Mollie's Maidens. (Reprinted from The Quiver.)

Front matter

NO OUTRAGEOUS NAMES OR PRICES, BUT CEYLON TEA (Pure and Simple), our own Packing, Is. 6d. per Ib. Compare it with that sold in Fancy Packets, with Fancy Names, at nearly double the price. 1-lb. Sample, free by Post, for Is. 9d. ; 2i-lbs., 4s. 3d. ; 41-lbs., 7s. 6d. ; or 6Hbs., 10s. 9d. ; No charge for carriage of parcels of io-lbs. and over in England. For Early Breakfasts we recommend the Siftinjrs of Choke Fine Black Teas, Is. per Ib., leady for use as soon as made ; the French Coffee, Is. per lb. tin — a Luxury no longer Unknown. See that you have iitnother, since there are many base imitation^. £-lb. Sample Tins, free by post, for 2s. Cd., to all post towns in England. s d. PURE TRINIDAD SOLUBLE COCOA (can ster included) - - -20 PREPARED VIENNA CHOCOLATE - - I 6 PREPARED FRENCH CHOCOLATE - -10 Each being very nutrition'; and easy of digestion, and only require boiling wattr or milk pouring on and stirr'ng till dissolved.

Packed in 1-lb. and > lb. Canisters, and i lb. Sample Packets lib. Canister by Post for 3d. extra. Price Jist of other T*as, Coffees, and Cocoas sent free on application. Cheques and Postal Orders to he crossed " National Provincial Bank." BARBER & COMPANY ("THE ORIGINAL.") (Established in 1797-) 2V4, REGESJT CIRCUS, "W". 61, B shopsgate Street, London E.C. I 67, rrixlon Road, S.W. 102, Wes.Lourne Grove, W. I 44, Union street, late 42. Great Titcofleld Street, W Quadnnt, New Street, BIRMINGHAM. 147, North Stre:t, and 75, EaBt Street, BRIGHTON; tlso 60, Cr.ureli Road, Hove. Their only A.iJrcsses in Sussex. " ' WE HAVE SEEN SOMETHING DREADFUL ! ' " <-S« I* '9). BY LOUISA CROW AUTHOR OF "FOR CONSCIENCE* SAKE " " WHITHER DRIFTING?" ETC. ETC. CASSELL and COMPANY Limited LONDON PARIS & MELBOURNE 1894 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Kept inlcd from The Quiver.

Chapter I. Jealously Guarded

The fields were white with the harvest ; a wet cold summer had given place to a glorious autumn ; and to those southern counties where the corn ripens early came the reapers, eager to begin their labours. Some arrived in gangs, others with no companion save a little lad, who would make himself useful in binding the wheat into sheaves as it fell before the reaping-hook or sickle ; but occasionally whole families would be seen accompanying the reapers to share their toils, and bear with them the heat of the day. One of these families numbered seven in all, and carried with them their household belongings, packed on a hand-barrow that was guarded by a sharp little mongrel. Their home was London — one room in a close court, where light and air were at a premium' — and the annual migration to the woods and fields was always looked upon as a delicious holiday.

They would have to brave exposure to the weather, and would return more ragged than they went, but with a healthy brown replacing the sickly pallor of the children's faces, and a bit or two of gold, earned by honest labour, carefully stored away for plenishing the barrow with fruit or vegetables, to be hawked in the winter along the streets of the metropolis. Joe Reynolds, with the help of his wife and his two elder sons, had made quick work of a ten-acre field of corn at a small farm, and was now on his way to a homestead where the reaping would be succeeded by some hop-picking, which meant the employment of the whole family for three weeks, or even longer. But the day had been tropical in its warmth, the distance was considerable, and towards evening the tired dusty group came to a halt for the night.

A narrow shady lane tempted them by its silence and seclusion, and in a very short space of time they had settled themselves on a patch of greensward near the gate of a plantation, from which wood squid be drawn for their fire. Tl)!s was soon blazing merrily, and when a few sticks were set up, Mol lie's Ma id ens. and a piece of canvas thrown over them— called by courtesy the tent — the elder boys withdrew to a distance to gamble with a few halfpence of which they had become possessed, and Joe Reynolds sat down to watch the fire, and count the few shi lings remaining to him after laying in provisions at the grocery in the last village they had passed through. Now, too, his wife was free to take the ailing, fretting baby from the arms of a small slip of a girl who had been dragging it about the day long, with no one to relieve her ; for mother could ply the " rip-hook " almost as well as father, and ever since sunrise had worked by his side bravely.

There was no one to relieve the little girl — for this reason : the boy next to her in age was an afflicted one — deaf and dumb, as well as crippled through a fall in his infancy. " A sore trial to her was Lukie," Mrs. Reynolds was wont to say, but in what manner she might have found it difficult to explain, seeing that, beyond giving them their share of the family meals, she did little or nothing for either of her children after they had learnt the use of their limbs and could frolic with the rest of the urchins that swarmed the court. She was affectionate to her babies, although her tenderness rarely went the length of keeping them clean ; and now she crooned to her infant, and called it by the endearing names that mothers emp'oy, while waiting for the boiling of the water in the pot slung over the crackling sticks.

" I'm patched for a drop o' tea ! " she murmured. " What a day it have been ! Them ladies that sat under a white umberella taking our pictures looked cool and comfortable enough ; but I han't seen nothing else that wasn't as scorched up as I be. They was mightily taken with our Lukie. Come to think of it, where is Lukie ? What a boy he is to get wandering off nobody knows where ! " This was quite true ; in spite of his lameness, Luke Reynolds was very active, and would limp away to explore the course of a brook, or to gather ferns and wild flowers, or be brought back in the grip of a stern gamekeeper, who had found him examining the eggs in a part ridge's nest, and could not be induced to believe that the boy had no intention of stealing them. His last adventure of this kind having cost his parents no little trouble, Mrs. Reynolds looked around her anxiously as she continued her inquiries.

"Han't you seen nothing of him, Joe? Polly says he went through yon gate. He'll have them meddlesome keepers after him again ; and we shall be warned away, an' me that tired my legs are fit to fall off. Go after him, Joe, do'ee now." " It shall be with a rope's-end," responded the man, rising reluc tantly. "Why can't he stop here, as the others do ? " The speaker shambled towards the gate, grumbling as he went, but his wife was not alarmed at his threats. Never yet had he laid a singer on Luke, though the others frequently received their lessons in obedience with the accompaniment of a stout switch. Jealously Guarded. 9 But the deaf and dumb boy made his appearance before the search for him could be commenced. His eyes were sparkling with surprise and delight ; he was uttering the odd inarticulate sounds with which he expressed pleasure, and as soon as he caught sight of his father he began retreating towards the trees, and making signs to him to fjllow.

" He's found something," said Mrs. Reynolds, joining her husband at the gate ; "but don't you go to see what it is. Last time it was a big black toad, and he put it down in baby's lap, and cried when I got Matthie to take and kill it." " I'm not a-goin' ; he mustn't be encouraged in such silly ways," said Mr. Joseph Reynolds gruffly ; and by all the expressive gestures in his power he made known to the boy that supper was nearly ready, and his share would be nil if he did not come for it immediately. But still Lukie beckoned and pointed to the object that interested him. Close to where he stood there grew one of those graceful firs, or pines, of which the long lower branches swept the ground, and it was by something beneath these branches that his attention seemed to be engrossed. Joe Reynolds, with a threat and an angry expletive, lounged back to the fire.

" Let him alone ; he'd come when he was hungry ;" and Mrs. Reynolds might have acted on the advice if Joe Reynolds junior, having lost all his pence, had not sauntered up to look over the gate too. " Lukie's got a find ! " he exclaimed. " Maybe it's a snake or a hadder ! " " And me standing here, and my poor helpless child in danger of being stung to death ! " gasped the mother. 'Ihe baby was tossed into the lap of Polly, and Mrs. Reynolds ran towards her boy, followed by the elder lad, half frightened, half curious. Putting his finger on his lip, Luke seized his mother's hand, dragged her to the tree, and, cautiously parting the branches, displayed to her the sight that had chained him there. On a heap of moss, and covered with an old scarlet shawl, lay two children, sleeping too soundly to be roused by the approach of these intruders.

They were twin girls, five or six years of age, and in the rosy faces pressed closely together the resemblance w-as very striking ; but here it ceased : the limbs of one were cast in a stronger mould than those of the other ; her hair was black, while her sister's was of a ruddy brown ; and had they been awake, it would have been seen that the eyes of one were darkest hazel, of the other a bluish grey. In the restlessness of slumber one of the children had tossed her arm over the old shawl, and on this plump shapely limb the gaze of Mrs. Reynolds was riveted. The hand and wrist were browned by exposure to the sun almost as deeply as those of her own children, but then, they were delicately clean, and the sleeve of the child's under garment was as white as c ireful washing could make it. These were no roughly-reared, half-starved outcasts.

At a glance it could be seen that they had been carefully, if not delicately, nur tured, and Mrs. Reynolds, though in suppressed tones, began to express her astonishment. " Why, now, how came these pooty little creturs here ? and all alone, too, bless their hearts ! " Her son suggested that they belonged to some one living near, but this idea was scouted as absurd. " People that have got a roof over their heads don't put their young children to bed under a tree," she argued. " Who can have brought them here, and then gone away and left the little dears ? I wish they'd wake and tell us." " I'll soon rouse 'em up for you," cried Joe junior, and he filliped a stone at the uncovered arm with so true an aim that the little sleeper winced, and moaned, and murmured plaintively the name of " Manon."

Before the boy could throw again, or Mrs. Reynolds interfere to prevent it, he was seized from behind, shaken violently, and flung to the ground. It must have been the sucMen nature of the attack that caused him to be so easily overthrown ;* for he was a big strong lad, while his assailant was but a small slight woman. Foreign of aspect, brown, wrinkled, and old, was this guardian of the sleeping children, in her still bright black e)es retaining the only trace of the prettiness of her youth. Yet she formed a pleasant con trast to the more comely Englishwoman, for her garments, though equally threadbare, were neatly mended, and as far as possible all traces of travel had been removed from them. "She's a gipsy," muttered Mrs. Reynolds, led to that conclusion by the gay-coloured handkerchief bound round the old woman's scanty grey locks: "a gipsy, and she's stolen ihose children.

Fetch your lather, Lukie. I 'm no better than other people, but I'il never stand by and let a mother be robbed of her little ones." In obedience to her signs, the deaf and dumb boy went in search of his father. Joe the younger was still lying where he had been thrown, afraid to stir, while the strange-looking old woman stood over him, hissing between her teeth reproaches in a language he could not com prehend, and menacing him with her skinny hands. But ere Joe the elder could be roused from a nap into which he had fallen, Mrs. Reynolds' attention was distracted from the strangers to her own affairs. Polly, pale with terror, came hurrying towards the group in the copse to ask what made the baby she was carrying look so strange. The poor little creature had been seized wilh convulsions, and as the mother snitched it to her bosom, her piteous looks appealed to her fellow-woman for sympathy and aid.

Both were given freely. Joe's offence was forgotten ; and though not a word of English could la mire Manon speak, she could and did give the suffering infant the benefit of her experience. In her distant home in Alsace she had won much renown as a doctress, and in a very short space of time her patient lay on her knees conscious, and free from pain. Jealously Guarded. 11 Manon's skill gave her immense influence over the awkward, ignorant Englishwoman, who trembled and sobbed whenever there was any reason to fear a return of the attack. This fear led her to attach herself to Manon for the night. When the latter stretched herself at the feet of the slumbering children, Mrs. Reynolds, after a short con sultation with her spouse, crept under the branches too ; baby, wrapped in an old cloak, lying between her and the foreigner, whom she no longer suspected of evil.

But her suspicions revived in the morning. It was impossible to regard Manon as a heartless child-stealer when the little girls started from their mossy bed to frolic around her, cover her wrinkled cheek, with their kisses, and laughingly struggle to be the first to obtain her answering caresses. There was an almost maternal tenderness in her manner as she laved their faces and hands in the water she had fetched from a wayside spring, or combed out their glossy hair and tied over it the quilted hoods of crimson that put lo shame the battered straw hat of Polly Reynolds. Polly's mother gaped and wondered, and mentally asked what was the use of taking so much trouble when everybody knew children would rather be dirty than clean ; but the circumstance that perplexed her and filled her with distrust of Manon was this — As soon as dark-eyed Claire and brown-haired Lucie were dressed, they knelt down, and with their hands folded on the knee of the old woman, slowly and revertntly repeated the Lord's Prayer in excellent English, and at the close sang in their sweet childish voices a couple of verses of a simple morning hymn.

Mrs. Reynolds retired to her tent much disgusted. " You'd never think a woman who is so kind and clever could be a cheat ! I was right, after all ; those children are no more foreigners than we are, and I should very much like to know how she came by 'em." Manon must have been quite unconscious of the doubts she had ins| ired, for when the Reynolds family were getting ready to continue the r journey, she came towards them to obtain information respecting her own route. Accustomed to communicate by signs with deaf and dumb Lukie, ami propitiated by the poor boy's evident del'ght in the society of Claire and Lucie, both husband and wife lent a willing ear to Manon's endeavours to make ihem understand her requirements. She had crossed from France with her young charges, landing at Newhaven a few days ago : thus far they comprehended her ; but the why or wherefore remained inexplicable.

Neither was it easy to discover in what way she claimed connection with the little girls. That she was fondly attached to them was as evident as that her affection was reciprocated. Not even to see the treasures of curious pebbles and forsaken nests Lukie had accumulated could they be induced lo quit the side of la mire Manon. Since landing in England, she had travelled with them on foot, a little pantomime, wilh a purse containing but a few shillings, denoting that her resources were nearly exhausted. But she was drawing near her destination ; at least, she hoped and believed so, and she appealed to the Keynoldses to confirm that hope. From a small wallet she wore at her side, under her shawl, she pro duced what appeared to be a paper of instructions, and held this up before the eyes of Joe Reynolds, pointing to certain words, to which she drew his attention.

But he referred her to his wife, with the remark that he had never learned to read writing. Unfortunately, too, Mrs. Reynolds' education was defective; though if it were not, she asked, how could she be expected to understand a Frenchwoman's gibberish ? With the aid, however, of one of the lads, who when at home was wont to go to school by fits and starts, one of the words to which Manon pointed was deciphered, and she nodded, and gesticulated, and chatted volubly in her delight at hearing it repeated by one and another. " It's somewhere near Horsham she wants to go," said Joe Reynolds — " L.aytall, or some such name as that, she calls the place ; but I never heard of it, and I've known that neighbourhood, man and boy, ever since I was old enough to bind sheaves for my grandfather. She must keep along with us till we can meet with somebody who knows where 'tis."

When the arrangement was propounded to Manon, she fell into it readily. She was only too thankful for companionship on this her tedious journey. The children were too young to travel far in the course of a day : and plodding so slowdy along the lanes of a pastoral country was weary work, especially to a stranger in the land. Nor had she found the people very friendly. If she ventured to pause at a cottage to teg a cup of milk for the little ones, she had such trouble in making herself understood, that either she was laughed at or the door was rudely shut against her. Moreover, she had been sadly frightened the only time she ven tured to seek a night's lodging at a lonely inn. Two rough fellows, compatriots of her own, were there — men dressed as sailors, who had a bear with them, and took a malicious pleasure in startling the timid Lucie by making the animal growl at her.

This was enough to make Manon dislike them, but it was not all. She had occasion to produce her walltt, and had seen the eyes of the most villainous-looking of the men rest upon it with such a sinister expression, that she had been afraid to lie down and sleep after dis covering that her door had no proper fastening, and the bear-leaders occupied the adjoining room. Twice during the hours of darkness someone came to the door, but retreated with a muttered oath on finding her on ihe alert. Who could it be but the man who, misled by her care of her wallet had fancied it worth stealing? So great was the aversion with which this fellow inspired her, that she roused the children and quitted the house as soon as it was day light ; and since then she had avoided all places where there was a chance of encountering such wayfarers : making her bed beside a hay stack or in ihe bracken beneath the hedges, and rejoicing in the spell of warm dry weather that rendered this possible.

Jealously Guarded. 13 So la mire Manon willingly trudged along the highway with her new friends, taking her turn at carrying baby, in consideration of occa sional lifts on ihe hand-barrow to Lucie, whose little feet were beginning to be blistered. She was disappointed on finding that Joe Reynolds would go no farther after reaching the outbuildings of the farmer who had agreed to employ him ; and she looked graver still when she contrived to learn that fifteen long miles still lay betwixt her and the town for which she was bound. Had she been alone, how easily she would have compassed the journey ; but with the children showing signs of extreme fatigue, how was it to be accomplished? She could not afford to hire a vehicle, even had she known how to set about it ; for those hungry little mouths must be fed, though she her self should fast.

Joe Reynolds and his family took up their quarters in one of the long low sheds, with a chimney at each end, known to those ac quainted with the districts in which hops are grown as the hoppers' barracks. Here they would have free quarters as long as the work lasted ; and while Mrs. Reynolds cooked supper, her spouse sauntered into the village close by to look for old cronies and discuss the state of the crops. Manon sat beneath a clump of trees near the well from which the hop-pickers drew their supply, watching the little girls contentedly munch their supper of dry bread, or laugh with Lukie at the comical figure Lucie presented with her feet bound up in cool green leaves. For to-night the old woman decided that she would ask leave to remain here ; for to-morrow — ah ! what would that morrow bring forth ?

A hasty footstep came towards her. It was Joe Reynolds returning from the village, his stolid face lit up into something like animation. "Where's the old Frenchwoman?" he demanded. "Oh, here you are. I've got news for you — good news ! " and he shouted the words in her ear as if by so doing he should make her understand them. " I've found some of your own people, and they'll be able to talk to you and take you where you want to go. Here they are 1 " Manon followed the direction of his finger, and there, bowing and grinning in mockery of her unconcealed alarm, she saw the owners of the dancing bear.

Chapter II. Other Travellers

" How slowly the man drives ! " exclaimed a weary voice. " Is tl.ere no hurrying him ? " An intelligent-looking lad of fourteen, who sat opposite the speaker, leaned out of the carriage window to shout to the driver, but drew in his head without doing so. "We are climbing a hill, mamma — such a long steep one that I think I had better get out and walk." " No, Lancie, pray don't do that. My dress suffers by the mud you bring back. I hope it will not rain again to-morrow." To this somewhat irrelevant remark neither of the lady's com panions making any reply, she touched the knee of the gentleman beside her, and leaned lightly against his shoulder. They were husband and wife, and in spite of, or perhaps as the result of, very oppo site characters, retained after many years of matrimony an extremely warm affection for each other.

" Dear Allan, do shut up that book and bestow a little of your attention on me ! " " Papa would rather read than talk, always ; and so would I," in terposed a little girl who occupied the fourth seat in the vehicle. She too was bending over a large volume, with her charming features pursed up in unconscious imitation of her studious father's. " Prig, prig, prig ! " muttered her brother, with a jerk of her book that shut it up suddenly. " I'd rather be a prig than a dunce," retorted ihe aggrieved damsel ; "but not being a boy — an awkward, stupid boy — I can't be either." "Hush, children ! are you quarrelling?" Mrs Balfour demanded. " Why do you vex me so olten by disagreeing ? " " Lancelot is so rude ! " said the little girl, bent only on justifying herself, as she frowned at the offender, who exclaimed — "Oh, mamma, it was nothing!

It made me laugh when Elsa likened herself to papa. He was studying " — and the boy's glance at his father was one of recognition of his abilities — "while she was amusing herself with a rubbishing fairy story." "lam not reading fairy tales," he was sharply told; "they are myths. If you were a better scholar " But now were heard the tones of authority Mr. Balfour could so well employ — was he not the head-master of a collegiate school ? " Peace ! I will not have your mother annoyed with such silly wrangling." lie turned to his wife with one of the rare smiles that made his rugged features almost handsome, and slipped into his pocket the miniature edition of Plato he had been studying. Other Travellers. 15 "There, Mary ; there goes your rival. Now I am at your service ; but I fancied you were too busy with your own thoughts to care to be disturbed."

" I cannot enjoy anything alone," she responded. " Haven't you known me long enough to know that? And although it is very silly of me, I want someone to listen while I wonder what sort of a place Glenwood is, and whether we shall be able to make it look homelike before my sister arrives." " Do you think she will care how her new home looks, knowing that her husband will have it in his power to alter, or even re-build, should he think proper ? " " Perhaps not ; but Milly is very sensitive, and a'ter all she has undergone, I can fancy so great, so unexpecled a change of circumstances being almost oppressive — especially if" — and Mrs. Balfour's tones sank into a mournful whisper — "' if it has come too late." "Don't play the Cassandra, my dear! However much your brother-in-law's health may have suffered from being pent up in a smoky city, and other trials, he is comparatively young, and the removal to purer air and all the comforts of a good country house may work wonders."

" I will try to hope so, for the sake of Milly and her children." " And while you try to be hopeful, do you intend to meet her with this doleful face ? " "No, indeed!" And Mrs. Balfour gave herself a little shake. "Or if I shed a few tears, it will be for sheer joy. How delightful to be the first to welcome her to Glenwood Lodge ! I should like to light bonfires on every hill for miles round, illuminate every window with coloured lamps, erect triumphal arches at the gates, and bring all the neighbours together to give the new-comers a right merry greeting." "Instead of which, like the prudent woman you are at heart, you will content yourself with having fires lit in the rooms, and beds aired, not forgetting one for me. I shall deserve that much at your busy hands for permitting myself to be dragged here to add to the confusion of this 'coming home.'" The jesting tone of her husband's reply jarred on Mrs. Balfour, and she sat silent for so many minutes that he grew tired of watching the rain that blurred the landscape, and began to singer the book he had pat aside at her entreaty.

She was a very impetuous woman, as well as an affectionate one, and it was with an almost passionate love that she regarded her only sister, Mildred. It had been the sole trouble of her very happy marriage — that Mildred's had not been equally prosperous. While she dwelt in one of Ihe fairest of homes, under the shadow of a cathedral, liked for her own sake, courted for her husband's, proud of his abilities, of hei lovely little daughter and well-grown son, Mrs. Glenwood's married life had been one continuous struggle. The failure of the bank in which he was junior partner obliged John Glenwood to accept a clerkship in Bradford, and there, with an ever increasing family, and all attempts at saving prevented by lengihy doctors' bills, he had resided ever since. Twice or thrice Mrs. Balfour had journeyed into the north to visit her sister, but always to come home depressed by the sight of her poverty, and filled with regrets that she could render her so little assistance.

Her last visit had been made only a few weeks ago, when one of the most promising of the little Glenwoods was carried off by diphtheria, and she had returned so worn with nursing and grieving that Mr. Balfour had considered himself justified in saying that she should not go to Bradford again. bhe had fretted in secret over the mandate, little dreaming how soon she should see her sister, and under what pleasant auspices. It happened in this wise : a relation of Mr. Glenwood, so distant that he only knew him by name, and so eccentric in his habits and movements that he had few acquaintances and fewer friends, died rather suddenly in Paris. In his last moments he sent for his kinsman, but while Mr. Glen wood was debating how to raise funds for such a journey a telegram brought the news of the sick man's death.