ON this stormy Sunday—while Mr. Kayll in his solitude was wondering how it fared with his wife and children, and never dreaming that it was a happy thing for him that he did not know; and while Jack and his two little sisters were walking homewards from church, after waiting in the porch of an empty house until the rain was over, without a suspicion of what was in store for them—three people at least were happier than they had been for years.

These were Mrs. Coleson and her children. They were still in the same lodgings, but their poverty was a thing of the past. Mr. Coleson’s mother, the hard and cold woman who had never helped them while she was alive, had at her death, a few days ago, left everything she possessed to her son’s widow and her little grandchildren.

And now the rent was paid, and they were all full of plans for the future. The youngest child, who was already better, lay on the bed with one hand in her mother’s, and a smile lighting up her small pinched face, as Amy drew a wonderful picture of the beautiful life that was before them.

“We’ll have a dear little cottage in the country,” she was saying, “with ivy and roses growing all over it, and a garden, full of fruit and flowers and vegetables, and chickens—you must let us have chickens, mother—and a cat and kittens, and a big dog, and then we shall enjoy ourselves all day long. Won’t it be lovely, baby? And you’ll learn to walk, and grow up straight and tall, and Kitty will get the roses back into those white cheeks of hers, and mother will get well and strong and happy.”

“It is sad, though,” said Mrs. Coleson, “to think how many poor things we shall leave behind us in London, whose grandmothers have no money to leave them, and who will live as we have been living until they die.”

The children were quiet for a little while; but they soon began to plan how they would have some little girls and boys they knew to stay with them in that new home, and they should enjoy themselves too.

Already Mrs. Coleson had some money to use, and she could have as much more as she liked, while she made her arrangements for leaving Wingate Row. But her first duty was to pay her debt to Mr. Kayll, whose visit to her had, as she knew, resulted in a great trouble falling upon his family.

“This afternoon, Amy,” she said, interrupting the children’s chatter, “I think, if the rain and thunder are over, you and I might leave Kitty and baby in Mrs. Smith’s care while we go over to Denham Green.”

Amy looked delighted.

“How lovely!” she cried. “You won’t mind being left, baby, will you?”The child only laughed, for their old landlady was almost like another mother to them all, and they were greatly attached to her.

And so it befell that the same day, towards evening, Mrs. Coleson and Amy went over to Buxton Street, but not to No. 15, for that number had ceased to exist.

It was now their turn to aid, comfort, and advise, although, indeed, there were plenty of people willing to help the sufferers by the accident as far as lay in their power. There were doors open to them, meals for them to share, offers of assistance in saving what was left of their belongings from the wreck. Poor Mrs. Kayll, however, sadly needed someone to manage for her, for this last calamity had been such a shock, that at first she seemed quite helpless and broken down.

“It’s of no use to make a fuss, though,” said Jack, who insisted on looking on the bright side of it all. “We all knew the house would come down some day, and if it hadn’t fallen now it would have been much too wet to live in. And I don’t believe it was healthy before. As for Jem, though he nearly got buried in the ruins, he didn’t quite, and he’s all right now, and thinks Bob a hero, which he never did before. Then, if father had been here, he couldn’t have prevented the flood, or the house falling, and there’d have been another to find room for somewhere, to-night. Things might have been ever so much worse.”

Madge entered into this cheerful view of the matter, and went with Mrs. Coleson to find lodgings where they could all be taken in at once. For though the neighbours were kind enough, and one would have taken two of the children, another two more, for the night, they wanted to keep all together if it could possibly be managed.

And so, before nightfall they were installed in three empty rooms in a house in the next street, and some people lent them one thing, and some another—old boxes for table and chairs, and the landlady of the lodging spared what she could for them in the way of furniture, until the boys and girls all declared it was the best fun in the world, and that they liked it better than being at home.It was not till the next morning that the water was sufficiently drained away for anything to be done in the way of recovering their property from the fallen building. All hands went to work, though, as soon as it was light, and the boys, instead of being cast down at the sight of so many things broken, bent, soaked or spoiled, shouted with laughter as they recognized in a battered, shapeless, flat object the metal tea-pot out of which they had had tea ever since they could remember, or found an extraordinary black pulpy mass to be their mother’s old feather-bed.

Every bit of crockery was broken. The clock would never go again. In fact, very little that could be of any use except for firewood was recovered. A blanket or two, so transformed that at first nobody knew what they were, later on a few bent and rusty knives and forks, and a coal-scuttle, almost made up the sum of available property when all was done.

Mrs. Kayll had really to start house-keeping again from the very beginning, poorer than when she and her husband began life together seventeen years ago, with only two people to support instead of nine.

This morning Mrs. Coleson came back laden with several little additions to their comfort, insisting on staying there and helping to the best of her power. For this day or two her aid was very welcome, for Mrs. Kayll and the elder children all felt that it was impossible to decide upon anything, or form any plan, until next Tuesday should be over.