It had been such a weary hunt for lodgings. Not that lodgings are scarce in London. There are scores of streets, whole districts, indeed, where the house that did not say “Apartments” in its window would be the exception.

But Miss Endell wanted to combine a great deal. She must be economical, for her funds were running low; she must be near the British Museum, for she wanted to consult many authorities for the book about “Noted Irishwomen,” by which she hoped to retrieve her fortunes; she wanted quiet, too, and reasonably pretty things about her.

For a week she had spent most of her time in quest of the place where she could settle herself comfortably for a few months. It was the gray March weather. The mornings were dark, and the gloom of coming dusk settled down early; and, during all the hours between, Miss Endell had been busy in that weary work of which Dante speaks, “climbing the stairs of others.”

At last, after much consideration, she had decided to make a certain flight of stairs her own. She had taken the drawing-room floor of No. 30 Guilford Street; and with a comfortable feeling of success she had paid her bill at the Charing Cross Hotel, and driven to her new home.

The drawing-room floor—that is to say, the suite of rooms up one flight of stairs from the street—is the most important part of a London lodging-house. Whoever is kept waiting, when “the drawing-room”—as it is the fashion to designate the lodger who occupies that apartment—rings, the ring must at once be “answered to.” That floor rents for as much as all the rest of the house put together, and is the chief dependence of anxious landladies.

Miss Endell, accordingly, was received as a person of importance. Her boxes were brought upstairs, and her landlady, Mrs. Stone, bustled about cheerfully, helping her to arrange things.

At last every thing was comfortably placed, and the tired new-comer settled herself in a low chair in front of the glowing coal-fire, and glanced around her.

Mrs. Stone was still busy, wiping away imperceptible dust. The door was open, and in the doorway was framed a singular face, that of a pale, slender child, with a figure that looked too tall for the face, and great eager eyes, with such a wistful, silent longing in them as Miss Endell had never seen before.

At the same moment Mrs. Stone also caught sight of the child, and cried out a little crossly,—

“Go away, you plague! Didn’t I tell you as you wasn’t to ’ang round the new lady, a-worritin’ her?”

The child’s wistful face colored, and the tears sprang to the great, sad eyes; but he was silently turning away, when Miss Endell herself spoke. She was not specially fond of children; but she had a kind heart, and something in the wan, pitiful face of the child touched it.

“Don’t send him away, Mrs. Stone,” she said kindly. “Come in, my little man, and tell me what your name is.”

The child sidled in, timidly, but did not speak.

“Don’t be afraid,” Miss Endell said. “What is your name?”

“Bless you, ma’am, he can’t speak!” said Mrs. Stone.

“Can’t speak?”

“No; he was born with something wrong. Laws, he can hear as well as anybody, and he knows all you say to him; but there’s something the matter. The last ‘drawing-room’ said that there was doctors, she was sure, as could help him, but I haint any money to try experiments.

“Johnny was my brother’s child. His father died before he was born, and his mother lived just long enough to ’and over Johnny to me, and ask me to take care of him.

“I’ve done my best; but a lodging-house is a worrit. What with empty rooms, and lodgers as didn’t pay, and hard times, I never got money enough ahead to spend on doctors.

“But you mustn’t have Johnny a-worritin’ round. You’d get sick o’ that. The last ‘drawing-room’ said it made her that nervous to see him; and I halways thought she went off partly for that.”

“I will not let him trouble me, don’t be afraid; but let him sit down here by the fire, and when I find he disturbs me I’ll send him away.”

Mrs. Stone vanished, and Johnny took up his station on a stool in a corner of the hearth-rug.

Miss Endell busied herself with a book, but from time to time she looked at the boy. His face was pale and wistful still, but a half-smile, as sad as tears, was round his poor silent mouth, and he was gazing at his new friend as if he would fix every line of her face in his memory for ever.

For a long hour he sat there; and then Mrs. Stone came to lay the cloth for dinner, and sent him away to bed.

The next morning he appeared again; and soon it grew to be his habit to sit, almost all the day through, and watch Miss Endell at her tasks. In spite of her absorption, he occupied a good many of her thoughts.

Like him, she was an orphan; and she had few close and vital interests in her life. She got to feel as if it belonged to her, in a certain way, to look after this silent waif of humanity more lonely still than herself.

Often she took an hour from her work to read little tales to him, and it was reward enough to see how his eyes brightened, and the color came into his pale little face. She used to think that if her work succeeded, Johnny should also be the better for it. As soon as the first edition of “Noted Irishwomen” was sold, she would have the best medical advice for him; and if there were such a thing as giving those lips language, it should be done.

“Should you like to speak to me, Johnny?” she asked one day suddenly.

The boy looked at her, for one moment, with eyes that seemed to grow larger and larger. Then came a great rush of sobs and tears that shook him so that Miss Endell was half-frightened at the effect of her own words. She bent over and put her hand on his head.

“Don’t, Johnny! Don’t, dear!” she said tenderly.

I doubt if any one had ever called the poor little dumb boy “dear” before, in all his eleven years of life. He looked up through his tears, with a glad, strange smile, as if some wonderful, sweet thing had befallen him; and then, in a sort of timid rapture, he kissed the hem of Miss Endell’s gown, and the slippered foot that peeped out beneath it.

I think there is an instinct of motherhood in good women that comes out toward all helpless creatures; and it awoke then in Miss Endell’s heart. After that she and Johnny were almost inseparable. Often she took him with her on her walks, and always when she worked he kept his silent vigil on the hearth-rug.

Miss Endell had one extravagance. She could not bear to be without flowers. She did not care much for the cut and wired bouquets of the florist, but she seldom came home from her walks without some handful of wall-flowers, or a knot of violets or forget-me-nots. Now and then she bought a tea-rose bud; and then Johnny always noticed how lovingly she tended it—how she watched it bursting from bud to flower.

He got to know that this strange, bright creature whom he idolized loved flowers, and loved tea-roses best of all. A wild desire grew in him to buy her tea-roses—not one, only, but a whole bunch. He spent his days in thinking how it was to be done, and his nights in dreaming about it. A penny was the largest sum he had ever possessed in his life, and a penny will not buy one tea-rose, much less a bunch of them.

One day Miss Endell took him with her when she went to see a friend. It was a prosperous, good-natured, rich woman in whose house they found themselves. “Go and see the pictures, Johnny,” Miss Endell said; and Johnny wandered down the long room, quite out of ear-shot.

Then she told his pathetic little story, and her friend’s careless yet kind heart was touched. When it was time for Miss Endell to go, she summoned Johnny; and then the lady they were visiting gave the boy a half-crown, a whole shining, silver half-crown.

Johnny clasped it to his heart in expressive pantomime, and lifted his wistful, inquiring eyes.

“Yes, it is all yours,” the lady said, in answer; “and don’t let any one take it away from you.”

Small danger, indeed, of that! The piece of silver meant but one thing to Johnny,—tea-roses, unlimited tea-roses.

The next day he was taken ill. He had a fever,—a low, slow fever. His aunt was kind enough to him, but she had plenty to do, and Johnny would have been lonely indeed but for Miss Endell.

She had him brought each morning into her room, and kept him all day lying on her sofa, giving him now a kind word, now a draught of cold water, and then a few grapes, with the sun’s secret in them.

One day Johnny drew something from his bosom, and put it into Miss Endell’s hand. It was the silver half-crown. He made her understand, by his expressive gestures, that she was to keep it for him; and she dropped it into a drawer of her writing-desk.

At last Johnny began to get well. June came, with all its summer sights and sounds, and strength came with its softer winds to the poor little waif. One day he stood before Miss Endell, and put out his hand. She understood, and dropped the half-crown into it. He hid it, with a sort of passion, in his bosom, and Miss Endell smiled. Did even this little waif, then, care so much for money?

As soon as he could stand, he took up his station on the balcony outside the windows, and watched and watched.

His friend thought only that the sights and sounds of the street amused him. She was working on at the “Noted Irishwomen,” which was nearing its conclusion, and it quite suited her that Johnny found the street so interesting.

As for the child, he was possessed by only one idea,—tea-roses. He watched to see the hand-barrows come along, flower-laden and tempting.

These same hand-barrows are a feature of London street life. They are full of plants growing in pots, and also there are plenty of cut flowers. The venders cry, as they pass along, “All a-growin’ and a-blowin’!” and there is something exciting in the cry. It seems part of the summer itself.

Day after day, day after day, Johnny watched and watched. Flowers enough went by,—geraniums glowing scarlet in the sun, azaleas, white heath, violets,—only never any tea-roses.

But at last, one morning, he heard the familiar cry, “All a-growin’ and a-blowin’!” and lo! as if they had bloomed for his need, there were tea-roses—whole loads of tea-roses!

Miss Endell was busy, just then, with Lady Morgan. She never noticed when the little silent figure left the window, and hurried downstairs. Out into the street that little figure went, and on and on, in hot pursuit of the flower-barrow, which by this time had quite the start of him.

Down one street, up another, he ran, and always with the silver half-crown tightly clasped in the palm of his little hand.

At last a customer detained the barrow; and Johnny hurried up to it, panting and breathless. He put his hand out towards the tea-roses, and then he held out his silver half-crown.

The flower-seller looked at him curiously, “Why don’t you speak, young ’un?” he said. “Are you dumb? You want this ’alf-crown’s wuth o’ them tea-roses?”

Johnny nodded vehemently.

The man took up a great handful of the pale sweet flowers, and thrust them into the boy’s hands, taking in exchange the half-crown, and putting it away in a sort of pouch, along with many silver mates.

As for Johnny, there are in every life supreme moments, and his came then. He held in his hand the flowers that Miss Endell loved, and he was going to give them to her.

All his life he had felt himself in every one’s way. She, only, had made him welcome to her side. She had called him “dear,”—and now there was something he could do for her. She had loved one tea-rose: how much, then, would she love a whole handful of tea-roses! His heart swelled with a great wave of pride and joy.

He thought of nothing but his flowers,—how should he?—and he never even heard or saw the butcher’s cart, tearing along at such a pace as John Gilpin never dreamed of. And in a moment, something had pushed him down,—something rolled and crunched over him,—and he knew nothing; but he held the flowers tight through it all.

“Why, it’s Mrs. Stone’s dumb Johnny!” said the butcher-boy, who had got down from his cart by this time, and was addressing the quickly assembled London crowd. “Gi ’e a hand, and lift un up into my cart, and I’ll carry un home.”

An awful inarticulate groan came from the poor child’s dumb lips as they lifted him; but his hold on the tea-roses never loosened.

They carried him home, and into the house. Mrs. Stone was shocked and grieved; and she took her troubles noisily, as is the fashion of her class. Miss Endell, still fagging away at Lady Morgan, heard cries and shrieks, and dropped her pen and hastened downstairs.

“He’s dead! Johnny’s dead!” cried Mrs. Stone and Miss Endell, white and silent, drew near.

But Johnny was not dead, though he was dying fast. The butcher-boy had hurried off for a doctor and the three women, Mrs. Stone, her maid, and her lodger, stood by helplessly.

Suddenly Johnny’s wandering look rested on Miss Endell. A great sweet smile of triumph curved his mouth, lighted his eyes, kindled all his face. With one grand last effort, he put out the bunch of tea-roses, and pressed them into her hand.

And then, as if death had somehow been more merciful to him than life, and had in some way loosed his poor bound tongue, he stammered out the only words he had ever spoken—was ever to speak,—

“For you!”

At length the doctor came and stood there, helpless like the rest, for death was stronger than all his skill. The shock and the hurt together had quenched the poor frail life that was ebbing so swiftly.

Miss Endell bent and kissed the white quivering lips. As she did so, the tea-roses she held touched the little face.

Was it their subtile fragrance, or this kiss, or both together, which seemed for one moment to recall the departing soul?

He looked up; it was his last look, and it took in the sweet woman who had been so gentle and so loving to him, and the flowers in her hand.

His face kindled with a great joy. A hero might have looked like that who had died for his country, or a man who had given his life joyfully for child or wife.

Johnny Stone had loved one creature well, and that creature had loved tea-roses. What could life have held so sweet as the death that found him when he was striving to give her her heart’s desire?