NO ROOM FOR DOUBT!

At the appointed time, Mr. and Mrs. Burton arrived. Being, as yet, ignorant of the purpose for which their presence was desired, they were full of conjectures. Miss Jemima received them in the dining-room, downstairs. The first question they asked related to “Cobbler” Horn’s health. “Was he worse?”

“No,” said Miss Jemima; “he is much better. But he wishes to consult you about a matter of great importance.”

Then, upon their protesting that they were in no immediate need of refreshment, Miss Jemima conducted her visitors upstairs to her brother’s room.

Though “Cobbler” Horn had not been to sleep since the morning, he was greatly refreshed by the quiet hours he had passed. He turned to greet Mr. and Mrs. Burton, as they came in.

“This is very good of you,” he said, putting out his hand.

Miss Jemima placed chairs for the visitors, and they took their seats near the bed.

“I think I must sit up,” said “Cobbler” Horn.

Miss Jemima helped him to raise himself upon his pillows, and then sat down on a chair at the opposite side of the bed.

“There now,” said “the Golden Shoemaker,” “we shall do finely. But, Jemima, how about our friend, Tommy?”

“He’ll be here directly” was the concise reply.

Mr. and Mrs. Burton waited patiently for “Cobbler” Horn to speak. Mrs. Burton was a shrewd-looking, motherly body; and her husband had the appearance of a capable and kindly man. They were both conscious of some curiosity, and even anxiety, with regard to what “Cobbler” Horn might be about to say. The peculiarity of the situation was that he should have sent for them both. Perhaps each had some vague prevision of the communication he was about to make.

“Now, dear friends,” he said, at last, “no doubt you will be wondering why I have sent for you in such a hurry.”

Both Mr. Burton and his wife protested that they were always at the service of Mr. Horn, and expressed the assurance that he would not have sent for them without good cause.

“Thank you,” he said. “I think you will admit that, in this instance, the cause is as good as can be.”

Looking upon the kindly faces of these good Christian people, “Cobbler” Horn wondered how they would receive the news he would probably have to impart. He must proceed cautiously. At the same time, he was thankful that his little lost child—if, indeed, it were so—had been committed by the great Father to such kindly hands.

“You will not mind, dear friends,” he resumed, “if I ask you one or two questions about the circumstances under which my—Miss Owen came into your charge when a child?”

“By no means, sir!” The startling nature of the question caused no hesitation in the reply. Indeed, though startled, these good people were not so very much surprised. They had not, perhaps, been actually expecting that this would prove to be the subject on which they had been summoned to confer. But, ever since their adopted daughter had entered the household of this man, whose own little daughter had been lost, just about the time that she must have left her home, both Mr. and Mrs. Burton had secretly thought that perhaps, as the result, she would find her own parent, and they would lose their child. Perhaps it was on account of the vagueness of this thought, or because of the painful anticipations to which it gave rise, or for both these reasons, that the good couple had made no mention to each other of its presence in their respective minds. They glanced at one another now; and, by some subtle influence, each became aware that the other’s mind had been occupied by this disturbing thought.

“You will believe,” said “Cobbler” Horn, “that I have good reasons for the questions I am going to ask?”

“We are sure of that, sir,” responded Mr. Burton.

“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Burton.

“Well, can you tell me in what year, and at what time of the year, you found the child?”

“It was on the 2nd of June, 18—” said Mrs. Burton, promptly.

“Cobbler” Horn and Miss Jemima exchanged glances. It was the very year in which, on that bright May morning, little Marian had vanished, like a flash of departing sunshine, from their lives.

“About what age would you suppose the child to have been at the time?”

“She told us her age,” said Mr. Burton.

“Yes,” pursued his wife, “she was a very indistinct talker, and her age was almost the only thing we could actually make out. She said she was five; and that was about what she looked.”

“Do you think, now,” continued “Cobbler” Horn, with another glance at his sister, “that you could give us anything like a description of the child?”

“My wife can do that very well,” said Mr. Burton. “She has often told Miss Owen what she looked like when we found her crying in the road.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Burton, “I remember exactly what she was like. She had black hair—as she has now, and her eyes were very dark; her skin was even browner than it is now, being so dirty; and she had very rosy cheeks. It was evident that some of her clothes had been stolen. Indeed they were almost all gone, and she had scarcely anything on but an old, and very dirty shawl, which was wrapped round her body so tightly that it must have hurt her very much. She had lost one of her shoes, and her foot was bound up with a filthy piece of rag. She had both her socks on, but they were in dreadful holes. She was wearing a torn sun-bonnet, which was covered with mud; and—let me see—one of its strings was missing. And, yes, her one shoe was cut about over the top, as if it had been done on purpose with a knife. She had evidently been in very bad hands, poor little mite!” and the honest, kindly face was darkened with a frown, as Mrs. Burton clenched her plump fist in her lap.

Miss Jemima had been listening with intense interest, from her position on the other side of the bed; and now interposed with a question, in her own quick way.

“What was the pattern of the sun-bonnet? Was it a small, pink sprig, on a white ground?”

“Why, you must have seen it, ma’am!” was Mrs. Burton’s startled reply. “That was the very thing!”

“Perhaps I have,” responded Miss Jemima, “and perhaps I haven’t.”

Mrs. Burton hardly knew what to say.

“Well,” she resumed, at last, “Miss Owen has kept the sun-bonnet, and the one shoe, and two or three other little things; and I’m sure she will be glad to let you see them. But, may I ask, Miss Horn, what——”

But “Cobbler” Horn interrupted her.

“I think, Jemima, we had now better tell our kind friends why we are asking these questions.”

“Yes,” said Miss Jemima; “I should have told them at first.”

“Well,” resumed “Cobbler” Horn, turning to Mr. and Mrs. Burton, and speaking with an emotion which he could no longer conceal, “we have reason to believe that your adopted daughter—don’t let me shock you—is our little lost Marian, of whom you have several times heard me speak; and we are anxious to make sure if this is really the case.”

In the nature of things, Mr. and Mrs. Burton were not so much surprised as they would have been if the course of events had not, in some measure, prepared them for the announcement which “Cobbler” Horn had now made. Yet they experienced a slight shock; for even an expected crisis cannot be fully realized till it actually arrives.

For a moment, there was silence in the room. Then Mrs. Burton was the first to speak.

“Excuse us, dear sir,” she said calmly, “if we are somewhat startled at what you have said. And yet we are not altogether surprised. You will not think that strange?”

“No, ma’am,” said “Cobbler” Horn, in a musing tone, “not altogether strange, perhaps. But, shall I explain a little further? It was only last evening that I was led to entertain the thought that Miss Owen might actually prove to be my lost child. She was telling me, as she had done several times before, all about how you found her, and of your goodness to her; and she spoke last night, for the first time, of the one shoe she was wearing when you found her in the road. Now you may judge how I was startled, on hearing this, when I tell you that, just after Marian was lost, we picked up one of her shoes in a field, over which she must have wandered away. So, this morning, without telling her my reason, I asked her to let me see the little shoe she had worn so long ago. She at once fetched it; and here it is, and with it the one we found in the field.”

So saying, he drew, from underneath the bed-clothes, the two little shoes; and placed them side by side upon the counterpane.

Mr. and Mrs. Burton rose and approached the bed.

“Yes,” said Mr. Burton, “that is undoubtedly Miss Owen’s little shoe.”

“And this,” said Mrs. Burton, “is unquestionably its fellow,” and, taking up the shoes, she held them towards her husband.

“You are certainly right, my dear.”

Then there was silence for a brief space, while these two simple-hearted people bent, with deep emotion, over the little baby shoes which seemed to prove so much.

Mrs. Burton was the first to speak.

“Well,” she said, calmly, but with a quivering lip, “we are to lose our child; but the will of the Lord be done.”

Mr. Burton’s only utterance was a deep sigh.

“Nay,” said “Cobbler” Horn, “if it really be as I cannot help hoping it is, you will, perhaps, not lose so much as you think. But I am sure you will not begrudge me the joy of finding my child.”

“No, indeed, dear sir. On the contrary, we will rejoice with you as well as we can—and with her.”

These were the words of Mrs. Burton, and they received confirmation from her husband.

At this point, Tommy Dudgeon quietly entered the room, and took his seat, at a motion from Miss Jemima, behind the chairs on which Mr. and Mrs. Burton were sitting.

“I have been anxious,” resumed “Cobbler” Horn, “thoroughly to assure myself that there was no mistake. Here is our friend, Dudgeon, now. You saw him the day we opened the ‘Home.’”

Perceiving Tommy for the first time, Mr. and Mrs. Burton gave him a hearty greeting.

“Our friend knows,” continued “Cobbler” Horn, “that I’ve been very sceptical about the good news.”

“Very much so!” said Tommy, nodding his head.

“Cobbler” Horn smiled.

“He was the first to find it out. You must know that he took much kind interest in my little girl; and it was a great grief to him that she was lost. And when your adopted daughter came to us, he was not long in forming conjectures as to who she might be. In a very short time, as a matter of fact, he had quite made up his mind. He tried to tell me about it; but I was too stupid to understand him, and so it was left for me to find out the happy truth by accident. Tell our friends, Tommy, how you came to discover who Miss Owen really was.”

Thus enjoined, Tommy, nothing loath, recounted once more the story of his great discovery. Mr. and Mrs. Burton listened with deep attention, and, having put several questions to Tommy, admitted that what he had said afforded much confirmation to the supposition that Miss Owen was the long-lost Marian.

“I have a thought about the child’s name,” said Mrs. Burton after a brief pause. “It comes to me that what she gave us as her name sounded quite as much like Marian Horn as Mary Ann Owen.”

“Why yes,” said Miss Jemima, “now I think of it, she used to pronounce her name very much as though it had been something like Mary Ann Owen. As well as I can remember, it was ‘Ma—an O—on.’”

“I believe you are right, Jemima,” said her brother.

“It must be admitted,” interposed Mr. Burton quickly, “that Mary Ann Owen was a very reasonable interpretation of that combination of sounds.”

“Undoubtedly it was,” assented “Cobbler” Horn.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Burton, “what you say, Miss Horn, is very much like the way in which the child pronounced her name. And there’s another thing which may serve as a further mark. She had on, beneath the old shawl, a little chemise, on which were worked, in red, the letters ‘M.H.’”

“I know it!” cried Miss Jemima. “I always marked her clothes like that. You used to laugh at me, Thomas; but what do you say now?”

“Well, well!” said “the Golden Shoemaker” softly.

“And listen to me,” resumed Miss Jemima. “I am beginning to recollect, too. Marian’s hair was very stubborn; and there were two or three tufts at the back which always would stand up, like black feathers.”

“I remember that very well,” said Mrs. Burton, with a smile.

“Of course,” agreed her husband; “and many a joke we used to have about it. I called her my little blackbird.”

“And then,” continued Miss Jemima, “there was another thing. A few days before the child’s disappearance, she fell down and hurt her knee; and there were two scars, one on the knee, and another just below.”

“Ah,” said Mrs. Burton, “I remember those scars. Don’t you, John?”

“Yes; and I used to tell her she was an old soldier, and had been in the wars.”

“So you did; and—dear me, how old memories are beginning to come back!—she talked a great deal, not only of her ‘daddy,’ but of ‘Aunt ’Mima.’ I wonder I didn’t think of that before. Perhaps, ma’am——”

“That’s me!” cried Miss Jemima. “My name’s Jemima; and ‘Aunt ’Mima’ was what she always called me. There, Thomas, do you want any further proof?”

“Cobbler” Horn was lying with his hands over his face, and the bed was shaking with his convulsive efforts to repress his strong emotion. Fear had impelled him to withstand his growing conviction that his long-lost child had been restored to him—fear of the consequences of a mistake, both to himself, and to the bright young girl whom he had already learnt to love as though she were indeed his child. But now, one after another, his doubts had been beaten down. He had listened eagerly to every word that had been spoken around his bed, and conviction had taken absolute possession of his mind. Yet, for the moment, the shock of his great joy seemed almost more than his weakened nerves could bear.

His friends stood around the bed, fearing for him. But, in a few moments, he withdrew his hands from his face, which was wet with the gracious tears of joy.

He clasped his hands, and looked reverently upward.

“‘My soul doth magnify the Lord; and my spirit hath rejoiced in God, my Saviour.’”

That was all.

“You would like us to leave you, brother?” asked Miss Jemima.

“For a very short time.”

He was quite himself again.

“She is out still, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” replied Miss Jemima. “She will be in soon, no doubt. You would like to see her. Well, leave that to me.”

Then they left him to his blissful thoughts.

For many minutes, he gratefully communed with God. He was thankful his child had come back to him so beautiful, and clever, and good. He could regard her with as much pride as love; though he told himself he would have loved her, and done all in his power to make her happy, whatever she had proved to be. And then, how glad he was that she had found her way into his heart before he knew she was his child.

Great, indeed, was the joy of “the Golden Shoemaker!” That very day he was to clasp his long-lost child to his heart!

The door of his room had been left ajar. Presently he heard the front-door open downstairs; and then there were voices in the hall, one of which he recognised as hers. The next moment he knew that she was coming upstairs. They had not told her the great news yet, of course? No; she was going direct to her own room.

He took up the little shoes, which had been left lying on the bed. How well he remembered making them! He had selected for the purpose the very best bit of leather in his stock. He was proceeding to examine more closely the shoe that had been mutilated, when he heard the sound of a door being opened which he knew to be that of his young secretary’s room.

Would she come to him before going downstairs? In truth, he wished not to see her until she had been told the great news. He breathed more freely when he heard her foot on the stairs.

When “Cobbler” Horn had been alone about half an hour, Miss Jemima returned to the room. Mrs. Burton, she said, was in the dining-room, with——Marian. There was just the slightest hesitation in Miss Jemima’s pronunciation of the name. Her brother’s tea would come up in a few minutes. After he had taken it, he would perhaps be ready for the interview he so much desired.

“Tea!”

“Oh, but,” said his matter-of-fact sister, “you must try to take it—as a duty.”

“I’ll do my best,” he said; “but I must be up and dressed before she comes, Jemima.”

Miss Jemima demurred, but ultimately agreed.

“I should like Mr. Durnford to be here,” he continued, “and Tommy Dudgeon, and Mr. and Mrs. Burton.”

“They shall all be present,” said Miss Jemima.

“And you, Jemima, you will take care to be in the room at the time.”

“Brother,” responded the lady, “you may trust me for that.”