Mrs. Reed pottered down the long steep flight of steps, and soon found herself in the street. The fog had grown thicker than ever. It was very dense indeed now. It was so full of sulphuric acid that it smarted the eyes and hurt the throats and lungs of the unfortunate people who were obliged to be out in it. Grannie coughed as she threaded her way through the well-known streets.

"Dear, dear," she kept muttering under her breath, "wot an evil world it is! To think of a young innocent thing being crushed in that sort of cruel way! Wot do it mean? Of course things must be set right.

I'll insist on that. I aint a Reed for nothing. The Reeds are well-born folks, and my own people were Phippses, and they were well-born too. And as to the luck o' them, why, 'twas past tellin'.

It don't do for one who's Phipps and Reed both, so to speak, to allow herself to be trampled on. I'll soon set things straight. I've got sperrit, wotever else I aint got."

She reached Shaw's establishment at last. It was getting well into the afternoon, and for some reason the shop was more full than usual. It was a very cheap shop and a very good one--excellent bargains could be found there--and all the people around patronized it. Alison was missed to-day, having a very valuable head for business. Shaw, the owner of the shop; was standing near the doorway. He felt cross and dispirited. He did not recognize Mrs. Reed when she came in. He thought she was a customer, and bowed in an obsequious way.

"What can I serve you with, madam?" he said. "What department do you want to go to?"

"To none, thank you, sir," answered Mrs. Reed. "I have come to see Mr.

Shaw. I'll be much obleeged if I can have a few words with him."

"Oh, Mr. Shaw! Well, I happen to be that gentleman. I am certainly very much occupied at present; in fact, my good woman, I must trouble you to call at a less busy time."

"I must say a word to you now, sir, if you please," said Mrs. Reed, raising her eyes and giving him a steady glance. "My name is Reed. I have come about my grandchild."

"Oh," said the owner of the shop, "you are Mrs. Reed." His brow cleared instantly. "I shall be pleased to see you, madam. Of course you have come to talk over the unpleasant occurrence of this morning.

I am more grieved than I can say. Step this way, madam, if you please."

He marched Grannie with pomp through the crowd of customers; a moment later she found herself in his private office.

"Now," he said, "pray be seated. I a.s.sure you, Mrs. Reed, I greatly regret----"

"Ef you please, sir," said Grannie, "it is not to hear your regrets that I have come here. A great wrong has been done my granddaughter.

Alison is a good girl, sir. She has been well brought up, and she would no more touch your money than I would. I come of a respectable family, Mr. Shaw. I come of a stock that would scorn to steal, and I can't say more of Alison than that she and me are of one mind. She left her 'ome this morning as happy a girl as you could find, and came back at dinner time broken-'earted. Between breakfast and dinner a dreadful thing happened to her; she was accused of stealing a five-pound note out of your till. She said she were innocent, but was not believed. She was searched in the presence of her fellow shop people. Why, sir, is it likely she could get over the shame o' that?

Of course you didn't find the money on her, but you have broke her heart, and she 'ave left your service."

"Well, madam, I am very sorry for the whole thing, but I do not think I can be accused of undue harshness to your granddaughter. Circ.u.mstances were strongly against her, but I didn't turn her off. She took the law into her own hands, as far as that is concerned."

"Of course she took the law into her own hands, Mr. Shaw. 'Taint likely that a girl wot has come of the Phippses and the Reeds would stand that sort of conduct. I'm her grandmother, born a Phipps, and I ought to know. You used rough words, sir, and you shamed her before everyone, and you refused her a _character_, so she can't get another place. Yes, sir, you have taken her character and her bread from her by the same _h_act, and wot I have come to say is that I won't have it."

Mr. Shaw began to lose his temper--little Mrs. Reed had long ago lost hers.

"Look here, my good woman," he said, "it's very fine for you to talk in that high-handed style to me, but you can't get over the fact that five pounds are missing."

"I 'aven't got over it, sir; and it is because I 'aven't that I've come to talk to you to-day. The money must be found. You must not leave a stone unturned until it is found, for Alison must be cleared of this charge. That is wot I have come to say. There's someone else a thief in your house, sir, but it aint my girl."

"I am inclined to agree with you," said Shaw, in a thoughtful voice, "and I may as well say now that I regret having acted on the impulse of the moment. The facts of the case are these: Between eleven and twelve o'clock to-day, one of my best customers came here and asked me to give him change for a five-pound note. I went to the till and did so, taking out four sovereigns and a sovereign's worth of silver, and dropped the five-pound note into the till in exchange. In my hurry I left the key in the till. Miss Reed was standing close to me, waiting to ask me a question, while I was attending to my customer. As soon as he had gone she began to speak about some orders which had not been properly executed. While I was replying to her, and promising to look into the matter, a couple of customers came in. Miss Reed began to attend to them. They bought some ribbons and gloves, and put down a sovereign to pay for them. She asked me for change, and being in a hurry at the moment, I told her to go to the till and help herself.

She did so, bringing back the change, and at the same time giving me the key of the till. I put the key into my pocket, and the usual business of the morning proceeded. After a time I went to open the till to take out the contents in order to carry the money to the bank.

I immediately missed the five-pound note. You will see for yourself, Mrs. Reed, that suspicion could not but point to your granddaughter.

She had seen the whole transaction. To my certain knowledge no one else could have gone to the till without being noticed. I put the five-pound note into the till with my own hands. Miss Reed went at my request to get change for a customer. She locked the till and brought me the key, and when I next went to it the five-pound note had disappeared."

"And you think that evidence sufficient to ruin the whole life and character of a respectable girl?" said Mrs. Reed.

"There is no use in your taking that high tone, madam. The evidence against Miss Reed was sufficient to make me question her."

"Accuse her, you mean," said Mrs. Reed.

"Accuse her, if you like then, madam, of the theft."

"Which she denied, Mr. Shaw."

"Naturally she would deny it, Mrs. Reed."

"And then you had her searched."

"I was obliged to do so for the credit of the whole establishment, and the protection of my other workpeople; the affair had to be gone properly into."

"But you found nothing on her."

"As you say, I found nothing. If Miss Reed took the money she must have hidden it somewhere else."

"Do you still think she took it?"

"I am inclined to believe she did not, but the puzzle is, who did? for no one else had the opportunity."

"You may be certain," said Mrs. Reed, "that someone else did have the opportunity, even without your knowing it. Clever thieves can do that sort of thing wonderful sharp, I have heard say; but Alison aint that sort. Now, what do you mean to do to clear my granddaughter?"

"I tell you what I'll do," said Shaw, after a pause. "I like your granddaughter. I am inclined to believe, in spite of appearances, that she is innocent. I must confess that she acted very insolently to me this morning, and for the sake of the other shop people she must apologize; but if she will apologize I will have her back--there, I can't act fairer than that."

"Nothing will make her step inside your shop, sir, until she is cleared."

"Oh, well!" said Mr. Shaw, rising, "she must take the consequence. She is a great fool, for she'll never get such a chance again. Suspicion is strong against her. I am willing to overlook everything, and to let the affair of the five pounds sink into oblivion. Your granddaughter is useful to me, and, upon my word, I believe she is innocent. If she does not come back, she will find it extremely difficult to get another situation."

"Sir," said Mrs. Reed, "you don't know Alison. Nothing will make her set her foot inside this shop until the real thief is found. Are you going to find him or are you not?"

"I will do my best, madam, and if that is your last word, perhaps you will have the goodness not to take up any more of my valuable time."

CHAPTER II.

Mrs. Reed left the shop, and went home as quickly as her small, active feet could carry her. She was feeling quite brisked up by her interview with Shaw, and her indignation supplied her with strength.

She got back to the model lodging in Sparrow Street, mounted to her own floor, and opened the door with a latch-key. Alison was sitting by the window, busy over the needlework which Grannie would have done had she been at home. Alison was but an indifferent worker, whereas Grannie was a very beautiful one. Few people could do more lovely hand work than Mrs. Reed. She was famous for her work, and got, as such things go, good prices for it. The very best shops in the West End employed her. She was seldom without a good job on hand. She had invented a new pattern in feather-st.i.tching which was greatly admired, and which she was secretly very proud of--it was an intricate pattern, and it made a very good show. No other workwoman knew how to do it, and Grannie was very careful not to impart her secret to the trade. This feather-st.i.tching alone gave her a sort of monopoly, and she was too good a woman of business not to avail herself of it. It was the feather-st.i.tching which had mostly tried her poor hand and arm, and brought on the horrid pain which the doctor had called writers' cramp.

"Some doctors are out-and-out fools," murmured the old woman to herself. "He were a very nice spoke gentleman--tall and genteel, and he treated me like a lady, which any true man would; but when he said I had got writers' cramp in this hand, it must have been nonsense. For there, I never write; ef I spell through a letter once in six months to my poor sister's only child in Australia, it's the very most that I can do. Writers' cramp, indeed! Well, it's a comfort to know that he must be wrong. I wonder how Ally has got on with the work. Poor dear!

I'll have to do more of that feather-st.i.tching than ever, now that Ally has lost her situation."

Alison looked up and saw her grandmother standing near her. She had, of course, been taught the feather-st.i.tching. Mrs. Reed had confided this important secret to her once in a time of serious illness.

"For I may die, and it may go out of the fam'ly," she said. "It was begun by my grandmother, who got the first notion of it in the sort of trail of the leaves. My grandmother was a Simpson--most respectable folk--farmers of the best sort. She had wonderful linen, as fine as silk. She made it all herself, and then she hemmed it and marked it and feather-st.i.tched it with them trailing leaves. She taught the trail to my mother, who married Phipps, and mother had a turn for needlework, and she gave it that little twist and rise which makes it so wonderful pretty and neat; but 'twas I popped on the real finish, quilting it, so to speak, and making it the richest tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, and the most dainty you could find. You must learn it, Alison; it would be a sin and a shame for it to die with me. It must stay in the fam'ly, and you must 'ave it on yer wedding linen, that you must."

Grannie had taken great pains teaching Alison, and Alison had tried hard to learn, but, unlike the Phippses and the Simpsons, she had no real turn for fine needlework. She learned the wonderful st.i.tch, it is true, but only in a sort of fashion.

Now, the secret of that st.i.tch it is not for me to disclose. It had to be done with a twist here, and a loop there, and a sudden clever bringing round of the thread from the left to the right at a critical moment; then followed a still more clever darting of the needle through a loop, which suddenly appeared just when it was least expected. The feather-st.i.tching involved many movements of the hand and arm, and certainly gave a splendid effect to the fine linen or cambric on which it was worked. Grannie could do it almost with her eyes shut, but Alison, who thought she knew all about it, found when she began to practice that she had not taken the right loop nor the proper twist, and she quite forgot the clever under-movement which brought the thread from left to right, and made that sort of crinkled scroll which all the other workwomen in West London tried to imitate in vain. Grannie was tr.i.m.m.i.n.g some beautiful underlinen for a t.i.tled lady; it was made of the finest cambric, and the feather-st.i.tching was to be a special feature.

She stood now, looked down at her pretty grandchild, and saw that she had ruined the work.