impatient tread in her usually measured footstep,
and I could see that her little hands, roughened
with coarse work, were clenched feverishly
together, while at every sound without she turned
sharply towards the door, betraying how eager
she was for this good fortune, and how in secret
she chafed at the privations and narrowness of
our lot. She had just paused for a moment
beside me, when we heard the twang of Pim's
Jew's-harp, and she darted back to the door,
but before she could reach it he entered and
closed it after him.

"I've got it," he said, in a voice of agitation;
"it's all right. Little Miss Bessie, I'm her
Majesty's Rural Messenger to High Overton,
with fourteen shillings a week. God bless Queen
Victoria!"

"It's all right, Miss Crompton," repeated
Pim, taking my sister's hand, "all right, my
dear. Bless you, we shall be as happy as the
day altogether, 'specially of a night, when I'm
come home. I shall be back in time for any odd
jobs about the house; only I shan't see much of
the master, Lord love him! It was so uncommonly
kind of him to write that beautiful
recommendation for me, when he's so busy with the
big book. I'm a made man through it, with
fourteen shillings a week clear."

"It's all right, my dears," he reiterated;
"right to a tittle. Everything's right. But I
shouldn't have got it without Mr. Garforth. It's
been uncommon difficult to keep my temper over
this business. You wouldn't believe it, but this
postmaster—he's not a Tamford man—asked me
if I was any blood relation to the master."

"And what did you say, old Pim?" I asked.

"Why, I'm afraid I swore a little," he replied,
with a deprecating glance at Felicia, who had
come to my side; "I'm afraid I said I'd be
something'd if I was; but I didn't mean it."

"Pim!" murmured Felicia.

"I couldn't help it," he continued; "he was
so uncommonly impertinent, 'specially about my
character, though the master himself had written
that letter for me. Saving your presence, Miss
Crompton, and yours, Miss Bessie, he went so
far as to say he'd been told my father and
mother weren't married, and that's forty years
ago clear."

Felicia's face flushed with a deep crimson, but
I could not help laughing.

"That was no fault of yours, Pim," I said.

"Just the remark as Mr. Garforth made, Miss
Bessie. I didn't use any bad language then,
Miss Crompton. I only said, 'Sir, it's a awful
thing when the Master of us all, who has got
wisdom and discretion, begins to visit the sins
of the fathers upon the children; but when a
man that hasn't got any sort of wisdom, sets
about it——' Mr. Garforth said, 'True, old
fellow,' to me."

Felicia's hand, lying upon my shoulder, rested
there more heavily, as she stood silent, with
drooping head and downcast eyes. In all the
large moonlit room there was neither sound
nor motion, and I felt a superstitious panic
creeping over me.

"What is that, Felicia?" I cried.

A low gentle tapping at the northern door,
not as loud as the stroke of a robin's wing
against the window, a feeble irregular knock,
like the beating of a child's open hand against
the iron-studded panels, succeeded by a pitiful
wail, which stole into the quiet room, and filled
it for a moment with a babyish pleading tone of
trouble. Felicia shivered as she leaned against
me, and old Pim stood paralysed, gazing back to
the dark end of the hall; but when a second
cry came, a shrill, sharp, passionate scream of
fright I sprang to my feet, and pushing past
them both, ran hastily to the door. It was
bright clear moonlight, and the shadows slanted
across the street, making alternate spaces of
light and darkness. Scarcely more soundless
and deserted was it than in the daytime; even
less so, for as I stopped for a moment looking
out, the cry burst forth again, and I saw the form
of a little child, pattering swiftly along the
pavement, in the deepest shadows of the school
walls. I followed the little flying figure, but it
fled from me in increased fear—a fear so intense
and overwhelming, that when I caught it, and
taking it in my arms, sat down on the step of an
untenanted house, it was long before all my
caresses and soothing could still the vehemence
of its sobs. At length it lay passive in my arms,
and I looked up to Felicia, who stood before us,
the moonlight falling upon her white, grave face,
and lending a pale glory to her golden hair, like
a halo round the calm forehead of a saint.

"Pim is looking for the woman," she
whispered, as if afraid of being overheard; and she
stooped down to lay her hand gently on the little
head lying languidly on my bosom.

"See how frightened it is, Felicia," I cried,
"the poor little bird. Where can it have come
from?"

"She has been deserted," answered Felicia, in
a bitter tone.

"Deserted? Impossible!" I replied. "What
are we to do with it?"

"We cannot talk about it here," she said j
"take the child in, Bessie, while Pim and I
look everywhere. We must search every
corner."

So, with the child sobbing itself to sleep in
my arms, I returned to the old house, and the
hearth where I myself had been the last little
infant, the youngest born of our family. I felt
a deep instinctive love for this wailing, forsaken
child; and before Felicia and Pim returned, I
had collected a number of unanswerable
arguments for adopting her into our household, if
they found no clue to account for her appearance.

They came in, utterly foiled. Every nook in
the quadrangle had been searched, and the doors
of the almshouses tried, often to the great
anger of the almsmen within. All the untenanted
dwellings in the street were apparently empty,
and their doors carefully locked; neither sound
nor sight had hinted anything to them. Only
one thing could be decided upon, and that we
resolved unanimously. The child must remain