Chapter XIV: Reunion

THE family at Briar Cottage were much puzzled by the non-appearance of Margerie's "protégé," for the next day also passed and nothing was seen of him. Margerie was quite troubled about it, and worried her small brains with many fruitless and improbable conjectures as to what had become of him. But strange to say, the person who seemed most disturbed in mind by the lad's unexpected disappearance was grandma herself.

The old lady asked Margerie quite anxiously on the latter's return from school, whether she had seen anything of him. On Sunday morning, she bade the little girl run down to the gate at breakfast-time to ascertain if he were loitering anywhere about, and appeared actually disappointed when she returned with the information,—

"No, grandma, he isn't there."

And if Margerie could have known it, the apparently impassive dame was watching the clock that same evening in nervous impatience for her return from home, to learn whether anything was known about him there. But the other Graces were as much in the dark as themselves.

A street accident seemed the most likely solution of the mystery, though sudden illness and consequent removal to workhouse or hospital, and even arrest by the police for some form of misdemeanour, were ideas which could not fail to present themselves to a grown person's mind. Margerie's chief fear was that in going as appointed to Briar Cottage, poor Ned had lost his way, and might have been wandering about the mazy streets of London ever since.

On Monday morning before school, our little maid was dusting grandma's bed-room, which, like the parlour, was in the front of the house. If it had not been for the uncertainty respecting the fate of the poor waif, I think she would have been really happy, for grandma's manner was far kinder than at first, indeed it seemed to grow more pleasant every day, and that morning she had actually remarked that the furniture, with such good rubbing as "the new housemaid" gave it, was getting quite bright.

I need scarcely say that after such encouragement as this, Margerie rubbed "elbow-grease" into the dingy brass-handled chest-of-drawers upstairs, until she was out of breath and perspiring with the exertion.

It was while she was resting for a minute, and admiring the contrast she imagined she already discerned between the part she had done and the part she hadn't, that the far-away "clang" of the old iron gate caused her to peep between the window shutters, which to save curtains were always half closed, and see who was coming.

A gentleman was approaching the house, accompanied by a boy. Both were well dressed, but something in the appearance of the latter instantly riveted her attention. Thin, pale, with large dark eyes, he was enough like Ned to have been his twin brother, nay, his very self!

Downstairs flew Margerie. "Grandma, grandma! Here's somebody coming! And it 'does' look so like Ned!" she cried.

By that time there was a knock at the door.

"Does Mrs. Grace live here?" queried the stranger.

"Yes, sir," answered Margerie, but with her incredulous gaze fastened upon Ned—for Ned indeed it was, washed, brushed, collared and cuffed, looking positively gentlemanly in a new gray suit and neat silk tie. What agency could be responsible for so marvellous a transformation as this?

Ned coloured and looked half pleased, half shy. Margerie coloured too, and smiled, but was dumbfounded with amazement.

"Can I see her?" asked the gentleman, recalling the little girl to a sense of duty.

But as he spoke, Mrs. Grace herself appeared at the parlour door.

There was a short expressive silence, during which she and the visitor gazed at one another much as Margie and Ned had done.

"Is it—? It—it can't be—" faltered the old lady in trembling accents.

"Your runaway son?" said the stranger. "Indeed it is. And—" (laying a hand affectionately on Ned's shoulder) "'his' son!"

* * * * * * * * *

Half an hour later a cab drew up at the gate of Briar Cottage. Minnie and Maud were at school, so they did not see how first of all there sprang out a nice-looking boy, and next a gentleman, and how the gentleman handed out first an old lady and then a little girl, how the little girl ran before and knocked a remarkable knock at the door, how the gentleman carefully supported the old lady, who was rather lame, along the garden path, and how the boy followed behind. Minnie and Maud unfortunately lost all that, but perhaps it was quite as well, for if their voluble tongues had been added to the buzz of excited conversation which was presently going on inside the house above named, the result might have been serious.

"How ever did your father find you out?" asked Margerie, who presently with Ned subsided into a corner, while questions, answers, and explanations were actively going on between their elders.

"He saw you and me talking Friday morning—that last time when you sat down with me, you know," Ned told her; "and he thought I looked like his boy that he'd lost. And he came back to me after you'd gone, and asked me a lot of things, and then he knew I was."

"You thought he was dead, didn't you?"

"Why, it was all lies!—I mean what that woman said!" burst out Ned with sudden energy. "Father had been sending the money for me regular all the time, and she spent it in drink, and then said he hadn't. Father only wishes he could catch her, he'd make her pay for it. But when he wrote to say he was coming home, she took herself off. Oh, she was a bad 'n! What d'you think? She got her own boy to write letters to father, pretending they were from me, saying how happy he was and how awful kind she was, and all that."

Margerie looked shocked. "Just fancy!" she said.

But the thought of this wickedness was soon driven from their minds by present joy and wonder.

"Only to think of you and I being cousins!" she continued, "It 'does' seem funny! We never should have guessed it, should we? Not if we'd guessed for a hundred years. I say, Ned," she added as a new thought struck her, "is that why you wouldn't tell me your name? Because you know it was the same as mine, didn't you?"

"I never thought we were relations," said Ned. "It never entered my mind. Only, somehow, I didn't like to say it was just like yours. It seemed sort of impudence in a poor chap like me; I thought you wouldn't like it. If you had happened to ask me my name first, instead of telling me yours, of course I should have told you. But when I looked at you, all so nice and pretty—well, there, I couldn't bring it out, and that's all about it!"

* * * * * * * * *

"Well, the funniest part to my mind," said Minnie a few days later, "is that our little bit of a Margerie should have been the means of bringing all this about. Here's grandma united to her two long-lost sons, and uncle found his boy, and Ned restored to his relations, and uncle promising to give father just the sort of work he can do, all quietly and comfortably at home,—everything coming right all round, like the end of a fairy-tale, and that little midget, who has never set herself up a bit, is the one who has done it all!"

"The 'youngest princess,' of course!" laughed Maud. "Who else should it be?"

"And a princess she is!" added their father. "A princess in the kingdom of heaven. Service in that kingdom is the condition and sign of greatness. Our little Margerie loves to serve. All the happy events which have just now been brought about are the direct outcome of her simple, humble efforts to help those about her—efforts made without any thought of reward. If loving ministry to others is the patent of heavenly nobility—and we have the Lord's own word that it is so,—then our darling is surely a maiden of high rank, a King's daughter, indeed!"

THE END.