The Children's Pilgrimage by L. T. Meade (best sales books of all time txt) 📗

face now alone of all that group retained its pain. Such happiness beamed on every other face that the little cloud on hers must have been observed, though she tried hard to hide it.

As she came into the room now, her husband came forward and put his arm round her waist.

"You are just in time, Suzanne," he said; "the English lady is going to tell the story of the purse, and you shall translate it to the mother and me."

"Yes, Cecile," said Miss Smith, taking the little girl's hand and seating her by her side, "if I had been the shrewd old English body I am, you would never have seen your purse again; but here it is at last, and I am not sorry to part with it."

Here Miss Smith laid the Russia-leather purse on the table by Cecile's side.

At sight of this old-fashioned and worn purse, young Mme. Malet started so violently that her husband said: "What ails thee, dear heart?"

With a strong effort she controlled herself, and with her hands locked tightly together, with a tension that surely meant pain.

"The day before yesterday," continued Miss Smith, "I was sitting in my little parlor, in the very house where you found me out, Cecile; I was sitting there and, strange to say, thinking of you, and of the purse of gold you intrusted to me, a perfect stranger, when there came a ring to my hall door. In a moment in came Molly and said that a man wanted to see me on very particular business. She said the man spoke English. That was the reason I consented to see him, my dear; for I must say that, present company excepted, I do hate foreigners. However, I said I would see the man, and Molly showed him in, a seedy-looking fellow he was, with a great cut over his eye. I knew at a glance he was not English-born and I wished I had refused to see him; he had, however, a plausible tongue, and was quite quiet and *well-behaved.

"How astonished I was when he asked for your purse of gold, Cecile, and showed me the little bit of paper, in my own writing, promising to resign the purse at any time to bearer.

"I was puzzled, I can tell you. I thoroughly distrusted the man, but I scarcely knew how to get out of my own promise. He had his tale, too, all ready enough. You had found the girl you were looking for: she was in great poverty, and very ill; you were also ill, and could not come to fetch the purse; you therefore had sent him, and he must go back to the south of France without delay to you. He said he had been kept on the road by an accident which had caused that cut over his eye.

"I don't know that I should have given him the purse,—I don't believe I should,—but, at any rate, before I had made up my mind to any line of action, again Molly put in an appearance, saying that a ragged boy seemed in great distress outside, and wanted to see me immediately; 'and he too can speak English,' she continued with a smile.

"I saw the man start and look uneasy when the ragged boy was mentioned, and I instantly resolved to see him, and in the man's presence.

"'Show him in,' I said to my little servant.

"The next instant in came your poor Joe, Cecile. Oh! how wild and pitiful he looked.

"'You have not given him the purse,' he said, flying to my side, 'you have not given up the purse? Oh! not yet, not yet! Anton,' he added, 'I have followed you all the way; I could not catch you up before. Anton, I have changed my mind, I want you to give me the bit of paper, and I will go back to my old life. My heart is broken. I have seen my mother, and I will give her up. Anton, I must have the bit of paper for Cecile. Cecile is dying for want of it. I will go back to my old master and the dreadful life. I am quite ready. I am quite ready at last.'"

"There was no doubt as to the truth of this boy's tale, no doubt as to the reality of his agitation. Even had I been inclined to doubt it, one look at the discomfited and savage face of the man would have convinced me.

"'Tis a lie,' he managed to get out. 'Madame, that young rogue never spoke a word of truth in his life. He is a runaway and a thief. Mine is the true tale. Give me the purse, and let me take it to the little girl.'

"'Whether this boy is a rogue or not,' I said, 'I shall listen to his tale as well as yours.'

"Then I managed to quiet the poor boy, and when he was a little calmer I got him to tell, even in the presence of his enemy, his most bitter and painful history.

"When Joe had finished speaking, I turned to the villain who was trying if possible to scare the poor lad's reason away.

"'The threat you hold over this boy is worthless' I said. 'You have no power to deliver him up to his old master. I believe it can be very clearly proved that he was stolen, and in that case the man who stole him is liable to heavy punishment. So much I know. You cannot touch the lad, and you shall not with my leave. Now as to the rest of the tale, there is an easy way of finding out which of you is speaking the truth. I shall adopt that easy plan. I shall give the purse to neither of you, but take it myself to the little girl who intrusted it to me. I can go to her by train to-morrow morning. I had meant to give myself a holiday, and this trip will just suit me to perfection. If the boy likes to accompany me to his mother, I will pay his fare third-class. Should the old woman turn out not to be his mother and his story prove false, I shall have nothing more to say to him. As to you, Anton, if that is your name, I don't think I need have any further words with you. If you like to go back to the little girl, you can find your own way back to her. I shall certainly give to neither of you the purse.

"My dear," continued Miss Smith, "after this, and seeing that he was completely foiled, and that his little game was hopeless, that bad man, Anton, took it upon him to abuse me a good deal, and he might, it is just possible, he might have proceeded to worse, had not this same Joe taken him quietly by the shoulders and put him not only out of the room, but out of the door. Joe seemed suddenly to have lost all fear of him, and as he is quite double Anton's size, the feat was easy enough. I think that is all, my dear. I have done, I feel, a good deed in restoring a son to a mother. Joe's story is quite true. And now, my dear, perhaps you will take care of that purse yourself in future."

"And oh, Cecile! now—now at last can you quite, quite forgive me?" said Joe. He came forward, and knelt at her feet.

"Poor Joe! Dear, dear Joe!" answered Cecile, "I always forgave you. I always loved you."

"Then perhaps the Lord Christ can forgive me too?"

"Oh, yes!"

"That's as queer a story as I ever heard," here interrupted Jean Malet. "But I can't go to bed, or rest, without hearing more. How did a little maiden like her yonder come by a purse full of gold?"

"I can tell that part," said Joe suddenly. "I can tell that in French, so that my mother and my brother can understand. There is no harm in telling it now, Cecile, for everything seems so wonderful, we must find Lovedy soon."

"But is it not late—is it not late to hear the story to-night?" said Suzanne Malet in a faint voice.

"No, no, my love! What has come to thee, my dear one?" said her husband tenderly. "Most times thou wouldst be eaten up with curiosity. No, no; no bed for me to-night until I get at the meaning of that purse."

Thus encouraged, Joe did tell Cecile's story; he told it well, and with pathos—all about that step-mother and her lost child; all about her solemn dying charge; and then of how he met the children, and their adventures and escapes; and of how in vain they looked for the English girl with the golden hair and eyes of blue, but still of how their faith never failed them; and of how they hoped to see Lovedy in some village in the Pyrenees. All this and more did Joe tell, until his old mother wept over the touching story, and good brother Jean wiped the tears from his own eyes, and everyone seemed moved except Suzanne, who sat with cheeks now flushed—now pale, but motionless and rigid almost as if she did not hear. Afterward she said her boy wanted her, and left the room.

"Suzanne is not well," remarked her husband.

"The sad, sad tale is too much for her, dear impulsive child," remarked the old mother.

But honest Jean Malet shook his head, and owned to himself that for the first time he quite failed to understand his wife.

CHAPTER XXIX. THE WORTH OF THE JOURNEY.

That same night, just when Cecile had laid her tired head on her pillow, there came a soft tap to her door, and young Mme. Malet, holding a lamp in her hand, came in.

"Ah, Madame," said Cecile, "I am so glad to see you. Has it not been wonderful, wonderful, what has happened to day? Has not Jesus the Guide been more than good? Yes. I do feel now that He will hear my prayer to the very end; I do feel that I shall very soon find Lovedy."

"Cecile," said Mme. Malet, kneeling down by the child's bed, and holding the lamp so that its light fell full on her own fair face, "what kind was this Lovedy Joy?"

"What kind?" exclaimed Cecile. "Ah, dear Mme. Suzanne, how well I know her face! I can see it as her mother told me about it-blue eyes, golden hair, teeth white and like little pearls, rosy, cherry lips. A beautiful English girl! No-I never could mistake Lovedy."

"Cecile," continued Mme. Malet, "you say you would know this Lovedy when you saw her. See! Look well at me—the light is shining on my face. What kind of face have I got, Cecile?"

"Fair," answered Cecile—"very fair and very beautiful. Your eyes, they are blue as the sky; and your lips, how red they are, and how they can smile! And your teeth are very white; and then your hair, it is like gold when the sun makes it all dazzling. And—and——"

"And I am English—an English girl," continued Madame.

"An English girl!" repeated Cecile, "you—are—like her—then!"

"Cecile, I am her—I am Lovedy Joy!"

"You! you!" repeated Cecile. "You Lovedy! But no, no; you are Suzanne—you are Mme. Malet."

"Nevertheless I was—I am Lovedy Joy. I am that wicked girl who broke her mother's heart; I am that wicked girl who left her. Cecile, I am she whom you seek; you have no further search to make—poor, brave, dear little sister—I am she."

Then Lovedy put her arms round Cecile, and they mingled their tears together. The woman wept from a strong sense of remorse and pain, but the child's tears were all delight.

"And you are the Susie about whom Mammie Moseley used to fret? Oh, it seems too good, too wonderful!" said Cecile at last.

"Yes, Cecile, I left Mammie Moseley too; I did everything that was heartless and bad. Oh, but I have been unhappy. Surrounded by mercies as I have been, there has been such a weight, so heavy, so dreadful, ever on my heart."

Cecile did not reply to this. She was looking hard at the Lovedy she had come so many miles to seek—for whom she had encountered so many dangers. It seemed hard to realize that her search was accomplished, her goal won, her prize at her feet.

"Yes, Lovedy, your mother was right, you are very beautiful," she said slowly.

"Oh, Cecile! tell me about my mother," said Lovedy then. "All these years I have never dared speak of my mother. But that has not prevented my starving for her, something as poor Joe must have starved for his. Tell me all you can about my mother—-more than Alphonse told downstairs tonight."

So Cecile told the