Mattie:--A Stray.

Vol 2.

by Frederick William Robinson.

BOOK III.

CONTINUED.

UNDER SUSPICION.

CHAPTER IX.

THE CLOUDS THICKEN.

Mattie had fully antic.i.p.ated a visit from Mr. Wesden on the day following Sidney Hinchford's departure, but the master appeared not at the little shop in Great Suffolk Street. It was not till the following day that he arrived--at six in the morning, as the boy was taking down the shutters. Mattie's heart began beating painfully fast; she had become very nervous concerning Mr. Wesden, and his thoughts of her.

Appearances had been against her of late, and he was a man who did not think so charitably as he acted sometimes.

He gave a gruff good morning, and came behind the counter.

"You can do what you like to-day," he said. "I'll mind the shop."

"Very well, sir. I--I suppose," she added, hastily, "Miss Harriet has told you what happened the day before yesterday?"

"I know all about it. I don't want to talk about it."

"But I do, sir!"

Mr. Wesden stared over Mattie's head after his old fashion. His will had been law so long, that disputing it rather took him aback.

"I know that these losses put you out, Mr. Wesden," said Mattie, firmly; "that they are due to my own carelessness--to having been taken off my guard after all my watch here, all my interest in everything connected with the business. I dream of the shop,--I would not neglect it for the world,--and it _is_ hard to be so unfortunate as I have been. Mr.

Wesden, you wouldn't let me repay back the money which was taken away from the house; but I must pay the value of that parcel stolen from before my very eyes."

"It was large enough to see," he added, "and I expect you to pay for it, Mattie."

"What was it worth?"

"You shall have the bill to settle, if you've saved as much--it will come in next week. And now, just understand, once for all, that I don't want to talk about it--that I object very much to talk about it."

"Very well."

The subject was dropped; Mattie felt herself in disgrace, and, intensely sorrowful at heart, she went down-stairs to tell Ann Packet all that her carelessness had brought upon her.

"He's an old savage, my dear--don't mind him."

"No, Ann--he's a dear old friend, and his anger is just enough. It was all my fault!"

"Well, he's not such a bad master as he might be, pr'aps; but he isn't what he used to be before my ankles took to swelling, nothing like it."

"It will soon blow over, I hope," said Mattie.

"Bless your heart!--puffed away in a breath, it'll be."

Mattie, ever ready to console others, received consolation in her turn; and hoped for the best.

Late in the evening, Mr. Wesden departed, and early next day, much to Mattie's surprise, Harriet Wesden, with a box or two, arrived in a cab to the house.

Mattie watched the entrance of the boxes, and looked very closely into the face of the young mistress. Harriet, with a smile that was well got up for the occasion, advanced to her.

"Think, Mattie, of my coming here to spend a week with you--of being your companion. Why, it'll be the old times back again."

"I should be more glad to see you if I thought there were no other reason, Miss Harriet," said Mattie--"but there is!"

"Why, what can there----"

Mattie caught her by the sleeve.

"Your father suspects that I am not honest--the past life has come a little closer, and made him repent of all the past kindness--is not that it?"

"No, no, Mattie, dear--you must not think that!"

"He has grown suspicious of me--I can see it in his looks, in his altered manner; and, oh! I can do nothing to stop it--to show him that I am as honest as the day."

"Patience, Mattie, dear," said Harriet, "we will soon prove that to him, if he require proof. If I have come at his wish, it was at my own, too, and you are exaggerating the reasons that have brought me hither."

"I wonder why I stop here now," said Mattie, thoughtfully. "I, who am a young woman, and can get my own living. If he is tired of me, I have no right to stop."

"You will stop for the sake of those who love you, and who have trust in you, Mattie; you will not think of going away."

"Well, not yet awhile. I think," dashing a rebellious tear from her dark eyes, "that I can bear more than this before I leave you all. And if things _do_ look a little dark just now, I shall live them down, with G.o.d's help!"

"There's nothing dark--it's three-fourths fancy. Think of my sorrows, Mattie, and thank heaven that you have never been in love!"

"Dreadful sorrows yours are, Miss Harriet, I must say!"

"People never think much of other people's sorrows," remarked Harriet, sententiously.

Thus it came about that Harriet Wesden and Mattie were thrown into closer companionship for awhile, and that Mattie began to think that the constant presence of the girl she loved most in the world made ample amends for the suspicions which had placed her there, for the absence of Sidney Hinchford, and the mystery by which it had been characterized.

"It's astonishing how I miss Mr. Sidney," Mattie said, confidently, to Harriet, "though we did not say much more than 'good morning,' and 'good evening,' from one week's end to another--but he has been so long here, and become so long a part of home, that it does seem strange to have the place without him."

"And the letter--he never got the letter, after all," sighed Harriet.

"There it is, on the drawing-room mantel-piece," said Mattie; "bad news awaiting his return. I see it every morning there, and think of his coming disappointment."