"To Bayswater--to talk to a clergyman who used to befriend us in the old days. What is your news, David? You may as well tell me."

"Why, it's this. Mr. Watson has just had a long talk with me. He wants me to help him with the accounts, and not to do messages any more. He could get a lad for messages, he says, who hasn't got such a head on his shoulders as I have. I can do bookkeeping pretty well, and he'll give me some more lessons. I am to start next week doing office-work, and he'll give me five shillings a week instead of half a crown. I call that prime; don't you, Alison?"

"To be sure it is," she answered heartily. She was very fond of David, and the note of exultation in his voice touched her, and penetrated through the deep gloom at her heart.

"Why, this will cheer Grannie," she continued.

"There's more to tell yet," continued David, "for I am to have my meals as well as the five shillings a week; so there'll be half a crown at the very least to put to the family purse, Alison, and I need be no expense, only just to sleep here. I'll bring the five shillings to Grannie every Sat.u.r.day night, and she can spend just what I want for clothes and keep the rest. I guess she'll make it go as far as anybody."

"This is good news," continued Alison. "Of course five shillings is a sight better nor nothing, and if I only got a place we might keep the home together."

"Why, is there any fear of our losing it?" asked David.

"Dear me, David, can we keep it on nothing at all? There's Grannie not earning sixpence, and there's me not earning sixpence; and how is the rent to be paid, and us all to be kept in food and things? It aint to be done--you might have the common sense to know that."

"To be sure I might," said David, his brow clouding. "After all, then, I don't suppose the five shillings is much help."

"Oh, yes, it will support you whatever happens, and that's a good deal.

Don't fret, Dave; you are a right, good, manly fellow. You will fight your way in the world yet, and Grannie and me we'll be proud of you. I wish I had half the pluck you have; but there, I am so down now that nothing seems to come right. I wish I had had the sense to learn that feather-st.i.tching that you do so beautifully."

David colored.

"I aint ashamed to say that I know it," he said. "I dare say I could teach it to you if you had a mind to learn it."

But Alison shook her head.

"No; it's too late now," she said. "It takes months and months of practice to make a st.i.tch like that to come to look anything like right, and we want the money at once. We have got scarcely any left, and there's the rent due on Monday, and the little girls want new shoes--Kitty's feet were wringing wet when she came in to-day. Oh, yes, I don't see how we are to go on. But Grannie will tell us when she comes back. Oh, and here she is."

Alison flew to the door and opened it. Mrs. Reed, looking bright and excited, entered.

"Why, where are the little ones?" she said at once. "Aint they reading their books, like good children?"

"No, Grannie. I'd a headache, and I let them go into the court to play a bit. You don't mind, do you?"

"Not for once, I don't," said Grannie; "but, Dave, lad, you'd better fetch 'em in now, for it's getting real late. They may as well go straight off to bed, for I have a deal I want to talk over with you two to-night."

Alison felt impatient and anxious; she could scarcely wait to hear Grannie's news. The old lady sat down near the fire, uttering a deep sigh of relief as she did so.

"Ally, my dear," she said, "I'm as weary as if I were seventy-eight instead of sixty-eight. It's a long walk back from St. Paul's Churchyard, and there was a crowd out, to be sure; but it's a fine starlight night, and I felt as I was walking along, the Lord's in his heaven, and there can never be real bad luck for us, his servants, what trusts in him."

Alison frowned. She wished Grannie would not quote Scripture so much as she had done lately. It jarred upon her own queer, perverse mood; but as she saw the courageous light in the blue eyes she suppressed an impatient sigh which almost bubbled to her lips. She got tea for Grannie, who drank it in great contentment. David brought the children in. They kissed Grannie, and were hustled off to bed, rather to their own disgust, and then David, Grannie, and Alison sat gravely down, and looked each at the other.

"Where's Harry?" said Grannie suddenly. "Why aint the boy to home?"

"I expect he's at the Boys' Club," said David. "He's very fond of running round there in the evening."

"There's no harm in that, Grannie," said Alison. "Don't fret about Harry. Now tell us your news, do. Did you see Mr. Williams, and can he do anything?"

"I saw Mr. Williams," said Grannie. "He remembered me quite well. I told him everything. It seems to me that he has put things straight.

I don't say that things aint sore--no, I don't go to pretend they aint--but somehow they seem straightened out a bit, and I know wot to do."

"And what's that, Grannie?" asked David, taking her left hand very tenderly in his as he spoke.

Grannie had been leaning back in a sort of restless att.i.tude. Now she straightened herself up and looked keenly at the boy.

"It means, lad," she said, after a pause, "the sore part means this, that we must give up the little bit of a home."

"We must give it up?" said David, in a blank sort of way. "Oh, wait a while; you don't know about my five shillings a week."

"Dave has got a rise," interrupted Alison. "Mr. Watson thinks a sight of him, and he's to go into the house as a clerk, and he's to have five shillings a week and his meals. So he's provided for."

"But your five shillings a week won't keep up the home, Dave, so there's no use thinking of it, from that p'int o' view."

"Go on, please, Grannie; what else have you and Mr. Williams arranged?"

"It's the Lord has arranged it, child," said Grannie, "it aint Mr.

Williams. It's that thought that makes me kind o' cheerful over it."

"But what is it, Grannie? We are to give up the home?"

"Well, the home gives us up," said Grannie, "for we can't keep the rooms ef we can't pay the rent, and the children can't be fed without money. To put it plain, as far as the home goes, we're broke. That's plain English. It's this 'and that has done it, and I'll never believe in eddication from this time forward; but there's no use goin' back on that now. Thank the Lord, I has everything settled and clear in my mind. I pay the last rent come Monday, and out we go."

"But where to?" said Alison. "There's a lot of us, and we must live somewhere."

"It's all settled, and beautiful too," said Grannie. "Mr. Williams knows a lady who 'll be right glad to have you, Alison. The lady is a friend of his, and she wants a sort of upper maid, and though you are a Phipps and a Simpson and a Reed all in one, you needn't be too proud to do work o' that sort. He said she was quite certain to take to you, and you are to go to see her to-morrow morning. She lives in Bayswater, and wants a girl who will attend on her and go messages for her and keep her clothes in order. It will be a very light, genteel sort o' place, and you'll have a right good time there, Alison. And then the three little girls. Mr. Williams said it was wonderful lucky I called to-day, for he has got three vacancies for a school for orphan children in the country, and for a wonder he don't know any special orphan children to give them to this time, and he says that Kitty and Polly and Annie can go, and they'll be well fed, and well taught, and well clothed, and when they are old enough they'll go to service perhaps. Anyhow, they'll be taught how to earn their living. So they are settled for, and so are you, and it seems as if David's settled for too. As to Harry, I told Mr. Williams all about him, and he says he'll think what he can do; he expects he can get him taken on somewhere, for he is a smart lad, although a bit wild in his ways."

"But what is to come of you, Grannie?" said Alison, after a long pause.

Grannie jumped up when Alison made this remark.

"Well, I'm goin' on a visit," she said, "jest to freshen me up. It don't matter a bit about me--life is slacking down with me, and there aint the least cause to worry. I'm goin' on a visit; don't you fret, children."

"But where to?" asked Alison. "You don't know anybody. I have never heard that you had any friends. The Phippses and the Simpsons are all dead, all those you used to know."

"I'm goin' to some friends of Mr. Williams," said Grannie, "and I'll be werry comfortable and I can stay as long as I like. Now, for the Lord's sake don't begin to fret 'bout me; it's enough to anger me ef you do. Aint we a heap to do atween this and Monday without fussin'

over an old lady wot 'as 'ad the best o' good luck all her days? This is Tuesday, and you are to go and see Mrs. Faulkner to-morrow morning, Alison. I have got her address, and you are to be there by ten o'clock, not a minute later. Oh, yes, our hands will be full, and we have no time to think o' the future. The Lord has the future in his grip, chil'en, and 'taint for you and me to fret about it."

Grannie seated herself again in her old armchair.

"Fetch the Bible, Dave," she said suddenly, "and read a verse or two aloud."

David rose to comply. He took the family Bible from its place on the shelf. Grannie opened the old book reverently.

"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty," read David.

Grannie looked solemnly at the boy while the words so familiar and comforting fell from his lips. He read or to the end of the magnificent Psalm.

"I guess there's a power of luck in that hidin' place for them as can find it," she said, when he had finished.