house, where she was known, in a trice, out of breath, but clutching her valuable notes hard.

''Is it good-the money? Tell me quick, for I am in a dreadful hurry!' she panted, laying the notes on the counter.

The man examined the notes one by one with keen scrutiny, now and then glancing over at the child, who stood by, holding her breath, in anxious suspense.

'Yes, the notes are good enough. But-'

'Are you quite sure, sir?'

'Yes, quite sure, Nell. But how on earth came you in possession of such a lot of money? It seems strange, and frightens me.'

'So it does me,' she answered, clasping her small hands together, with a genuine look of fear on her sweet little face. 'Yet I am very glad to have it. You are certain, quite, quite certain, that there is no mistake?'

'Yes, yes, I am certain, child. Still-'

'You will cash them for me then, if you please. But just say once more that the notes are not sham!'

The little thing in her excitement began huddling the notes together with her hands, that trembled and fluttered amongst them like terrified birds.

'But before I cash them I must know where you got them, Nell.'

'No matter to you where I got them, so long as they are good,' remonstrated the child gravely and with a curious dignity. 'Business is business, you know.'

'Tell me does your father know all about it?'

'My father? Yes, of course he does!'

'Then it's all right. My friend little Weston is an honest fellow, in spite of his sneaking liking for a drop or two. Be careful of the gold. What a clever little miss it

is' added the man to himself, as Nell flitted like a sprite away to her own shabby home.

Rushing up-stairs, she burst open the door and greeted Ursula with a gush of gratitude and apology.

O Miss Ursula, I was dreadfully wicked to doubt you. I beg your pardon. There never was such a good-for-nothing ungrateful creature as I am; suspicious of everybody; just as if good honest folk didn't exist. The very rats that are gnawing that wainscot are better than me; and as for the mice, they are ladies compared with me. I wouldn't have been so particular about those notes if they hadn't been for Mrs.-for my friend, I mean. But I am ashamed of myself. I always thought you beautiful, Miss Ursula; but you are magnificent and rich and She grew hysterical in her emotion. I shall get to laughing before this matter's finished with.'

She sat down, flung her little linen apron over head, and did absolutely end her harangue under the friendly shelter in a way that made the linen fabric shiver, protesting all the time, in a broken piteous voice, that she begged Ursula's pardon, and she couldn't help laughing, though it was in the wrong place.

Ursula forgot for a moment how all this had been brought about, and rather prided herself on the subject, as if there had been no disgrace attached to the method.

The girl was not quite dead to good feeling; in fact, it only slumbered in her breast for want of a gentle yet firm and noble hand to arouse it. And she patted the child's flaxen head kindly, while just a few drops trickled down her own rose-leaf cheeks.

'Don't cry, Nell.'

This was a suggestion of ridiculous weakness on her part that made Nell scatter her tears by a laugh

that was like the burst of sunshine that disperses an April shower. 'Now I must go. I must not delay one minute more.

Where is my hat? Oh, thank you again, Miss Ursula. Do tell me who bought that lovely shawl. I didn't think there was so much ready money to be got anywhere.'

'Oh, an old friend of minerich as a gold-mine!'

"A friend of yours-and so awfully rich ?'

'Yes; he is very rich. I wish-' 'He?-did you say he? What could a man want with a shawl?'

'Men have relations, little stupid!' 'So they have-and wives. I suppose the gentleman bought it for his wife,' persisted the child, lingering over her hat-strings, and with intense curiosity depicted on her features. She looked furtively across at Ursula, and saw a great flood of scarlet ebbing away from her face, leaving a strange and unpleasant expression. Nell stopped short in her struggle with a refractory hat-string, and going up to the girl, said timidly and seriously, 'I do hope, Miss Ursula, that you are not sorry for what you have done!'

'Sorry? Well, perhaps I am a little,' was the reckless answer.

'Oh, I do hope you are not!' cried the child, grasping the money more tightly in her tiny hand.

'Never mind, little one; it will be all the same a hundred years hence, you know. You might tell me who the shawl belonged to, I think.'

'I could not do that-it would be breaking a promise.'

'Why should you mind that?' 'Mind it? Why, it is a secret; and she trusted me-only me! I'd rather have my head cut off than tell about her !'

'Keep your secret and mine too. Here, Nell, who's coming up the stairs? Is it Mr. Keane ?

'Yes, Miss Ursula.' 'Bother!'

'I thought you liked Mr. Keane,' remarked Nell the astute.

'But I don't! And you have no earthly right to think or speak. Children should be seen and not heard, don't you know?'

Nell glanced up saucily.

'I am not a child, Miss Ursula. Father says I am as wise as an old grandmother. Leastways, you seemed to like Mr. Keane, and I know he likes you.'

Ursula blushed again painfully; then flung herself to the other side of the room, as though the honest assertion displeased her; but her face was sorely troubled, and Nell saw that she held her breath to listen till the door below opened and closed again.

Good day, Miss Ursula' she said, dropping a curtsy. 'It's time for me to go, for the money burns my hand. Please to shut this door when you go down, and put the key under the mat, where father can find it.'

Pat-pat! went the childish footfall rapidly down the stairs. Ursula crept to the door, and eagerly listened to be sure that Nell did not meet or speak with Bernard on the way. Bold as she was, she had a morbid fear-even a mortal terror of her young husband's suspicions being in any way excited regarding John Lock.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE BLOSSOMING OF HOPE. NELL skimmed the narrow streets like a bird, and with a panting heart and brightly-flushed face reached the attic in which Mrs. Keane lagged through what seemed to her endless days and nights of anxiety and helpless despondency.

Nell found her in an unwonted

state of excitement. A letter from her husband had arrived, couched in terms of some tender regret at their enforced separation. Nothing but sheer want of funds, he said, would have urged him to leave her behind; and the poor loving woman's heart grasped closely as a vice on the few crumbs of affection dealt out to it.

Perhaps, after all, there might have been some truth in Steven Keane's protestation. Distance,and that profound solitude that men born and bred amidst the busy hum of city life feel in the quiet of complete country, might have aroused the few memories and regrets of which he wrote. The letter had, at any rate, the effect of making the desire of his wife to be with this idol of her life grow into positive frenzy. She paced the limited space she possessed, wringing her hands. Again and again she searched her mind for ways and means by which she could follow him into his solitude, that, to her imagination, presented itself as an earthly paradise; but all her resources were exhausted. She could have no assistance from her son; nothing but the sale of her treasure was left. The last hope she clung to was the violinist's little daughter the child who but a short while back had been the object of her own charity. And what substantial hope could fasten itself on the child, though she was bright as a sunbeam, energetic and busy as a bee? If Nell failed in disposing of the shawl, how would the helpless woman succeed in selling it for to whom could she offer it? Chary of being seen, how could she bring herself into notice?

Depressed by these reflections, and thoroughly sick at heart with the desperate yearning to join the man she loved-with the forlorn adoration that age feels for its very

last object of love-Mrs. Keane crept into her old chair and pondered.

She was noble-hearted, and her impulses had been good, save once; but in all her troubles she seldom remembered to pray for either mercies or fortitude under affliction. Instead of turning her disappointed and faint heart to God who might in His infinite goodness have compassion on the creatures of His own making, sensitive, impulsive, full of faults and follies, yet lovable for their very imperfections and sufferings-she took up her pride and courage and battled fiercely with them. The world had buffeted her to the earth again and again, but she had never quite given way, though at times she had craved wearily, drearily, to lie down and be at rest for ever.

Oh, if she could but get to Steven Keane! The loneliness which had dropped down upon her since he left had been so appalling that she fretted under it like a sick child; her health visibly failed; her appetite had fled; she had grown more and more pale and shadowy. Thus she sat her two hands clasped in her lap; her head with its iron-gray hair bent forward; her great, dark, haggard eyes fixed on vacancy-when Nell opened the door noiselessly and stole in so wild to impart her good tidings that she had forgotten to knock. Rapidly as a lapwing she crossed the floor, and startled Mrs. Keane with her childish ringing voice.

'I have got it, ma'am! The shawl, you know!

The woman turned her wild face on the child; her eyes gleamed out, scared and dilated. Dying hopes hopes in which the last breath of vitality scarcely lingersdo not revive in an old breast as they do in the glorious springtime of youth.

'Poor Nell! You have done your best, I know. I could not expect you could succeed. So don't mind about it-don't mind.'

The words fell slowly, mournfully, like a funeral dirge, and Mrs. Keane pressed down her thin hands hard, hard on her aching heart.

'But, ma'am, I have sold it!'
'What?'

It broke from her white lips like a terrible cry of pain. She shivered as she sat, as though an ague-fit had seized her. It was impossible, too impossible to realise that the little creature, with her sunshiny face and summer eyes, was not mocking her.

'I sold it for fifty guineas,' whispered Nell, in a low, almost sepulchral, tone, frightened herself at the extraordinary news.

'Fifty guineas!' repeated Mrs. Keane, in a dreamlike voice, the hot colour stealing into her cheeks, a strange unearthly glow rising in her eyes. 'Oh, if it were but true; it would open Heaven to me-absolute Heaven !'

Nell threw herself down on her knees, and lifted up a small eager face, all flushed and sparkling with animation.

'Ma'am, ma'am ! it is true-true as the Gospel! Yes, even if you throw in both the Old Bible and all the New Testament! I've got the money here-see!'

But

Mrs. Keane almost jumped off her chair as though an electric shock had been given her-then she reached out her hand quickly; and, seizing the sovereigns, she counted them one by one. each moment her mouth grew paler, and the broad lids settled slowly over her eyes-so slowly that it might have seemed as though she were gently falling asleep.

But suddenly she fainted, and the yellow sovereigns fell from her lap with a ringing sound on to the carpetless floor.

Nell neither screamed nor ran, as another child would have done. She went to a little shelf that hung on the wall, and searched for hartshorn or camphor, or any of the common restoratives that she remembered had been used for her mother. All the bottles were empty. It was long, long ago since Mrs. Keane had indulged in dainty perfumes or even restoratives. There was a jug of water standing close by, and the child dashed a glass of it full into that white set face, and tried to pour another down the half-open lips, until they stirred a little with an evident pang into returning life.

'O ma'am, what have I done to make you so ill?' pleaded the child, in a sad contrite voice. 'I thought I should have made you so happy and Nell shook with fright.

'Happy! happy!' murmured Mrs. Keane half-unconsciously. 'Who talks about happiness? There is only one thing that could make me happy! Only one thing, one thing!'

'Tell me what it is, lady. I wanted to make you happy, and I have only made you ill!' Nell whispered, utterly despondent. 'If it isn't money you want, just say what it is. I didn't mean to hurt you, and I have wet all your hair and ever so much of your dress. The best thing I can do is to stick to the pins and needles and tapes. They are always to be depended on.'

Mrs. Keane gathered herself up, and made an effort to arrange her hair, which was in truth dripping wet; but her hands fell feebly away from the task, and she folded them on her knee with a wan smile.

'You were telling me something. What was it, Nell ?'

'Don't be angry and do that again; it frightens me almost to death. I didn't mean any wrong, and thought you wanted me to do

it, and I sold the Ingy shawl for fifty guineas. It was very little, when it took a whole year to make, and so many people working like slaves at it. But you said you would take less. I have brought the money. Don't, don't turn so white-I'll go and get the shawl back!'

'Get it back, get it back! You have really sold it, then ?' cried Mrs. Keane, in a quick steady tone that rang curiously through the attic. And the money-where is it? So long as it carries me out to him, I do not care. Where is it, child?'

'Here and here and here,' exclaimed Nell joyfully, brightening up instantaneously, and picking up the sovereigns, one by one, until Mrs. Keane's lap glittered again. 'They are all real-good as gold can be. Oh, now you are happy, for you are smiling. No, no! don't, don't do that!'

No wonder the sudden burst of tears half terrified her, and set her pleading against a repetition of a fainting fit that had seemed a facsimile of death. She could not understand that joy ever took such a form. As Mrs. Keane trembled all over, and uttered her sense of relief in broken fragments of thanksgiving, the child accepted them composedly as reproaches, and drooped under them with really touching humility.

'And you have done this for me!' cried Mrs. Keane, patting Nell's plump shoulder, while big drops rained down her cheeks.

'Yes; I have! Nobody can be more sorry for displeasing you; but I meant to do right.'

'Sorry, little one? Sorry that you have made me the happiest woman on earth?'

'That's it. Now you look like yourself again, ma'am, and a great deal more so. I never saw any one get so young all at once. Only to think that that Ingy shawl could do it!'

'It seems to me like a miracle,' exclaimed Mrs. Keane, lifting up the sovereigns and kissing them fervently; for, in fact, they seemed to be life and breath to her. you must take a part, Nell. I had no idea that the shawl would bring so much.'

'But

'Perhaps it wouldn't have, ma'am, only you see I am used to trade now, and I tucked on an extra lot of money to what you said. "It's worth over a hundred guineas,” I told them, bold as brass. "One hundred guineas is about the value of this beautiful Ingy shawl, that has as many colours as six rainbows; and think what a tremendous bargain it will be if any one gets it for fifty." If I told a whopper, ma'am, I am sure it was according to the truth; and what's the difference to her?'

'To her! Then you sold it to a lady?'

The child hesitated, reflected a moment, then screwed up her lips sapiently, with a keen look in her blue eyes.

'A lady!-well, not exactly, ma'am.'

'Did it go to a dealer, then?' 'No, not to a dealer; he would not have given such a price for it.'

'But it will not be put up for sale anywhere-anywhere for people to see it and recognise it?' questioned Mrs. Keane anxiously, oblivious that those who had seen that shawl and might recognise it were miles distant, or dead.

'No, I think not, ma'am. She has got heaps of money, somehow, and will keep the shawl because it cost such a terrible deal. I told her all about it-how it was made, and how fast the colours were, and