a better daughter to them, Elsa. You must ask them to forgive me. I've no need to ask you to attend to them. You're a good lass, and I've not forgot you; and Joe, there, he has been a good son. But I've been selfish and grasping, and now it is all no good to me. Happen the bit I saved will make it easier for you. God bless you, my lass. I was rare and vexed that you wouldn't come to us that time, but you were right. They needed you, and it was selfish of me to want you. God forgive me, I was always selfish."

A day or two after she died, everyone was surprised, for besides having left Uncle Joe a nice little bit of money, she had left Elsa more than enough to keep her in comfort all her life.

"Well now," said Joe, "I didn't expect any, but it will help me on nicely and set me well on my feet. As for you, my lass," he exclaimed, turning to Elsa, "you deserve it, and if it was twice as much I would say the same. I am right glad Sarah had so much sense."

The old folks seemed to fail a bit after that, and Elsa was glad to be able to leave Miss Smith and devote herself to them. So Alice Grey was installed in Elsa's place in the busy workroom, while Elsa lived on with the old folks in their well-loved cottage. No regret for the past shadowed Elsa's life, only now and then Grannie would say: "Seems to me I should die happier if our lassie would not be left alone."

"Well, well, old lady, the call hasn't come yet, and the Lord will look after the lassie, you know," said old Mr. Knott.

One bright, breezy day, when the blossom in the little orchard behind the cottage fell like snow, and the scent of the hawthorn filled the air, there passed a woman up the village street. Travel-stained and weary she looked. She had a ragged shawl around her, and a bonnet which might once have been bright, but was now soiled and draggled. In her arms she carried a little child, which, small and puny as it was, seemed too heavy for the woman's strength.

Grannie was sitting near the open door with her knitting. As she saw the woman pass she called out to Elsa, "Elsa, who is that poor soul? My eyes are getting dim. She seems very tired. Is it one of our neighbours?"

"No, Grannie, I think she is a stranger," said Elsa, coming to the door, failing to recognise the woman as her old work-fellow who had caused her so much tribulation in past days.

Mary Grey -- for it was indeed her -- plodded on up the narrow, crooked roadway, shrinking from the curious gaze of people as she passed, until at length she reached the well-remembered Brook Street. All seemed much the same to her as when she left her mother and sister to do as they could, only anxious that she herself should find "better times."

When she reached the familiar garden gate she stopped in surprise, for there was indeed a change. Ah, those dainty curtained windows, that tidy garden, could not be her home. Alice and her mother must have left. She must ask the people if they knew where they had gone. Perhaps the workhouse. Then she and her child must go there too, but it was a long way up the hill, and she felt so tired.

She knocked timidly at the door, and it was opened by an old lady in a tidy gown and a clean apron. Why, it could never be her mother! Mrs. Grey's eyes were getting dim, like Grannie's, but as she opened the door and saw that figure with its weight of sorrow and weariness, she knew it was no other than her longed-for, prayed-for child.

"My girl! My girl! Come thy ways. Thy mother's waited for thee a long, long while."

So she drew her daughter, and her daughter's daughter into her home, into her love and her heart, and closed the door against all prying eyes and curious ears.

When Alice reached home that evening she found her mother with a new light in her eyes, a new joy in her face. "What is it, Mother?" she asked, as she hung up her hat and jacket.

"She's come, Alice! She's come! The Lord has brought her home."

"She? Who? Not Mary, Mother?"

"Who else, Alice? Who else have we longed and prayed for?"

"Where is she?" asked Alice.

"Upstairs, asleep. Nay, lass, you mustn't go up yet. Sit down and hear what I can tell you."

Alice sat down, while her mother unlocked a little red box on the bureau and took out a scrap of paper. "See here," she said. "These are her marriage lines. Mary has kept them safe, and now -- though she has come back heart-broken, poor, and forsaken, with her little child to be cared for at home -- she has come back an honest woman."

"Where is he?" asked Alice.

Her mother shook her head sadly. "He left her, my girl, when her baby was but a fortnight old. Left her sick and in want, and she has had no news of him. I think, Alice, she drove him off with reproaches, and bitterly the poor lass has suffered."

"Let me go to her, Mother."

"Well, then, go quietly. She is worn out. Don't waken her, be sure."

Together they crept softly up the creaking stairs, and Alice stood gazing at her sleeping sister. Tired, worn, and ill she looked. Her face almost as small and pinched as that of the little one which lay sleeping on her arm.

As Alice stood there, the tears welled up in her eyes, and she turned away, pulling her mother with her. "She has come at last, Mother. Never mind the past. Please God, she will get well and strong now she is here at home."

Chapter 12

Miss Cynthy's Adventure

Away in smoky Manchester, Miss Cynthia had difficulty in believing that spring was once more here, and the dark winter days were only memories. She missed her pretty cottage and all her accustomed surroundings. In Royden there was always something to be done for someone, but in the great city the little lady felt timid, and although she longed to help and comfort many of the wretched people whom she saw all around, she had not yet mustered up courage enough to go in and out amongst them.

Rhoda, who had accompanied her mistress to her new home, had a firm conviction that "no good thing could come out of Manchester," and hourly bemoaned the folly that had brought them to such a bad place.

Although Douglas laughed at Rhoda's fears and fancies, he was troubled to find that his aunt could not reconcile herself to life under the present conditions. It was not that she ever complained, but she lost much of her old bright manner, and seemed more often lost in thought -- too often sad thought -- for now and then he would catch sight of a tear which would be quickly brushed away. All this strengthened his determination to get her to return to Royden as soon as possible.

His father was a changed man. Long and bitterly had Bertram Pyne mourned over his past wasted life. At first it seemed that there could be no hope for such a sinner; but gradually, through the grace of God, he sought for and found pardon and hope in Christ Jesus. Valiantly he began the new life, and bravely he walked therein. Truly he was as a brand plucked from the burning.

"The old lady is fretting for the sight of old faces and her own home again," he said one day to his son.

"I know it, Father, but I cannot tell how to manage it for her. She would not go back without us, and we cannot go yet. In fact, if she could be happy without me, and the firm would let me off, I would rather never go back to Royden at all."

For a moment Bertram Pyne looked at his son in astonishment. Then a light seemed to break over him, and when next he spoke his voice was weak and husky. "Of course, lad, I know, but don't you fear. I'll not go back to bring disgrace upon you. I have done enough of that, God forgive me. No, no, I'll stay here."

It was now Douglas's turn to look astonished. "Father, how could you think that I meant that? Surely you must know that I would never leave you. Your home is with me, and where I go you must come too. It was no thought of you that made me shrink from going back to the old place. Never think that again."

"Well, well, you're a good son to me, far better than I have any right to expect; but after all, I should like to see the old lady look up a bit."

"She misses her poor people. There is nothing for her to do but listen to Rhoda's grumbling."

"Well, if it is poor people to help that the old lady is hankering after, I reckon we can soon oblige her. What do you say, lad, if I hunt a few up?"

"The very thing, Father. I don't suppose you will have far to look."

He was right. There was no need for much looking, and very shortly Miss Cynthia was full of plans for helping the poor folks that Bertram was always bringing to her. Even Rhoda was constrained to cease grumbling when she saw how helping others caused her mistress's own face to brighten and her step grow lighter. If ever Miss Cynthia was a little dull or low, Mr. Pyne was sure to bring back some new distressing case!

One morning Rhoda got a letter from her mother, written with much difficulty and it was not easy to understand. The old woman was nearly fourscore years, and everyone was sad. It was the first news they had had from Royden since Christmas, and it told of the death of Martha Garle.

Miss Cynthia's tears fell fast, for she had loved the old woman, and she would fain have seen her once more. Douglas, too, mourned the loss of his aunt's old friend, whilst Rhoda did not hesitate to say that it was another of the consequences of their coming away from their native village.

"It is a puzzle to me what folks can expect but sorrow when they run away from th' place wheer they were put. If ever I live to get back to Royden, wild 'orses shanna drag me out of the place agen," she said tearfully.

It was not wild horses that had drawn poor Rhoda from her native place, but love to her gentle mistress. Altogether, the little house was in a state of woe, and Bertram began to wonder what he could do to relieve it. As he was returning to the mill after their midday meal, he encountered the most perfect specimen of a tramp.

"Here's comfort for the old lady!" he exclaimed to himself. "You seem in a bad way," he remarked to the man himself, and in truth the poor fellow did. Ragged and shoeless, with unwashed face and a shock of tangled hair.

"Aye, master, I'm in a bad way. An' what's more, I've bin in a bad way for many a long day."

"If you will come with me I can get you a meal."

The tramp looked up suspiciously. "I ain't begging, master," he answered, rather surlily.

"No, if you were I shouldn't bother with you. Come with me, and I'll take you to the kindest-hearted woman in the world. She will give you some food, and maybe find you a pair of shoes. Only be quick, or I shall be late to my work."

No further invitation was necessary. The ragged man got up and followed Bertram Pyne back into Rhoda's clean kitchen.

"Here is a poor fellow in a dreadful condition, Cynthia. He's about the hungriest, most ragged object I ever saw," said Bertram quietly, putting his head into Miss Cynthia's little sitting room.

Presently the poor man was sitting at the table, enjoying the first real meal he had tasted for weeks, whilst Miss Cynthia was away upstairs hunting out some clothes. Rhoda had been on the point of going out on an errand, but when she saw that Mr. Pyne was going back to the mill, and leaving that dreadful-looking man there in that spotless kitchen, she waited, looking on in grim disapproval.

When Miss Cynthia came downstairs again she was rather surprised to see Rhoda still there. "You may go your errand, Rhoda," she said gently.

"Thank you, Miss Cynthy, but I got a touch of the cramp, so I'll just wait a bit."

And wait Rhoda did until the tramp, having finished his repast and gratefully accepted the clothes, had gone.

"I'll go now, Miss Cynthy, but I warn't agoing an' leaving yon man here to rob us all! '

Miss Cynthia shook her head. "Poor man, because he is unfortunate he need not be dishonest," she replied; but Rhoda, with an unbelieving sniff, went off, and Miss Cynthia sat down with her knitting, not to fret now, but to wonder about the poor man. Would he find work and be able at last to find his wife and child he half-remembered living somewhere in the country, and be happy again? A long time she sat there in silence until something -- she wondered afterwards what -- caused her to look across the room to the old oak bureau which stood in the corner.

Then she gave a great start. Something was missing! The cashbox which always stood there, and in which Douglas kept all his money, was gone.

She rushed frantically about the house trying to find it, but it was nowhere to be seen. Douglas had left it there at noon, for she remembered seeing him put some money into it.

It had gone.

All hope of finding it died out as she realized that the tramp must have taken it. Only one thought possessed her then. She must follow that wicked man and compel him to return it. She snatched up a shawl and ran out into the street. She remembered the man had told her that he was going on to the Ardwick Road, and she inquired the way there from the first person she met. The woman stared at her a little as she gave the required directions. It was a strange thing to see an old lady with a shawl over her head in that locality, so she watched for a moment as Miss Cynthia ran on.

Poor Miss Cynthia was well nigh frantic, and she rushed on and on, panting for breath, but never stopping until at last a sharp pain came in her side, and her foot catching in a stone she fell heavily to the ground. There were a good many people about, and a stout, motherly woman bent over her.

"Poor soul, she's hurt her foot. Why," as the shawl fell off, and Miss Cynthia's dainty lace cap and silver hair appeared, "it's an old lady, an' 'er running like yon!"

Miss Cynthia was past speaking; the pain in her foot had made her faint.

"What's to do?" exclaimed a voice, and a man pushed his way through the crowd. "Why, that's the lady as give me these clothes and a good feed this morning!"

"Do you know where she lives?" asked a policeman who had come up.

"I do that," answered the man.

"Well, we'd best 'ave a cab an' take 'er 'ome. You can come on the box an' show us the 'ouse."

They lifted the poor lady into a cab, and the stout woman and the policeman got in after her; whilst the tramp whom she had come to seek sat with the cabman and told him which way to drive.

Meantime Douglas and his father had come home for their tea, and both they and Rhoda were in a state of great anxiety and wonder concerning Miss Cynthia's unexpected absence.

The stout woman and the policeman carried her in and laid her gently on the couch, Rhoda and the woman busying themselves about her, whilst Bertram ran off for a doctor and the policeman and the tramp explained how and where they had found the poor lady.

But it was not until Miss Cynthia's consciousness had returned that the real truth came to light. The policeman had gone then, but the motherly woman and the poor tramp still lingered for news of the little lady.

"Oh, Douglas! Douglas!" she exclaimed, on seeing her nephew standing beside her couch.

"What is it, Auntie?" he asked, bending anxiously over her.

"My poor boy, that dreadful man. He must have taken your cashbox!"

"Why, Auntie, you are dreaming. My cashbox is in its place and all right, for I had been looking in it for some change just before they brought you home."

"Aye," interposed Rhoda, "it is all right, but happen it wouldn't 'a bin if it 'adn't a bin for me. When I see the sort o' character that Mr. Pyne brought in, I ses to myself, 'You take precautions, Rhoda, for Miss Cynthy suspects no one.' So I took an' put th' cashbox in th' meal tub, an' there it were safe an' sound when I came in. But Miss Cynthy were gone, an' I couldn't make out where."

Miss Cynthia laughed a little, then she burst into tears. "What a wicked woman I am!" she cried. "I thought that poor man had taken it, and I ran after him."

"Hush, Auntie, it is over now. It was very stupid of Rhoda, but she meant it for the best. The man is waiting in the kitchen to see how you are. We will try and find some way of helping him."

But Miss Cynthia would not be persuaded to rest until she had seen the tramp and told him what a mistake she had made. He flushed a dusky red, and his voice sounded hard and gruff as he answered. "I reckon it were only natural, but I wouldn't a' done a dirty trick, nohow. I've bin 'ard put to it many a time, but I've never stole yet, an' I'm not likely to start by taking from them as 'as bin kind to me. Don't you take on, missus. It don't matter what you thought o' me. I'm glad you're better, an' th' box is all right, you say?"

Douglas went out into the kitchen, and had a long talk with the man, and at last it was arranged that he should go to work in the mill, and the stout woman agreed to take him into her house as a lodger for a time, after he had made himself clean and decent.

"And so, Auntie," said Douglas, "you are the only sufferer. All the rest of us have gained by your adventure, even Rhoda, who will learn not to suspect people just because they are poor and ragged."

"All the same," said Rhoda, "they ought to be thankful I did take care of the box, for he might have taken it!"

Chapter 13

The Reason Why

The days had grown hot and sultry. Spring had long since passed away, and summer was at its height. The whole country was parched and crying aloud for rain. The trees and hedgerows were white with dust which rose in great clouds from the road after the wheels of every passing vehicle.

Only in the black and red tiled kitchen of the little cottage it seemed cool and pleasant. Even the white dust did not penetrate there, and although one could hear the bees humming merrily outside amongst the honeysuckle, they kept in the sunshine and left the kitchen for those who preferred the shade.

A large, old-fashioned bowl full of roses stood on the small round table, and their fragrance filled the air.

Mr. Knott, tired with his daily walk, was resting peacefully in his high-backed chair, while Grannie's knitting pins clicked ceaselessly to and fro. Elsa was there too, sitting close by Grannie She had some sewing in her hands, but just then she was not working.

Presently Grannie looked at her over her spectacles. "What ails you, Elsa? It is not like you to sit idle."

"I have finished this, Grannie, and I was just thinking about poor Mary Grey."

"Poor Mary Dukes you mean, child. Give her her married name, for the child's sake. Aye, poor lass, how is she?"

"No better, Agnes says. She seems to be just pining away, but Agnes says the baby grows finely."

"You have not seen her yet, Elsa?"

"No, Grannie, she will not see me, and I do not want to distress her. I wish I could help her in some way."

Just then Grandad awoke, and asked if it was nearly teatime.

"Aye, we'll have it, master. It is thirsty weather. Has Agnes got the kettle on, Elsa?"

Elsa went out into the back kitchen. While she was gone the garden gate swung open and old Mrs. Grey came slowly down the path.

"Dear heart, neighbour, whatever brings you out such a day as this?" exclaimed Grannie when she recognised her visitor. "Come in out of the sun and sit down."

"Oh my, how nice and cool you are in here!" said Mrs. Grey, sitting down upon the chair that stood nearest to her. "I am almost melted, but nothing would suit that poor lass of mine but me to come and see if Elsa would come and see her."

"You should have sent word by Agnes," said Elsa, who had come in with the tea tray in her hands. "I would have come."

"She wouldn't let me, dear," returned Mrs. Grey "'No, no, mother, don't send Agnes. You go and beg her to come.' That's how she's been going on all the day."

"Of course I will go and see her. I have wanted to before, but she did not care about seeing me."

"No," answered Mrs. Grey sadly, "She is overwhelmed with shame."

Grannie would not hear of their going until after tea, and Mrs. Grey was so tired and overdone with her hot, dusty walk that she was glad of the rest in the cool kitchen.

"Does Mary get any better?" asked Grannie.

"No, she's no better," answered the poor mother "She neglected herself, and had no strength left to bear up against illness and starvation. Now she is at home she just lies there quiet, wearing away. Nothing seems to rouse her, until today she woke up suddenly and said she must see Elsa."

After tea they set off, Elsa giving Mrs. Grey her arm to lean upon, thus making the return journey easier for the old lady who was getting rather feeble.

"Elsa, you will not be hard upon my poor girl?" she asked wistfully, pausing before opening the door.

"You may trust me, Mrs. Grey," said Elsa gently.

It was a shock to Elsa when she saw the alteration in Mary.

"So you've come, Elsa?" Mary said, as Elsa went up to her bedside. "I am a poor object to look at. Yes, this is my baby," as Elsa stooped and kissed the tiny morsel.

"I would have come before, Mary; but...."

"Yes, yes, I know, I wouldn't have you. Well, perhaps you will wish that you had not come today. And still more likely, I shall wish I had not sent for you. But I have something to tell you, and maybe when I have told you I shall feel easier in my mind. But, Elsa, promise me one thing. When I am gone, don't let it make any difference to mother and Alice. Don't you be hard on them because of my badness to you. They have told me how good you have been to them, and how seeing your ways has altered theirs, but I think if you had known how I had behaved to you, you would have let them go to the workhouse. You would never have helped them."

"Mary, don't distress yourself, dear. Perhaps I can guess what it is that you want to tell me. It was you who told Douglas Pyne that there was someone else whom I cared for, and so led him away from me."

Mary looked at Elsa with wide-open eyes. "How did you know?" she asked.

"I guessed partly."

"Ah, but you do not know what I told him. Listen. I told him you were engaged to my brother Ted, and that it was a secret, but you had asked me to tell him so as to prevent any fuss. I thought I could win him for myself, but he cared too much for you, Elsa, and it was no use. But I felt glad to have made you unhappy, and I was easily consoled when I met Fred Dukes. And now this is what I've come to. I suppose it is no use asking you to forgive me, Elsa; but I am really sorry to have harmed you."

"I forgave you long ago, Mary, and I only want you to say no more about it. Let us forget it."

"Do you mean it, Elsa? But you cared for him."

"Yes, I did, but I learned that love and marriage are not the only things for a girl to live for. If it was God's will that Douglas and I should be separated, I knew it must be for the best."

Mary's reply was what Alice's had often been. "You are a strange girl, Elsa."

Elsa would say no more on that subject, but asked about the baby, admired its blue eyes, and told Mary to make haste and get strong.

Mary shook her head. "I think I am most done," she said.

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Elsa brightly. "You must be quick and get strong, and help Alice take care of your mother and baby."

"I should like to," said Mary wistfully, "if it is only to show mother and Alice how grateful I am to them for taking me in when I was helpless, after I had left them to struggle along as they could."

"Perhaps if you ask God, He will grant you that great joy," said Elsa reverently.

"Do you believe He would hear the prayer of a bad person like me?"

"I am sure He will, if you really want to do right," replied Elsa.

"Will you help me to be good, like you always were, and like Alice and mother are now?"

"I will help you all I can, Mary; but first you must ask God to forgive you for Christ's sake, and He will help you."

"Pray for me too, Elsa!" said Mary.

"I will. I do, Mary, very often."

As Elsa left the cottage she met Alice returning from work.

"Elsa, have you been to see Mary?"

"Yes, Alice, she sent for me."

"At last! Ah, Elsa, she has wanted to tell you all for a long time, but she could never bring herself to do it. I could see that, though I said nothing. I do hope she will rest more contentedly now, for I know you have been kind to her."

Elsa smiled. "Go to her, Alice," she replied softly. "Help her all you can, and lead her to Jesus who will help her better than anyone else can do."

When Elsa got back she found Uncle Joe and his wife at the cottage, and they greeted her kindly when she entered, for they all loved Elsa.

"So you've been up seeing yon poor girl?" said her aunt. "How did you find her, Elsa?"

"She seemed weak and ill, Aunt Jane, as though she had no heart to rouse herself at all."

"Poor thing. I reckon some of our milk and new laid eggs from Uncle Joe's new farm would do her good. I will send Bessie up with some in the morning."

"Aye, do, missus," said Uncle Joe. "They have a job to make ends meet, no doubt. I wonder where her scamp of a husband is, and the brother too? I should like to have the horsewhipping of 'em both."

"I am just telling Mother that she looks better, Elsa. She is getting quite fat."

"It is Grannie's contented mind, Aunt Jane," said Elsa, laughing.

"Aye, surely, a contented mind is a continual feast," said Grandad.

"I am not the only one that has a contented mind," said Grannie. "I don't fancy there are many folks more contented than our lassie here, though she does have to live with two old folks."

"With those she loves best in the whole world, Grannie," put in Elsa.

"Aye, she is a good lass," said Uncle Joe. "By the way, Elsa," he added, "Douglas Pyne is coming back to Royden to open yon new mill there has been so much talk on."

"Is he? Well, I hope he'll get on."

"He is the right sort, by all accounts; but I've a bit of a grudge against him," answered her uncle.

"You shouldn't bear any grudge, Joe," said his mother.

"Nay, Mother, you're not best pleased with him yourself, I know."

"I wasn't at one time, I'll admit, but I'm thinking it wasn't his fault after all."

Elsa gave her grandmother a grateful look, and then to her great relief the subject was changed.

After this Elsa often went to see Mary Dukes, and presently the poor woman began to mend. Hope seemed to beam in her face as she looked at her little daughter, as though it was a joy, and not, as formerly, a source of sorrow and trouble.

"If I live," she said to Elsa one day, "I will teach the little one to love Jesus. And if I don't live, mother and Alice will teach her for me."

The White House was tenanted by strangers, and Elsa never cared to walk in that direction. There were too many sad associations connected with the place. But as regularly as Elsa used to go and see Hilary when she was alive, just so regularly did she go to the little graveyard and lay fresh flowers on that grave. Sometimes she would find other flowers there, and then she knew that Douglas had been there too, and the love for that departed spirit seemed a link between them, separated though they were.

One afternoon Elsa had been to that little graveyard, and had hastened home to tea feeling hot and tired, when she heard in the cottage the sound of a voice she new. It was Miss Cynthia. Genuinely pleased, Elsa hurried forwards. "Miss Cynthia! I am glad!"

Miss Cynthia looked pleased with the girl's evident delight. "You see, dear," she said, after the first greetings were over, "I thought I would come and have a look at you. Douglas brought me over to see our new house at the mill. It is all very nice and pretty, but I fear I shall never like it quite as well as my old home at the White House."

"When do you come for good, Miss Cynthia?" asked Elsa.

"Next week, child, if Rhoda can get everything ready for me. She has Ellen, and Mrs. Martin must come and help her, so I think we shall be all straight very soon. Douglas is in the village, I think. Perhaps he will call in, but I must not stay now. I want to go and see the Greys."

Elsa could not help wondering whether Douglas would come, and how she should meet him. However, the days passed on, and he never came, so she begun to think she need not have troubled about meeting him again.

As the weather grew colder, Mary Dukes grew stronger, and at last she was able to go about the house and help her mother, much to the delight of them all. No news came from either the absent husband or Mrs. Grey's son, and Mary gave up all hope of seeing Fred Dukes again.

"There is one thing I mean to do, Alice, if I possibly can," Mary said.

"What is that, dear?" asked Alice, taking the baby, of whom she had grown very fond, from her sister.

"Make things right between Douglas and Elsa."

Alice flushed with pleasure. "Oh, Mary!" she cried. "If only we could."

"I mean to try, anyway. You must manage to see him, Alice, and tell him to come here and speak to me."

But the baby had several bad attacks of croup, and they were all so distressed about her that for some weeks even their cherished scheme of atoning to Elsa was put on one side. At last the child recovered, and then they once more begun to think of Elsa and Douglas.

One evening Alice came in from work looking excited and pleased. Mary put down her needlework -- for Miss Smith had kindly allowed her to work for her at home -- and asked, "What is it, Alice? You have something to tell me."

"I have seen him, Mary."

"Him? Who? Not Fred, surely not!"

"Fred? No, my poor girl, how stupid of me to frighten you like this. I meant Douglas Pyne."

"Did you speak to him?"

"Yes, dear, and he will come in tomorrow. He had to hurry off to Stockport, or he would have come tonight."

"How shall I tell him, Alice?" asked Mary. "I shall be afraid."

"Nay, Mary, you'll not be afraid. You will know that you are doing right, and that will help you."

"You will stay in and see him too, Alice?"

"To be sure I will, and I will get Mrs. Martin to take Mother across to her cottage for a bit, for I am sure it would upset her."

"Yes, maybe that would be the best. Baby is sure to be asleep, so there'll be no need to send her out of the house. I'll be content when I've told him, and done my best to put matters right."

As Douglas walked home that night he could not help wondering what Mary Dukes could want to see him about so particularly, but no inkling of the truth entered his thoughts.

He had not seen Elsa since his return to Royden. He had purposely kept away from the cottage, for he knew that he could never be anything more than a friend. As he still believed her to be promised to another, he thought it right to keep out of her way as much as possible. He had tried to escape returning to Royden, but the firm had made such a point of it he could not refuse.

The following day was wet. The rain came down heavily and incessantly, until it dripped from the leaves and ran in little rivulets off the gables of the old-fashioned houses, making miniature streams and lakes upon the well-soaked roads.

Douglas Pyne remembered his appointment, and punctually at half-past seven he turned into the gate of the Greys' cottage.

It had been too wet to send Mrs. Grey across to Mrs. Martin, but that kindly woman had undertaken to come and sit with the old lady in the little kitchen at the back. With this arrangement Mrs. Grey was more than content. To sit and chatter about the child, or to the child, was a real joy to her motherly heart. So when Douglas came there was no one but Alice and Mary in the parlour.

Douglas was shocked at the terrible change in the once pretty Mary Grey. He almost showed his surprise when he greeted her gently, and kindly told her that he hoped he could be of some use to her.

She half smiled, and shook her head. "You will be very angry with me, I am afraid," she said, "but remember, you have promised to help me if you can. I only ask you to forgive me as kindly and as generously as Elsa has done, whom I injured even more than you."

Douglas took the seat they gave him, and listened quietly to what Mary had to say. Only once he half started up, but he sat down again and listened on.

When at last Mary ceased speaking, there was a silence, only broken by the ticking of the clock in the corner, and the women in the other room cooing to the baby, who, contrary to her mother's expectations, was not asleep.

"Have you told me all?" he asked quietly, at last.

"All," she replied, "excepting that we have told Elsa this long ago."

"She ... Elsa ... knows then?" he asked.

"Everything," replied Alice, who, seeing how white and weary Mary looked, had come to her side.

"I don't know," he said slowly, "why you did this cruel thing; but since she knows, and has forgiven you, of course I will do the same, and ... and I thank you for telling me the truth at last. I will go now. I want to think about it. Goodbye." He shook hands with each of them in turn.

"False!" muttered Douglas to himself as he left the cottage, and went blindly out into the rain. "All that tale Mary told me was false! And I went away with my heart aching, and wondered at the look in Elsa's eyes. I might have known her better, truly. She has forgiven them; I wonder if she will forgive me. What can she have thought of me all that long time? Fool that I was to think that sweet, tender-hearted Elsa would ever stoop to do anything secretly, or even ask others to explain things for her. I might have known, I might have known."

With these and many other thoughts crowding in upon him, he strode on through the rain, perturbed in manner, but far more perturbed in spirit.

After a time brighter thoughts came to him. He remembered that for some time Elsa had known how he had been deceived, and had doubtless learned to look upon him as one who had suffered from the treachery of others. Perhaps after all she would forgive him, and all would be well. They would begin life afresh together.
Chapter 14

(Last Chapter)

The Ending of the Story

AFTER Mary Dukes had confessed the wrong she had done to Elsa Knott and Douglas Pyne, her heart felt much lighter, for she knew that she had done her best towards atoning for and remedying the mischief.

She grew stronger every day, and although her heart was often sad when she thought of her absent husband, she was not unhappy. She helped her mother and sister in all their duties, and found plenty to do in that way, and in caring for and training her little child.

Douglas thought a good deal about the poor woman who had done him so cruel a wrong, but he was no longer angry. He only pitied her, because in her mad wilfulness she had wrecked her own life.

"Aunt Cynthia," he said one day, "has it ever struck you that the man who didn't steal the cashbox and Mary Dukes' husband may be one and the same?"

Miss Cynthia looked up a little startled. "Never. Douglas, it isn't possible!"

"Why not? Mary's husband disappeared, and Dukes himself told you that he thought he had a wife and child somewhere in the country, but since he had that attack of brain fever he could never remember the name of the place she would be sure to go to -- the place where her mother lived."

"Douglas, suppose it should be so?"

"Well, then there will be more good come out of your adventure," replied Douglas. "But seriously, Auntie, I feel sure it could be so. His name is Dukes, although that it a common enough name here. I do not know his first name. He is only known as Dukes. He says he has forgotten it, along with a good many other things after his brain fever. As there will be a vacancy in the works next week, I intend asking them to send him here."

Miss Cynthia looked thoughtful. "I suppose it would be kind," she said slowly. "I mean, that they wish to find each other," she added.

"I am sure that Dukes wants to find his wife," replied Douglas. "Cannot you find out, Auntie, whether she also wants to see him?"

A day or two later Miss Cynthia sought her nephew in his little office. "Send for Dukes, Douglas. God grant it may be all right, and that poor girl find her husband."

"Mrs. Grey, have you a room to let now?" asked Douglas, meeting the old lady in the village street that afternoon.

"Yes, sir; but there seems no chance of letting it. I wish we could."

"Well, we have a workman coming down on Saturday, a steady, respectable man. I'll take it for him, if you will let me have it on the same terms I paid you once before."

Mrs. Grey's face lit up with gratitude. "He won't mind the little one, I hope, sir?" she asked anxiously.

"Not he," replied Douglas, hurrying on.

The Greys were all delighted with the prospect of having a lodger. True, he would make more work, but it would be a good help to have his money regularly, particularly as Douglas Pyne had declared him to be steady and respectable.

Saturday came quickly, and Miss Cynthia waited at home in a state of trembling excitement, whilst Douglas took his new workman round to the lodgings he had found for him.

Mrs. Grey and Alice had gone down the village, leaving Mary at home to take care of her child and wait for their lodger.

Tapping gently at the door, Douglas did not wait for an answer, but turned the handle and went in. "I have brought your new lodger, Mary," he said, motioning Dukes to enter.

Mary started up, but her gaze travelled past Douglas and rested upon the stranger behind him. "Fred!" She exclaimed. "Oh, Fred!"

Douglas did not wait to hear any more, but hurried away. At the end of the street he met Mrs. Grey and Alice, to whom he told the wonderful news, explaining that loss of memory through illness had prevented Fred finding his wife before. "He never meant to desert her, but he had met with an accident which occasioned brain fever; and when he recovered he could never remember the name of the place where he left his wife nor where her mother lived."

"Eh, Mr. Douglas, you've been a rare friend to me and mine! God has been very good to me, in sending such kind friends as you and Elsa Knott. And oh, sir, I must tell you I had a letter from my boy this morning. He is doing well in New York. He sent us some money, and he says he will send some every month," and Mrs. Grey's eyes filled with grateful tears.

"Why, all the good news is coming at once! I am glad for you, Mrs. Grey. I think you will find Fred Dukes a help and comfort to you. We are very pleased with him as a workman, although of course we didn't connect his name with Mary's husband. As I said to Aunt Cynthia, Dukes is a common enough name around here. And he never told us his first name was Frederick."

Later in the evening, Fred Dukes came to thank Miss Cynthia and her nephew. "I had given up hope of seeing my poor girl ever again," he said. "Now, please God, I'll show her that I can work for her an' our little 'un like a man."

All Royden wondered, and all Royden exclaimed, but all Royden rejoiced in the prosperity of the Greys, and none more sincerely than Elsa and her grandparents.

"How pleased Martha Garle would have been, Grannie!" exclaimed Elsa.

"Aye, lassie, Martha was always ready to rejoice in other folk's happiness," said Mrs. Knott.

"It has all come through Miss Cynthia going to Manchester, and being kind to that man when he was poor and in trouble."

"Nay, lassie, if you begin to say what it has all come through, you will never have done. It is the wisdom and love of God which has ordered all things, turning what we thought wrong and grievous into good and right. The mistake is when we try to plan out our own lives, instead of doing our present duty and trusting His love for the rest."

"Aye, we are but poor, short-sighted mortals, the best of us, for ever fancying that someone else's lot and duty would suit us better than our own," said Grandad.

Elsa sat quiet for a little while. She was wondering whether she had sometimes longed for things to be a little different. She fancied she had, and felt a little guilty under Grannie's keen glance. But Grannie knew that Elsa had done her duty bravely and well, and the old people were proud of their beloved child.

One evening, late in the autumn when the evenings had begun to grow dark and chilly, Elsa was returning from Colworth after spending a long day with Lizzie Bruce, when she met Douglas Pyne.

He had been several times to the cottage, but Elsa had always happened to be out, and he had been obliged to content himself by talking to the old people.

This evening, however, they met face to face, and there was no escape possible.

"Elsa! At last! I have wanted so to see you. I began to think that I never should do so."

"No, I have always been out when you called. I expect you must think me a great runagate."

"You have been over to Colworth?" he asked.

"Yes, I have been over to see Mrs. Bruce. You remember Lizzie Jones?"

"I remember. So she's Lizzie Bruce now, is she? Are you going home, Elsa? May I walk home with you? It is a long time since we met," said Douglas, after a pause. Then he stopped again, feeling that he had not made a very brilliant remark.

"Yes, it is a long time," agreed Elsa. "A great deal has happened since then."

"You have not altered much, Elsa."

"No? Oh, but I have grown much older, more staid, and I hope Grannie would say more sensible."

"Have you seen Mary Dukes lately?"

"Yes, I often see her. She has altered wonderfully, and she is so happy. Was it not a wonderful thing that she should find her husband again after all? It is beautiful to see them all living so happily together."

"Yes, I am glad she is happy once more. But, Elsa, she sent for me one day to tell me an extraordinary story. She told me how she had deceived me. Can you ever forgive me, Elsa, for believing the tale she told me long ago, before my sister Hilary died?"

"Forgive you? Why, there is nothing to forgive you, Douglas."

"Yes there is. I went away foolishly, without waiting to explain. I might have explained, you know," he repeated.

Elsa gave a little sigh. "There is always so much that one 'might have done,' only somehow one never thinks of it until the time is past, and it is too late," she said.

"Not too late, Elsa. Do not say that it is too late."

"Of course, if you had explained, it would have been all right. It is all right now. Mary has told you that she spoke falsely, and so we can be friends again, for Hilary's sake."

"You will forgive me, Elsa? I cannot think how I came to believe her."

"Of course I forgive you -- if there is anything to forgive."

"I want more than that, Elsa," and his voice grew husky. "I want you for my own dear wife. Say that you will try to care for me, dear."

She looked up at him and smiled. "It is no use my trying," she said, "for I care now, Douglas."

Through the deepening shadows they walked homewards, and Grannie who saw them coming up the garden path with something more than the light of the setting sun in their faces, turned to Grandad, and said joyfully, "It is all right. Our lass will not be left alone when it shall please the Lord to take us home."

And then, as Mr. Knott looked up and saw them enter the doorway together, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: the Lord lift upon thee the light of His countenance, and give thee peace."

When the springtime came again, and the scent of the hawthorn was wafted on every breeze, there was a pretty wedding in the ivy-covered church; and as the merry bells rang out over hill and dale, the gladness of their melody echoed in many hearts.

Elsa and Douglas had begged Mr. and Mrs. Knott to leave the cottage and come to the Mill House, and after a great deal of persuasion they had consented. It was large enough to hold them all, and so the joy of the day was not shadowed by coming separation. After their brief honeymoon, the young folks were to come back and find the old folks settled in their part of the house, with Agnes to wait on them.

Of course Aunt Cynthia and old Mr. Pyne were to stay with the young folks. "You will not mind Aunt Cynthia and my father, Elsa?" Douglas had said.

"They are your loved ones and mine," she answered simply.

The church was crowded, and when Grannie saw the golden sunlight shining down upon her "lassie," making the shimmering gown she wore a gleaming light, her old lips repeated tremblingly the texts she loved to think of in connection with Elsa:

"Kings' daughters were among thy honourable women: upon thy right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir. ... The King's daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold.

(Psalm 45:9 and 45:13).

THE END

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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!

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Christian non-fiction

Christian Fiction

Younger Readers

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Christian Non-fiction

Four short books of help in the Christian life:

So, What Is a Christian? An introduction to a personal faith. Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9927642-2-7, eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-2-6

Starting Out \-- help for new Christians of all ages. Paperback ISBN 978-1-4839-622-0-7, eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-0-2

Help! \-- Explores some problems we can encounter with our faith. Paperback ISBN 978-0-9927642-2-7, eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-1-9

Running Through the Bible \-- a simple understanding of what's in the Bible \-- Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9927642-6-5, eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-3-3

Be Still

Bible Words of Peace and Comfort

There may come a time in our lives when we want to concentrate on God's many promises of peace and comfort. The Bible readings in this book are for people who need to know what it means to be held securely in the Lord's loving arms.

Rather than selecting single verses here and there, each reading in this book is a run of several verses. This gives a much better picture of the whole passage in which a favourite verse may be found.

As well as being for personal use, these readings are intended for sharing with anyone in special need, to help them draw comfort from the reading and prayer for that date. Bible reading and prayer are the two most important ways of getting to know and trust Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.

The reference to the verses for the day are given, for you to look up and read in your preferred Bible translation.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-4-0

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9932760-7-1

116 pages 5x7.8 inches

A Previously Unpublished Book

The Simplicity of the Incarnation

J Stafford Wright

Foreword by J I Packer

"I believe in ... Jesus Christ ... born of the Virgin Mary." A beautiful stained glass image, or a medical reality? This is the choice facing Christians today. Can we truly believe that two thousand years ago a young woman, a virgin named Mary, gave birth to the Son of God? The answer is simple: we can.

The author says, "In these days many Christians want some sensible assurance that their faith makes sense, and in this book I want to show that it does."

In this uplifting book from a previously unpublished and recently discovered manuscript, J Stafford Wright investigates the reality of the incarnation, looks at the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and helps the reader understand more of the Trinity and the certainty of eternal life in heaven.

This book was written shortly before the author's death in 1985. The Simplicity of the Incarnation is published for the first time, unedited, from his final draft.

eBook ISBN 13: 978-0-9932760-5-7

Paperback ISBN: 9-780-9525-9563-2

160 pages 5.25 x 8 inches

Available from bookstores and major internet sellers

Bible People Real People

An Unforgettable A-Z of Who is Who in the Bible

In a fascinating look at real people, J Stafford Wright shows his love and scholarly knowledge of the Bible as he brings the characters from its pages to life in a memorable way.

Read this book through from A to Z, like any other title

Dip in and discover who was who in personal Bible study

Check the names when preparing a talk or sermon

The good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly – no one is spared. This is a book for everyone who wants to get to grips with the reality that is in the pages of the Bible, the Word of God.

With the names arranged in alphabetical order, the Old and New Testament characters are clearly identified so that the reader is able to explore either the Old or New Testament people on the first reading, and the other Testament on the second.

Those wanting to become more familiar with the Bible will find this is a great introduction to the people inhabiting the best selling book in the world, and those who can quote chapter and verse will find everyone suddenly becomes much more real – because these people are real. This is a book to keep handy and refer to frequently while reading the Bible.

"For students of my generation the name Stafford Wright was associated with the spiritual giants of his generation. Scholarship and integrity were the hallmarks of his biblical teaching. He taught us the faith and inspired our discipleship of Christ. To God be the Glory." The Rt. Rev. James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool

This is a lively, well-informed study of some great Bible characters. Professor Gordon Wenham MA PhD. Tutor in Old Testament at Trinity College Bristol and Emeritus Professor of Old Testament at the University of Gloucestershire.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-7-1

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-5-6

314 pages 6x9 inches

Note: This book is not available in all eBook formats

Christians and the Supernatural

J Stafford Wright

There is an increasing interest and fascination in the paranormal today. To counteract this, it is important for Christians to have a good understanding of how God sometimes acts in mysterious ways, and be able to recognize how he can use our untapped gifts and abilities in his service. We also need to understand how the enemy can tempt us to misuse these gifts and abilities, just as Jesus was tempted in the wilderness.

In this single volume of his two previously published books on the occult and the supernatural (Understanding the Supernatural and Our Mysterious God) J Stafford Wright examines some of the mysterious events we find in the Bible and in our own lives. Far from dismissing the recorded biblical miracles as folk tales, he is convinced that they happened in the way described, and explains why we can accept them as credible.

The writer says: When God the Holy Spirit dwells within the human spirit, he uses the mental and physical abilities which make up a total human being . . . The whole purpose of this book is to show that the Bible does make sense.

And this warning: The Bible, claiming to speak as the revelation of God, and knowing man's weakness for substitute religious experiences, bans those avenues into the occult that at the very least are blind alleys that obscure the way to God, and at worst are roads to destruction.

eBook ISBN 13: 978-0-9932760-4-0

Paperback ISBN 13: 9-780-9525-9564-9

222 pages 5.25 x 8 inches

Available from bookstores and major internet sellers

Howell Harris

His Own Story

Foreword by J. Stafford Wright

Howell Harris was brought up to regard the Nonconformists as "a perverted and dangerously erroneous set of people." Hardly a promising start for a man who was to play a major role in the Welsh Revival. Yet in these extracts from his writings and diaries we can read the thoughts of Howell Harris before, during and after his own conversion.

We can see God breaking through the barriers separating "church and chapel", and discover Christians of different denominations preparing the country for revival. Wesley, Whitefield, Harris. These great 18th century preachers worked both independently and together to preach the Living Gospel. This book is a vivid first-hand account of the joys, hardships and struggles of one of these men -- Howell Harris (1714-1773).

eBook only

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 only

ISBN: 978-0-9933941-8-8

A printed copy is available directly from Brother Clifford \-- thejesusbus@hotmail.co.uk

This is the personal story of Clifford Edwards, affectionately known as Brother Clifford by his many friends. Going from fame to poverty, he was sleeping on the streets of London with the homeless for twenty years, until Jesus rescued him and gave him an amazing mission in life. Brother Clifford tells his true story here in the third person, giving the glory to Jesus.

Seven Steps to

Walking in Victory

Lin Wills

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-3-5

Also available as a booklet

www.lenandlin.com

How is your Christian life going? Finding it hard and not sure why? Wherever you might be, Seven Steps to Walking in Victory is a very short book to help you see where you are in the Christian life, and help you keep on the right path to the victory that comes through walking closely with Jesus -- to live the Christian life you always wanted to live!

Seven Keys to

Unlock Your Calling

Lin Wills

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-2-3

Also available as a booklet

www.lenandlin.com

God has a special plan for each and every one of us -- that includes YOU! He has given all of us unique gifts. Not sure what that might mean for you? Seven Keys to Unlock Your Calling is a very short book that will help you discover how to explore those gifts and encourage you to go deeper into all that God has for you.

English Hexapla

The Gospel of John

(Paperback only)

Published to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the Authorized King James Version of the Bible, this book contains the full text of Bagster's assembled work for the Gospel of John. On each page in parallel columns are the words of the six most important translations of the New Testament into English, made between 1380 and 1611. Below the English is the original Greek text after Scholz.

To enhance the reading experience, there is an introduction telling how we got our English Bibles, with significant pages from early Bibles shown at the end of the book.

Here is an opportunity to read English that once split the Church by giving ordinary people the power to discover God's word for themselves. Now you can step back in time and discover those words and spellings for yourself, as they first appeared hundreds of years ago.

Wyclif 1380, Tyndale 1534, Cranmer 1539, Geneva 1557,

Douay Rheims 1582, Authorized (KJV) 1611.

English Hexapla -- The Gospel of John

Published by White Tree Publishing

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-1-8

Size 7.5 x 9.7 inches paperback

Not available as an eBook

Roddy Goes to Church

Church Life and Church People

Derek Osborne

No, not a children's book! An affectionate, optimistic look at church life involving, as it happens, Roddy and his friends who live in a small town. Problems and opportunities related to change and outreach are not, of course, unique to their church!

Maybe you know Miss Prickly-Cat who pointedly sits in the same pew occupied by generations of her forebears, and perhaps know many of the characters in this look at church life today. A wordy Archdeacon comes on the scene, and Roddy is taken aback by the events following his first visit to church. Roddy's best friend Bushy-Beard says wise things, and he hears an enlightened Bishop . . .

Bishop David Pytches writes: A unique spoof on church life. Will you recognise yourself and your church here? ... Derek Osborne's mind here is insightful, his characters graphic and typical and the style acutely comical, but there is a serious message in his madness. Buy this, read it and enjoy!

David Pytches, Chorleywood

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-0-3

Paperback ISBN: 978-09927642-0-3

46 pages 5.5 x 8.5 inches paperback UK

Available from bookstores and major internet sellers

Heaven Our Home

William Branks

White Tree Publishing Abridged Edition

"I go to prepare a place for you." This well-known promise from Jesus must cause us to think about the reality of heaven. Heaven is to be our home for ever. Where is heaven? What is it like? Will I recognize people there? All who are Christians must surely want to hear about the place where they are to spend eternity. In this abridged edition of William Branks classic work of 1861, we discover what the Bible has to say about heaven. There may be a few surprises, and there are certainly some challenges as we explore a subject on which there seems to be little teaching and awareness today.

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9933941-8-8

I See Men as Trees, Walking

Roger and Janet Niblett

Roger and Janet Niblett were just an ordinary English couple, but then they met the Lord and

their lives were totally transformed. Like the Bethlehem shepherds of old, they had a compulsion to share the same good news that Jesus Christ had come into the world to save sinners. Empowered by the Holy Spirit they proclaimed the gospel in the market place, streets, prisons, hospitals and churches with a vibrancy that only comes from being in direct touch with the Almighty and being readily available to serve Him as a channel of His grace and love. God was with them and blessed their ministry abundantly. Praise God! (Pastor Mervyn Douglas, Clevedon Family Church)

The story of Roger Niblett is an inspiration to all who serve the Lord. He was a prolific street evangelist, whose impact on the gospel scene was a wonder to behold. It was my privilege to witness his conversion, when he went forward to receive Christ at the Elim Church, Keynsham. The preacher was fiery Scottish evangelist Rev'd Alex Tee. It was not long before Roger too caught that same soul winner's fire which propelled him far and wide, winning multitudes for Christ. Together with his wife Janet, they proceeded to "Tell the World of Jesus". (Des Morton, Founder Minister of Keynsham Elim Church)

I know of no couple who have been more committed to sharing their faith from the earliest days of their journey with the Lord Jesus Christ. Along the way, at home and abroad, and with a tender heart for the marginalised, Rog and Jan have introduced multitudes to the Saviour and have inspired successive generations of believers to do the same. It was our joy and privilege to have them as part of the family at Trinity where Janet continues to serve in worship and witness. Loved by young and old alike, they will always have a special place in our hearts. (Andy Paget, Trinity Tabernacle, Bristol. Vice President, International Gospel Outreach)

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-1-0

Also available as a paperback

(published by Gozo Publishing Bristol)

paperback ISBN: 978-1508674979

Leaves from

My Notebook

New Abridged Edition

William Haslam

(1818-1905)

You may have heard of the clergyman who was converted while preaching his own sermon! Well, this is man -- William Haslam. It happened in Cornwall one Sunday in 1851. He later wrote his autobiography in two books: From Death into Life and Yet not I. Here, in Leaves from my NoteBook, William Haslam writes about events and people not present in his autobiography. They make fascinating and challenging reading as we watch him sharing his faith one to one or in small groups, with dramatic results. Haslam was a man who mixed easily with titled gentry and the poorest of the poor, bringing the message of salvation in a way that people were ready to accept. This book has been lightly edited and abridged to make reading easier today by using modern punctuation and avoiding over-long sentences. William Haslam's amazing message is unchanged.

Original book first published 1889

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9935005-2-7

Blunt's Scriptural Coincidences

Gospels and Acts

J. J. Blunt

New Edition

This book will confirm (or restore) your faith in the Gospel records. Clearly the Gospels were not invented. There is too much unintentional agreement between them for this to be so. Undesigned coincidences are where writers tell the same account, but from a different viewpoint. Without conspiring together to get their accounts in agreement, they include unexpected (and often unnoticed) details that corroborate their records. Not only are these unexpected coincidences found within the Gospels, but sometimes a historical writer unknowingly and unintentionally confirms the Bible record.

Within these pages you will see just how accurate were the memories of the Gospel writers -- even of the smallest details which on casual reading can seem of little importance, yet clearly point to eyewitness accounts. J.J. Blunt spent many years investigating these coincidences. And here they are, as found in the four Gospels and Acts.

First published in instalments between 1833 and 1847

The edition used here published in 1876

eBook only

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.

This is a White Tree Publishing Home and Group Questions for Today Edition. At the end of each chapter are questions for use either in your personal study, or for sharing in a church or home group. Why? Because: "From many earnest hearts there is rising a cry for more power: more power in our personal conflict with the world, the flesh, and the devil; more power in our work for others. The Bible makes the way to obtain this longed-for power very plain. There is no presumption in undertaking to tell how to obtain Fullness of Power in Christian life and service; for the Bible itself tells, and the Bible was intended to be understood. R. A. Torrey (1856-1928) was an American evangelist, pastor, educator, and writer whose name is attached to several organisations, and whose work is still well known today.

"The Bible statement of the way is not mystical or mysterious. It is very plain and straightforward. If we will only make personal trial of The Power of the Word of God; The Power of the Blood of Christ; The Power of the Holy Spirit; The Power of Prayer; The Power of a Surrendered Life; we will then know the Fullness of Power in Christian life and service. We will try to make this plain in the following chapters. There are many who do not even know that there is a life of abiding rest, joy, satisfaction, and power; and many others who, while they think there must be something beyond the life they know, are in ignorance as to how to obtain it. This book is also written to help them." (Torrey's Introduction.)

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9935005-8-9

Ebenezer and Ninety-Eight Friends

Musings on Life, Scripture

and the Hymns

by

Marty Magee

Samuel, Mephibosheth, and a woman on death row -- people telling of our Savior's love. A chicken, a dinosaur, and a tarantula -- just a few props to show how we can serve God and our neighbors. Peanut butter, pinto beans and grandmother's chow-chow -- merely tools to help share the Bread of Life. These are just a few of the characters in Ebenezer and Ninety-Eight Friends.

It is Marty's desire to bring the hymns out of their sometimes formal, Sunday best stuffy setting and into our Monday through Friday lives. At the same time, she presents a light object lesson and appropriate Scripture passage. This is done with the format of a devotion book, yet it has a light tone and style. From Ebenezer to Willie, Marty's characters can scarcely be contained within the pages of this whimsical yet insightful volume.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-1-1

Also in paperback

from Rickety Bridge Publishing

ISBN: 978-0-9954549-1-0

Available from bookstores and major internet sellers

ALSO BY MARTY MAGEE

Twenty-five Days Around the Manger

# A Light Family Advent Devotional

Marty Magee

Will a purple bedroom help Marty's misgivings about Christmas?

As a kid, Martha Evans didn't like Christmas. Sixty years later, she still gets a little uneasy when this holiday on steroids rolls around. But she knows, when all the tinsel is pulled away, Whose Day it is. Now Marty Magee, she is blessed with five grandchildren who help her not take herself too seriously.

Do you know the angel named Herald? Will young Marty survive the embarrassment of her Charley Brown Christmas tree? And by the way, where's the line to see Jesus?

Twenty-Five Days Around the Manger goes from Marty's mother as a little girl awaiting her brother's arrival, to O Holy Night when our souls finally were able to feel their full worth.

This and much more. Join Marty around the manger this Advent season.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-1-0

Also in full colour paperback

from Rickety Bridge Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-4923248-0-5

Available from bookstores and major internet sellers

The Gospels and Acts

In Simple Paraphrase

with Helpful Explanations

together with

Running Through the Bible

Chris Wright

White Tree Publishing presents a paraphrase in today's English of passages from the four Gospels -- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John -- relating Jesus' birth, life, death and resurrection in one continuous narrative with helpful explanations, plus a paraphrase of events from the book of Acts. Also in this book is a brief summary of the Epistles and Revelation. For readers unfamiliar with the New Testament, this book makes a valuable introduction, and it will surely help those familiar with the New Testament to gain some extra knowledge and understanding as they read it. Please note that this is not a translation of the Bible. It is a careful and sensitive paraphrase of parts of the New Testament, and is not intended to be quoted as Scripture. Part 2 is a short introduction to the whole Bible -- Running Through the Bible \-- which is available from White Tree Publishing as a separate eBook and paperback.

Translators and others involved in foreign mission work, please note: If you believe that this copyright book, or part of this book, would be useful if translated into another language, please contact White Tree Publishing (wtpbristol@gmail.com). Permission will be free, and assistance in formatting and publishing your new translation as an eBook and/or a paperback may be available, also without charge.

Superb! I have never read anything like it. It is colloquially worded in a succinct, clear style with a brilliant (and very helpful) running commentary interspersed. I have found it a compelling read -- and indeed spiritually engaging and moving. Canon Derek Osborne, Norfolk, England.

eBook only

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-9-6

Faith that Prevails

The Early Pentecostal Movement

Home and Group Questions for Today Edition

Smith Wigglesworth

Study Questions by Chuck Antone, Jr.

This is a White Tree Publishing Home and Group Questions for Today Edition. At the end of each of the seven chapters are questions by Chuck Antone, Jr. for use either in your personal study, or for sharing in a church or home group. Why? Because _Smith Wigglesworth, often referred to as the Apostle of Faith, putting the emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit, writes, "_ God is making people hungry and thirsty after His best. And everywhere He is filling the hungry and giving them that which the disciples received at the very beginning. Are you hungry? If you are, God promises that you shall be filled."

_Smith Wigglesworth was one of the pioneers of the early Pentecostal revival. Born in 1859 he gave himself to Jesus at the age of eight and immediately led his mother to the Lord._ His ministry took him to Europe, the US, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the Pacific Islands, India and what was then Ceylon. _Smith Wigglesworth's faith was unquestioning._

_In this book, he says, "_ There is nothing impossible with God. All the impossibility is with us, when we measure God by the limitations of our unbelief."

eBook only

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-4-1

The Authority and

Interpretation

of the Bible

J Stafford Wright

When we start to think about God, we soon come to a point where we say, "I can discover nothing more about God by myself. I must see whether He has revealed anything about Himself, about His character, and about the way to find Him and to please Him." From the beginning, the Christian church has believed that certain writings were the Word of God in a unique sense. Before the New Testament was compiled, Christians accepted the Old Testament as their sacred Book. Here they were following the example of Christ Himself. During His ministry Jesus Christ made great use of the Old Testament, and after His resurrection He spent some time in teaching His disciples that every section of the Old Testament had teachings in it concerning Himself. Any discussion of the inspiration of the Bible gives place sooner or later to a discussion of its interpretation. To say that the Bible is true, or infallible, is not sufficient: for it is one thing to have an infallible Book, and quite another to use it. J Stafford Wright was a greatly respected evangelical theologian and author, and former Principal of Tyndale Hall Theological College, Bristol.

eBook only

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-9-6

Psalms,

A Guide Psalm By Psalm

J Stafford Wright

The Bible Psalms. Do you see them as a source of comfort? A help in daily living? A challenge? Or perhaps something to study in depth? Psalms, a Guide Psalm by Psalm will meet all these requirements, and more. It is an individual study guide that can be used for daily reading in conjunction with your own Bible. It is also a resource for group study, with brief questions for study and discussion. And it's a Bible commentary, dealing with the text of each Psalm section by section.

eBook only

eBook ISBN 978-0-9957594-2-8

The Christian's Secret

of a Happy Life

Hannah Whitall Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

Christian and happy? Do these two words fit comfortably together? Is our Christian life a burden or a pleasure? Is our quiet time with the Lord a duty or a delight? The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life was first written by Hannah Whitall Smith as monthly instalments for an American magazine. Hannah was brought up as a Quaker, and became the feisty wife of a preacher. By the time she wrote The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life she had already lost three children. Her life was not easy, with her husband being involved in a sexual scandal and eventually losing his faith. So, Christian and happy? An alternative title for this book could have been The Christian's Secret of a Trusting Life.

How often, Hannah asks, do we bring our burdens to the Lord, as He told us to, only to take them home with us again? There are some wonderful and challenging chapters in this book, which Hannah revised throughout her life, as she came to see that the truth is in the Bible, not in our feelings. Fact, faith and feelings come in that order. As Hannah points out several times, feelings come last. The teaching in this book is firmly Scripture based, as Hannah insists that there is more to the Christian life than simply passing through the gate of salvation. There is a journey ahead for us, where every step we take should be consecrated to bring us closer and closer to God, day by day, and year by year.

eBook only

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-6-6

Every-Day Religion

Hannah Whitall Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

How are we to live out our Christian lives every day? This book isn't about everyday (ordinary) religion, but about a living faith that changes our lives day by day. Hannah Whitall Smith had to live her life based on her trust in Scripture and the promises of God. In 1875, after the loss of three children, and her husband suffering a mental breakdown after being accused of infidelity, she was able to write The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, in which she showed that it is possible to find peace with the Lord, no matter what life throws at us, through trusting in His promises.

In 1894, after the death of yet another child, with her three surviving children professing atheism, and her husband losing his faith, Hannah's trust in the Lord Jesus is still so strong that she is able to write in her introduction to her Scripture-based Every-Day Religion, that the purpose of the book is, "To bring out, as far as possible, the common-sense teaching of the Bible in regard to every-day religion. ... How to have inward peace in the midst of outward turmoil."

eBook only

ISBN: 978-1-9997899-0-9

Haslam's Journey

Chris Wright

White Tree Publishing Edition

Previously published 2005 by Highland Books

If you only intend to read just one Christian book, this should be the one! You may have heard of the clergyman who was converted while preaching his own sermon. Well, William Haslam is that man. It happened in Cornwall one Sunday in 1851, and revival immediately broke out. Later, another of William Haslam's "famous" sermons will cause a mass walkout of assembled clergy in St Paul's Cathedral! Once he starts to preach the Gospel with zeal, you can rejoice over powerful conversions in nearly every chapter.

Haslam's Journey consists of selected passages from William Haslam's two autobiographies: From Death Into Life (published 1880, his Cornish ministry) and Yet Not I (published 1882, set mostly in Bath, Norfolk and London), abridged and lightly modernised. Just under half of the originals is included. With copious notes and appendices by Chris Wright, editor of Haslam's Leaves also from White Tree Publishing. William Haslam writes with humour and great insight.

William Haslam writes about his early life: "I did not see then, as I have since, that turning over a new leaf to cover the past is not by any means the same thing as turning back the old leaves and getting them washed in the blood of the Lamb. I thought my acceptance with God depended upon my works. This made me very diligent in prayer, fasting and alms deeds. I often sat and dreamed about the works of mercy and devotion I would do."

eBook only

ISBN: 978-1-9997899-8-5

My Life and Work

Gipsy Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

Rodney "Gipsy" Smith was born in a gipsy tent in Epping Forest, England. He was the son of gipsies, Cornelius Smith and his wife Mary. Growing up, he had to help support the family by making and selling items like clothes pegs around the area. He only had a few weeks at school one winter, and was unable to read or write. One day his father Cornelius came home to say that he had been converted, and was now a Christian. Cornelius helped bring his son to the Lord, and from that moment, Rodney wanted to share the way of salvation with others.

Now followed a difficult time, because he knew that in order to preach to others, he had to be able to read the Bible, both for himself and aloud to others. He writes, "I began to practise preaching. One Sunday I entered a turnip field and preached most eloquently to the turnips. I had a very large and most attentive congregation. Not one of them made an attempt to move away." When he started preaching to people, and came across a long word in the Bible he was unable to read, he says he stopped at the long word and spoke on what had gone before, and started reading again at the word after the long one!

Gipsy Smith quickly learnt to read fluently and was soon into fulltime evangelism, where he soon became known as Gipsy Smith, a name he accepted gladly. He joined the Salvation Army for a time, until being told to resign. Instead of this being a setback, he now took up a much wider sphere of work in England, before travelling to America and Australia where he became a much-loved preacher. In spite of meeting two American presidents at the White House, and other important figures in society, Gipsy Smith never forgot his roots. He never pretended to be anything other than a Gipsy boy, and was always pleased to come across other Gipsy families in his travels. Like Billy Bray and others uneducated writers, Gipsy Smith tells the story of his life in a simple and compelling way. This is the account written by a man who gave himself fully to the Lord, and was used to help lead thousands to Jesus Christ as their Saviour.

eBook only

ISBN: 978-1-9997899-4-7

eBook Coming January 2018

Living in the Sunshine:

The God of All Comfort

Hannah Whitall Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

Hannah Smith, who suffered so much in her personal life, has an amazing Bible-based grasp of God's love for each of us. She writes in this book: "Why, I ask myself, should the children of God lead such utterly uncomfortable Christian lives when He has led us to believe that His yoke would be easy and His burden light? Why are we tormented with so many spiritual doubts, and such heavy spiritual anxieties? Why do we find it so hard to be sure that God really loves us?

"But here, perhaps, you will meet me with the words, 'Oh, no, I do not blame the Lord, but I am so weak and so foolish, and so ignorant that I am not worthy of His care.' But do you not know that sheep are always weak, and helpless, and silly; and that the very reason they are compelled to have a shepherd to care for them is just because they are so unable to take care of themselves? Their welfare and their safety, therefore, do not in the least depend upon their own strength, nor upon their own wisdom, nor upon anything in themselves, but wholly and entirely upon the care of their shepherd. And if you are a sheep, your welfare also must depend altogether upon your Shepherd, and not at all upon yourself!"

Note: This is Hannah Smith's final book. It was first published as Living in the Sunshine, and later republished as The God of All Comfort, the title of the third chapter. The edition used here is the British edition of Living in the Sunshine, dated 1906.

eBook only

ISBN: 978-1-9997899-3-0

eBook Coming early 2018

Evangelistic Talks

Gipsy Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

This book is a selection of 19 talks given by Gipsy Smith which will provide inspirational reading, and also be a source of help for those who speak. There are also 20 "two-minute sermonnettes" as the last chapter! Rodney "Gipsy" Smith was born in a gipsy tent in Epping Forest, England. He was the son of gipsies, Cornelius Smith and his wife Mary. Growing up, he had to help support the family by making and selling items like clothes pegs around the area. He only had a few weeks at school one winter, and was unable to read or write. One day his father Cornelius came home to say that he had been converted, and was now a Christian. Cornelius helped bring his son to the Lord, and from that moment, Rodney wanted to share the way of salvation with others.

He quickly learnt to read fluently and was soon into fulltime evangelism, where he became known as Gipsy Smith, a name he accepted gladly. He preached throughout England, before travelling to America and Australia. Wherever he went he was a much-loved and powerful preacher, bringing thousands to the Lord.

eBook only

ISBN: 978-1-9997899-7-8

eBook Coming early 2018

I Can't Help Praising the Lord

The Life of Billy Bray

FW Bourne and

Chris Wright

White Tree Publishing Edition

This challenging and often amusing book on the life of Billy Bray (1794-1868) has a very strong message for Christians today. Billy, a Cornish tin miner, believed and accepted the promises in the Bible, and lived a life that was Spirit filled.

FW Bourne, the writer of the original book, The King's Son, knew Billy Bray as a friend. In it he has used Billy's own writing, the accounts of others who had met Billy, and his own memories.

Chris Wright has revised and edited FW Bourne's book to produce this new edition, adding sections directly from Billy Bray's own Journal, keeping Billy's rough and ready grammar and wording, which surely helps us picture the man.

eBook

ISBN: 978-1-9997899-4-7

Paperback ISBN: 9785-203447-7-5

5x8 inches 80 pages

Available from major internet stores

Also on sale in Billy Bray's Chapel

Kerley Downs, Cornwall

Christian Fiction

The Lost Clue

Mrs. O. F. Walton

Abridged Edition

A Romantic Mystery

With modern line drawings

Living the life of a wealthy man, Kenneth Fortescue receives devastating news from his father. But he is only able to learn incomplete facts about his past, because a name has been obliterated from a very important letter. Two women are vying for Kenneth's attention -- Lady Violet, the young daughter of Lady Earlswood, and Marjorie Douglas, the daughter of a widowed parson's wife.

Written in 1905 by the much-loved author Mrs. O. F. Walton, this edition has been lightly abridged and edited to make it easier to read and understand today. This romantic mystery story gives an intriguing glimpse into the class extremes that existed in Edwardian England, with wealthy titled families on one side, and some families living in terrible poverty on the other.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-2-6

Doctor Forester

Mrs. O. F. Walton

Abridged Edition

A Romantic Mystery

with modern line drawings

Doctor Forester, a medical man only twenty-five years old, has come to a lonely part of Wales to escape from an event in his recent past that has caused him much hurt. So he has more on his mind than worrying about strange noises behind his bedroom wall in the old castle where he is staying.

A young woman who shares part of the journey with him is staying in the same village. He is deeply attracted to her, and believes that she is equally attracted to him. But he soon has every reason to think that his old school friend Jack is also courting her.

Written and taking place in the early 1900s, this romantic mystery is a mix of excitement and heartbreak. What is the secret of Hildick Castle? And can Doctor Forester rid himself of the past that now haunts his life?

Mrs. O. F. Walton was a prolific writer in the late 1800s, and this abridged edition captures all of the original writer's insight into what makes a memorable story. With occasional modern line drawings.

* * *

Ghosts of the past kept flitting through his brain. Dark shadows which he tried to chase away seemed to pursue him. Here these ghosts were to be laid; here those shadows were to be dispelled; here that closed chapter was to be buried for ever. So he fought long and hard with the phantoms of the past until the assertive clock near his bedroom door announced that it was two o'clock.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-0-2

Was I Right?

Mrs. O. F. Walton

Abridged Edition

A Victorian Romance

With modern line drawings

May Lindsay and her young stepsister Maggie are left penniless and homeless when their father the local doctor dies. Maggie can go to live with her three maiden aunts, but May at the age of nineteen is faced with a choice. Should she take the position of companion to a girl she doesn't know, who lives some distance away, or accept a proposal of marriage from the man who has been her friend since they were small children?

May Lindsay makes her decision, but it is not long before she wonders if she has done the right thing. This is a story of life in Victorian England as May, who has led a sheltered life, is pushed out into a much bigger world than she has previously known. She soon encounters titled families, and is taken on a tour of the Holy Land which occupies much of the story.

Two men seem to be a big disappointment to May Lindsay. Will her Christian faith hold strong in these troubles? Was she right in the decision she made before leaving home?

Mrs. O. F. Walton was a prolific writer in the late 1800s, and this abridged edition captures all of the original writer's insight into what makes a memorable story. With occasional modern line drawings.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-1-9

In His Steps

Charles M. Sheldon

Abridged Edition

This new abridged edition of a classic story that has sold over an estimated 30 million copies, contains Charles Sheldon's original writing, with some passages sensitively abridged to allow his powerful story to come through for today's readers. Nothing in the storyline has been changed.

A homeless man staggers into a wealthy church and upsets the congregation. A week later he is dead. This causes the Rev. Henry Maxwell to issue a startling challenge to his congregation and to himself -- whatever you do in life over the next twelve months, ask yourself this question before making any decision: "What would Jesus do?"

The local newspaper editor, a novelist, a wealthy young woman who has inherited a million dollars, her friend who has been offered a professional singing career, the superintendent of the railroad workshops, a leading city merchant and others take up the challenge. But how will it all work out when things don't go as expected?

A bishop gives up his comfortable lifestyle -- and finds his life threatened in the city slums. The story is timeless. A great read, and a challenge to every Christian today.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9927642-9-6

Also available in paperback 254 pages 5.5 x 8.5 inches

Paperback ISBN 13: 978-19350791-8-7

A Previously Unpublished Book

Locked Door Shuttered Windows

A Novel by J Stafford Wright

What is inside the fascinating house with the locked door and the shuttered windows? Satan wants an experiment. God allows it. John is caught up in the plan as Satan's human representative. The experiment? To demonstrate that there can be peace in the world if God allows Satan to run things in his own way. A group of people gather together in an idyllic village run by Satan, with no reference to God, and no belief in him.

J Stafford Wright has written this startling and gripping account of what happens when God stands back and Satan steps forward. All seems to go well for the people who volunteer to take part. And no Christians allowed!

John Longstone lost his faith when teaching at a theological college. Lost it for good -- or so he thinks. And then he meets Kathleen who never had a faith. As the holes start to appear in Satan's scheme for peace, they wonder if they should help or hinder the plans which seem to have so many benefits for humanity.

eBook ISBN 13: 978-0-9932760-3-3

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9927642-4-1

206 pages 5.25 x 8.0 inches

Available from bookstores and major internet sellers

When it Was Dark

Guy Thorne

Abridged Edition

What would happen to the Christian faith if it could be proved beyond all doubt that Jesus did not rise from the dead? This is the situation when, at the end of the nineteenth century, eminent archaeologists working outside Jerusalem discover a tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea, with an inscription claiming that he took the body of Jesus from the first tomb and hid it. And there are even remains of a body. So no resurrection!

As churches quickly empty, some Christians cling to hope, saying that Jesus lives within them, so He must be the Son of God who rose from the dead. Others are relieved that they no longer have to believe and go to church. Society starts to break down.

With the backing of a wealthy industrialist, a young curate puts together a small team to investigate the involvement of a powerful atheist in the discovery. This is an abridged edition of a novel first published in 1903.

Guy Thorne was the English author of many thrillers in the early twentieth century, and this book was not intended specifically for the Christian market. It contains adult references in places, but no swearing or offensive language. Although it was written from a high church Anglican viewpoint, the author is positive about the various branches of the Christian faith, finding strengths and weaknesses in individual church and chapel members as their beliefs are threatened by the discovery in Jerusalem. White Tree Publishing believes this book will be a great and positive challenge to Christians today as we examine the reality of our faith.

White Tree Publishing Abridged Edition

Published jointly with North View Publishing

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9954549-0-3

Silverbeach Manor

Margaret S. Haycraft

Abridged edition

Pansy is an orphan who is cared for by her aunt, Temperance Piper, who keeps the village post office and store. One day Pansy meets wealthy Mrs. Adair who offers to take her under her wing and give her a life of wealth in high society that she could never dream of, on condition Pansy never revisits her past life. When they first meet, Mrs. Adair says about Pansy's clothes, "The style is a little out of date, but it is good enough for the country. I should like to see you in a really well-made dress. It would be quite a new sensation for you, if you really belong to these wilds. I have a crimson and gold tea gown that would suit you delightfully, and make you quite a treasure for an artist." This is a story of rags to riches to ... well, to a life where nothing is straightforward. First published in 1891.

White Tree Publishing Abridged Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9935005-4-1

Gildas Haven

Margaret S. Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Abridged Edition

For several years in the peaceful English village of Meadthorpe, the church and chapel have existed in an uneasy peace while the rector and the chapel minister are distracted by poor health. Now a young curate arrives at St Simeon's, bringing high church ritual and ways of worship. Gildas Haven, the daughter of the chapel minister is furious to discover the curate is enticing her Sunday school children away. The curate insists that his Church ways are right, and Gildas who has only known chapel worship says the opposite.

Battle lines are quickly drawn by leaders and congregations. Mary Haycraft writes with light humour and surprising insight in what could be a controversial story line. With at least one major surprise, the author seems to be digging an impossible hole for herself as the story progresses. The ending of this sensitively told romance is likely to come as a surprise.

White Tree Publishing Abridged Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9935005-7-2

Amaranth's Garden

Margaret S. Haycraft

Abridged edition

"It seems, Miss, your father drew out that money yesterday, and took it all out in gold. The Rector happened to be in the Bank at the time, but was on his way to town, and could not stop to talk to your father just then, though he wondered to hear him say he had come to draw out everything, as treasurer of the fund." Amaranth Glyn's comfortable life comes to an end when the church funds disappear. Her father, the church treasurer who drew out the money, is also missing, to be followed shortly by her mother. The disgrace this brings on the family means Amaranth's marriage plans are cancelled. Amaranth is a competent artist and moves away with her young brother to try to earn a living. There are rumours that her parents are in France and even in Peru. Caring for her sick brother, Amaranth wants life to be as it was before the financial scandal forced her to leave her family home and the garden she loved.

White Tree Publishing Abridged Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9935005-6-5

Rose Capel's Sacrifice

Margaret Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

Rose and Maurice Capel find themselves living in poverty through no fault of their own, and their daughter Gwen is dangerously ill and in need of a doctor and medicine, which they cannot possibly afford. There seems to be only one option -- to offer their daughter to Maurice Capel's unmarried sister, Dorothy, living in the beautiful Welsh countryside, and be left with nothing more than memories of Gwen. Dorothy has inherited her father's fortune and cut herself off from the family. Although Gwen would be well cared for, if she got better and Rose and Maurice's finances improved, would they be able to ask for Gwen to be returned? Another story from popular Victorian writer Margaret S. Haycraft.

White Tree Publishing Abridged Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9954549-3-4

Una's Marriage

Margaret Haycraft

Una Latreille inherits the St Pensart's estate which has been in the family since the Norman Conquest. Unfortunately the estate is now bankrupt, and although still in mourning, Una's only hope of living in the style to which she has been accustomed is to marry a wealthy man, and quickly. Several suitors have disappeared after learning of the debts, and the one man who still expresses any interest in Una is Keith Broughton. Keith started work as a mill hand, and is now the young and wealthy owner of a large woollen mill. But how can she possibly marry so far beneath her class? Reluctantly, Una agrees to marriage on condition that there is no physical contact between them, and certainly no honeymoon! She also insists that she will never, ever suffer the indignity of meeting anyone in his family, or put one foot inside the door of his mill. This book was first published in 1898 by SW Partridge and Co, publishers of both Christian and secular books. Although there is no openly Christian message in this story, unlike the majority of Margaret Haycraft's books, it deals sensitively with the true nature of love -- as well as being an extremely readable story.

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9957594-5-9

Miss Elizabeth's Niece

Margaret Haycraft

"You have scandalised your name and ours, and the only thing to do is to make the best of it, and teach Maisie at least the first principles of ladylike conduct." Trevor Stratheyre, from a wealthy and aristocratic English family, impulsively marries Maisie, a servant girl he meets while touring the Continent. Maisie's mother had died at an Italian inn, leaving three-year-old Maisie to be brought up by the landlord and his wife, where she helps as a maid at the inn and cares for the animals. Maisie is charming and affectionate, but when Trevor brings her back to Stratheyre in England as his bride, to the large estate he is expecting to inherit, it is clear that Maisie's ways are not those of the upper classes. When she tells titled guests at dinner that she was once herding some cows home and one was struck by lightning, trouble is bound to follow.

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9957594-7-3

Hazel Haldene

Eliza Kerr

Two grownup sisters live under their older brother's thumb. He is obsessed with perfect Christian doctrine and farming, and cannot see why his sisters should want any company but his own. Marie is fond of a local artist, but her brother will not allow such a marriage. Marie's only hope of freedom is to run away and marry in secret. When she returns to the family home eight years later with a child, surely she will be welcome by a brother who professes religion. This story by Eliza Kerr again takes the theme of rejection, but her stories are all very different as well as involving.

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-1-9997899-8-5

eBook Coming November 2017

Keena Karmody

Eliza Kerr

Keena Karmody finishes school in London and invites her young French teacher, Marie Delorme, to stay with her on her grandfather's estate at Céim-an-eich in Ireland as her tutor, to complete her education. One day Keena will inherit the large house and the family money. As time goes on, Marie Delorme's stay becomes permanent as she makes secret plans to take possession of the estate. When Keena's grandfather dies, Keena finds that he has made a very different will than the one everyone expected, and Marie is now mistress of the house. What is the shameful family secret that no one has ever discussed with Keena? Her only hope of getting her life back together lies in discovering this secret, and the answer could be with her father's grave in Tuscany. Homeless and penniless Keena Karmody sets out for Italy.

"When she had sought out and found that grave in the distant Tuscan village, and learned the story of her father's life and death, perhaps then death would come, and she might be laid there at his side in peace, and Marie would dwell in Céim-an-eich."

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-1-9997899-5-4

eBook coming December 2017

The Clever Miss Jancy

Margaret S. Haycraft

Miss Orabel Jancy is indeed clever, and she knows it. The oldest of widowed Squire Jancy's six children, all living at home, Orabel is the author of several scientific books, and has many letters after her name. To Orabel, education and intellectual pursuits are everything that matter in life. She is secretary of a women's intellectual club that teaches that women are superior to men, and the members have all agreed to remain single because men would hold them back in their academic goals. However, when Orabel was born, a deathbed promise was made with a friend that Orabel and the friend's son, Harold Kingdon, should be given the opportunity to marry. Nobody thinks to mention this to Orabel, and she only learns of the arrangement when she is grown up and Harold Kingdon is already on his way from India -- to propose to her! Even before Harold arrives, Orabel decides she cannot possibly marry a lowly military doctor, when she is so intelligent. As soon as they meet, the feeling of dislike is mutual. But Orabel's younger sister, Annis, who never did well in academic subjects, is also of marriageable age, and would dearly love to settle down with the right man. Their younger brother and small sisters view the developing situation with interest.

The Squire had never found courage to broach the fact of the offer to Orabel, who looks as though her blue eyes would wither the sheet of foreign notepaper in front of her.

"You know, Orabel," puts in Annis, "we did hear something long ago about papa and mamma promising somebody or other out in India should have a chance to court you."

"Oh, do say 'yes,' Orabel," pleads a chorus of little sisters. "It will be so lovely to have a wedding, and Phil can be a page and wear a fancy dress."

"Can he?" growls Philip. "I'd like to catch myself in lace and velvet like those kids at the Hemmings' last week. Orabel, I think you ought to send him your portrait. Let him know, at least, what he's wooing."

With these words Philip beats a prudent retreat, and Orabel gives utterance to such tones that Annis, trembling at her side, is almost in tears.

"Has it come to this," Orabel asks, "that I, the secretary of the Mount Athene Club, should be affronted, insulted by a letter like this? Am I not Orabel Jancy? Am I not the pioneer of a new and emancipating system? And who is this Harold Kingdon that he dares to cross my path with his jests concerning infantile betrothal?"

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9957594-9-7

eBook Coming February 2018

Rollica Reed

Eliza Kerr

When Rollica Reed is left an orphan at the age of sixteen, a friend of her father's takes her in, much to the dismay of his wife and two older daughters who consider themselves to be the cream of Victorian society. The wife and daughters resent Rollica as an intruder, and try to make her life wretched, humiliating her in front of friends and telling her she is too common to be a lady. The two unmarried daughters are concerned by Rollica's naturally good looks, and want to cut her off from meeting any of their friends. Rollica soon learns she must not show any sign of weakness if she is to survive. But can she ever forgive?

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-1-9997899-6-1

Books for Younger Readers

(and older readers too!)

The Merlin Adventure

Chris Wright

The day Daniel Talbot brought home a stuffed duck in a glass case, everyone thought he'd gone out of his mind. Even he had his doubts at times. "Fancy spending your money on that," his mother scolded him. "You needn't think it's coming into this house, because it isn't!"

When Daniel, Emma, Charlie and Julia, the Four Merlins, set out to sail their model paddle steamer on the old canal, strange and dangerous things start to happen. Then Daniel and Julia make a discovery they want to share with the others.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-2-7

Paperback ISBN: 9785-203447-7-5

5x8 inches 182 pages

Available from major internet stores

The Hijack Adventure

Chris Wright

Anna's mother has opened a transport café, but why do the truck drivers avoid stopping there? An accident in the road outside brings Anna a new friend, Matthew. When they get trapped in a broken down truck with Matthew's dog, Chip, their adventure begins.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-6-5

Available now in paperback

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5203448-0-5

5x8 inches 140 pages

Available from major internet stores

The Seventeen Steps Adventure

Chris Wright

When Ryan's American cousin, Natalie, comes to stay with him in England, a film from their Gran's old camera holds some surprise photographs, and they discover there's more to photography than taking selfies! But where are the Seventeen Steps, and has a robbery been planned to take place there?

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-7-2

Available now in paperback

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5203448-6-7

5x8 inches 132 pages

Available from major internet stores

The Two Jays Adventure

The First Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

James and Jessica, the Two Jays, are on holiday in the West Country in England where they set out to make some exciting discoveries. Have they found the true site of an ancient holy well? Is the water in it dangerous? Why does an angry man with a bicycle tell them to keep away from the deserted stone quarry?

A serious accident on the hillside has unexpected consequences, and an old Latin document may contain a secret that's connected to the two strange stone heads in the village church -- if James and Jessica can solve the puzzle. An adventure awaits! This is the first Two Jays adventure story. You can read them in any order, although each one goes forward slightly in time.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-8-9

Available now in paperback

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5203448-8-1

5x8 inches 196 pages

Available from major internet stores

The Dark Tunnel Adventure

The Second Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

James and Jessica, the Two Jays, are on holiday in the Derbyshire Peak District in England, staying near Dakedale Manor, which has been completely destroyed in a fire. Did young Sam Stirling burn his family home down? Miss Parkin, the housekeeper, says he did, and she can prove it. Sam says he didn't, and he can't prove it. But Sam has gone missing. James and Jessica believe the truth lies behind one of the old iron doors inside the disused railway tunnel. This is the second Two Jays adventure story. You can read them in any order, although each one goes forward slightly in time.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-0-4

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5206386-3-8

188 pages 5x8 inches

Available from major internet stores

The Cliff Edge Adventure

The Third Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

James and Jessica's Aunt Judy lives in a lonely guest house perched on top of a crumbling cliff on the west coast of Wales. She is moving out with her dog for her own safety, because she has been warned that the waves from the next big storm could bring down a large part of the cliff -- and her house with it. Cousins James and Jessica, the Two Jays, are helping her sort through her possessions, and they find an old papyrus page they think could be from an ancient copy of one of the Gospels. Two people are extremely interested in having it, but can either of them be trusted? James and Jessica are alone in the house. It's dark, the electricity is off, and the worst storm in living memory is already battering the coast. Is there someone downstairs? This is the third Two Jays adventure story. You can read them in any order, although each one goes forward slightly in time.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-4-2

Paperback ISBN: 9781-5-211370-3-1

188 pages 5x8 inches

Coming December 2017

The Midnight Farm Adventure

The Fourth Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

What is hidden in the old spoil tip by the disused Midnight Mine? Two men have permission to dig there, but they don't want anyone watching -- especially not Jessica and James, the Two Jays. And where is Granfer Joe's old tin box, full of what he called his treasure? The Easter holiday at Midnight Farm in Cornwall isn't as peaceful as James's parents planned. An early morning bike ride nearly ends in disaster, and with the so-called Hound of the Baskervilles running loose, things turn out to be decidedly dangerous. This is the fourth Two Jays adventure story. You can read them in any order, although each one goes forward slightly in time.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-1-6

Also available in paperback

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5497148-3-2

200 pages 5x8 inches

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)

Mary Jones saved for six years to buy a Bible of her own. In 1800, when she was 15, she thought she had saved enough, so she walked barefoot for 26 miles (more than 40km) over a mountain pass and through deep valleys in Wales to get one. That's when she discovered there were none for sale!

You can travel with Mary Jones today in this book by following clues, or just reading the story. Either way, you will get to Bala where Mary went, and if you're really quick you may be able to discover a Bible just like Mary's in the market!

The true story of Mary Jones has captured the imagination for more than 200 years. For this book, Chris Wright has looked into the old records and discovered even more of the story, which is now in this unforgettable account of Mary Jones and her Bible. Solving puzzles is part of the fun, but the whole story is in here to read and enjoy whether you try the puzzles or not. Just turn the page, and the adventure continues. It's time to get on the trail of Mary Jones!

eBook ISBN: ISBN: 978-0-9933941-5-7

Paperback ISBN 978-0-9525956-2-5

5.5 x 8.5 inches

156 pages of story, photographs, line drawings and puzzles

Pilgrim's Progress

An Adventure Book

Chris Wright

Travel with young Christian as he sets out on a difficult and perilous journey to find the King. Solve the puzzles and riddles along the way, and help Christian reach the Celestial City. Then travel with his friend Christiana. She has four young brothers who can sometimes be a bit of a problem.

Be warned, you will meet giants and lions -- and even dragons! There are people who don't want Christian and Christiana to reach the city of the King and his Son. But not everyone is an enemy. There are plenty of friendly people. It's just a matter of finding them.

Are you prepared to help? Are you sure? The journey can be very dangerous! As with our book Mary Jones and Her Bible, you can enjoy the story even if you don't want to try the puzzles.

This is a simplified and abridged version of Pilgrim's Progress -- Special Edition, containing illustrations and a mix of puzzles. The suggested reading age is up to perhaps ten. Older readers will find the same story told in much greater detail in Pilgrim's Progress -- Special Edition on the next page.

eBook ISBN 13: 978-0-9933941-6-4

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-6-3

5.5 x 8.5 inches 174 pages

Available from major internet stores

Pilgrim's Progress

Special Edition

Chris Wright

This book for all ages is a great choice for young readers, as well as for families, Sunday school teachers, and anyone who wants to read John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress in a clear form.

All the old favourites are here: Christian, Christiana, the Wicket Gate, Interpreter, Hill Difficulty with the lions, the four sisters at the House Beautiful, Vanity Fair, Giant Despair, Faithful and Talkative -- and, of course, Greatheart. The list is almost endless.

The first part of the story is told by Christian himself, as he leaves the City of Destruction to reach the Celestial City, and becomes trapped in the Slough of Despond near the Wicket Gate. On his journey he will encounter lions, giants, and a creature called the Destroyer.

Christiana follows along later, and tells her own story in the second part. Not only does Christiana have to cope with her four young brothers, she worries about whether her clothes are good enough for meeting the King. Will she find the dangers in Vanity Fair that Christian found? Will she be caught by Giant Despair and imprisoned in Doubting Castle? What about the dragon with seven heads?

It's a dangerous journey, but Christian and Christiana both know that the King's Son is with them, helping them through the most difficult parts until they reach the Land of Beulah, and see the Celestial City on the other side of the Dark River. This is a story you will remember for ever, and it's about a journey you can make for yourself.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-8-8

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-7-0

5.5 x 8.5 inches 278 pages

Available from major internet stores

Zephan and the Vision

Chris Wright

An exciting story about the adventures of two angels who seem to know almost nothing -- until they have a vision!

Two ordinary angels are caring for the distant Planet Eltor, and they are about to get a big shock -- they are due to take a trip to Planet Earth! This is Zephan's story of the vision he is given before being allowed to travel with Talora, his companion angel, to help two young people fight against the enemy.

Arriving on Earth, they discover that everyone lives in a small castle. Some castles are strong and built in good positions, while others appear weak and open to attack. But it seems that the best-looking castles are not always the most secure.

Meet Castle Nadia and Castle Max, the two castles that Zephan and Talora have to defend. And meet the nasty creatures who have built shelters for themselves around the back of these castles. And worst of all, meet the shadow angels who live in a cave on Shadow Hill. This is a story about the forces of good and the forces of evil. Who will win the battle for Castle Nadia?

The events in this story are based very loosely on John Bunyan's allegory The Holy War.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-6-4

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-9-4

5.5 x 8.5 inches 216 pages

Available from major internet stores

Agathos, The Rocky Island,

And Other Stories

Chris Wright

Once upon a time there were two favourite books for Sunday reading: Parables from Nature and Agathos and The Rocky Island.

These books contained short stories, usually with a hidden meaning. In this illustrated book is a selection of the very best of these stories, carefully retold to preserve the feel of the originals, coupled with ease of reading and understanding for today's readers.

Discover the king who sent his servants to trade in a foreign city. The butterfly who thought her eggs would hatch into baby butterflies, and the two boys who decided to explore the forbidden land beyond the castle boundary. The spider that kept being blown in the wind, the soldier who had to fight a dragon, the four children who had to find their way through a dark and dangerous forest. These are just six of the nine stories in this collection. Oh, and there's also one about a rocky island!

This is a book for a young person to read alone, a family or parent to read aloud, Sunday school teachers to read to the class, and even for grownups who want to dip into the fascinating stories of the past all by themselves. Can you discover the hidden meanings? You don't have to wait until Sunday before starting!

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9927642-7-2

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-8-7

5.5 x 8.5 inches 148 pages

Available from major internet stores

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