AMONG LIONS. CHAPTER XIX. E have all heard or read how the great tunnel through the Alps was made. On each side of the mountain excavations were begun, which after a certain season of toil met in the middle, and the work was complete. Now, without the least knowledge on their parts, Mr. Swayne and Mrs. Holmes were both working at the same tunnel, and were destined to meet in the middle too. It was Mrs. Holmes who first had an inkling of this; her mind had been thoroughly aroused by Alice as to the duty of making inquiries about her little granddaughter. When the slack season sets in,' she had promised Alice; and with the first fogs of November she shrouded her parlour furniture in canvas bags, and set out for Manchester. Her friend the Inspector could only tell her that Burton had gone to London. But in time a letter reached her from her daughter's mistress, once Miss Mabel Fitzpatrick, now a certain Mrs. George Treherne, out in India, giving her certain particulars of the death of her child, and mentioning that she had been the baby's godmother and allowed it to bear her name, that of Mabel. I gave it my coral necklace, with "Mabel" on the clasp,' wrote Mrs. Treherne, and her father promised it should never be taken from her. I fancy he and the child went to London, somewhere in Clerkenwell, but he never wrote to me as he promised. I am afraid he must have taken to bad ways after his wife's death; poor Anne certainly did her best to keep him straight while she could.' And then Mrs. Holmes transferred her inquiries to Clerkenwell. That seemed more hopeless still. There were men of uncertain character and drinking habits by the score to be found, and helpless motherless children were everywhere. In sheer despair of discovering anything herself she went back to Littleby, after offering a small reward-all she could afford-to any one who could furnish a clue to the Burtons. As it happened that winter, Meg, the woman Bell once lived with, lay dying, and among the various sins on her conscience was the selling of the little girl she had promised her dying father to befriend to the showman, Pottinger. I say selling, for such the transaction really was. Burton had left a little money, which he had given | the woman, on condition she kept his child after his death. A poor home, but all a drunkard could secure. When Bell grew weakly, and could no longer get her living by hawking flowers and such-like trifles in the streets, she became a burden to the wretched couple she lived with, and for a few shillings Meg gave her up to the showman, who just then wanted a pretty little girl. It never troubled Meg on her deathbed that she had beaten and ill-treated the hapless orphan, but the selling her outright seemed to her a sin of so much deeper dye that she wailed it out to the good man who stood by her bedside the last few days of her life, when she could no longer resist his services. Mr. Perry, the curate, made a note of the matter, taking down Bell's name and age, and promising Meg that the child should be sought for and placed in some asylum. But the curate was overworked and in weak health, and but for Mrs. Holmes' inquiries having reached his ears, it might have been yet longer before he had begun his search for Bell. As it was he gladly gave Mrs. Holmes all the information he possessed, and after this it was not difficult to trace the showman in his wanderings. As the caravan neared Moor Thornton it flashed on Mrs. Holmes that the little girl Alice had been so interested in when at Littleby had just such a story attached to her. Could it be that Bell, the fairy lion-tamer, was her grandchild? Bit by bit she thought over all Alice had told her, and it seemed quite possible. In shame Mrs. Holmes wrote to Mr. Swayne to ask for all particulars. To her relief she heard that Bell was safe at Moor, and the letter in Mrs. Treherne's handwriting, with the necklace, marvellously preserved amidst the changes and chances of Bell's life, were proofs that Mabel Burton and little Bell the show-girl were one and the same person. Alice was nearly out of her wits with joy at the discovery; she could not understand the tears of shame which poor old Mrs. Holmes shed when she arrived at Moor, where she had been invited to see Bell with her own eyes. Neither did she understand the shrinking of Mrs. Holmes from the first sight of her grandchild. Alice was young, and had suffered no such remorse as Mrs. Holmes felt in the expectation of looking on the likeness of a daughter who had died without a kind word or glance from the mother who had cast her off. True, Anne Burton had sinned; but are we perfect, that we should so hardly judge others? Her Bell, too, expressed no joy at this discovery of a grandmother for her. cheeks flushed and her eyelids fell. 'She won't take me away from Moor, Miss Alice?' she asked imploringly. 'Johnny couldn't do without me.' Alice broke out into a glowing description of Littleby, but Bell would only say, 'I like Moor best.' She could not, however, resist the eager looks of poor Mrs. Holmes, and when once satisfied that she would not hastily be torn from Moor and Johnny, she submitted quietly to her caresses. Alice felt a little impatient at Bell's behaviour, but Mr. Swayne assured her it was only natural that the poor child should dread any change after her tossed and troubled life. So they waited a little, Mrs. Holmes staying on at the Manor, which she had a standing invitation to visit whenever she could, and spending a great deal of time at the Weirs' cottage watching Bell and Johnny. She told both of them long stories about the sea, and her house at Littleby, with the shell-walks in the garden. It was Bell at last who found a way to content all parties. 'Shall Johnny and me go to Littleby for a while and see all this?' said she one day. We could come back, you know.' 6 |