CHAPTER XXII.

NO THOROUGHFARE.

"THERE is a lady down-stairs waiting to see you, Miss Ashlyn," said Mollie, putting her head in at the door of the schoolroom one morning, and then withdrawing it without waiting to receive any answer.

"For me?" exclaimed Gertrude, colouring with surprise. "I do not know anybody here."

"Go down and see," said Randall. "I dare say it's some old fogey! Our last governess had some of those sort to see her."

If Gertrude had not blushed before, she blushed now. Suppose it should be her mother whom Randall had called by such a name?

"You are very rude," she said coldly, turning to him ere she left the room. "Do not move till I come back. I will at any rate not be long."

She ran down-stairs, her heart beating. Could it be her mother? But she would never have come unless something had been the matter!

She had not long to be in doubt. As she opened the door, a white-haired lady indeed sat near the window. But the beautiful complexion and soft, dark eyes belonged to no one else than her sister Rose!

In a moment they were clasped in each other's arms, and then Rose in rather an agitated way began to explain about the basket, and the old man, and the Strange House, and the little slippers.

At mention of these, Gertrude turned pale.

"Rose!" she exclaimed. "That is what has been haunting me ever since. I could not make it out!"

"That makes it more necessary than ever for me to do my utmost to find out if my child is really—"

Rose broke off. She could not get through those words. The imagined nearness of her child, if as she fondly believed, he were in the next house, made her altogether frantic. She could hardly control herself.

"Dearest Rose," said Gertrude persuasively, "sit down quietly now, while I go and tell Mrs. Shaddock you are here, and speak to my children up-stairs. I am sure they will be interested in it all, and Mrs. Shaddock will perhaps advise us as to what is best to be done."

Rose sat down obediently, though she glanced out of the window at every passer-by with such anxiety, that Gertrude feared she would not even allow her time to make her explanations, before she would want to be out of the door, and knocking at that Strange House which she thought contained her darling.

However, Gertrude hastened to the schoolroom to beg Daisy and Randall to amuse themselves with a book till her return, and then she sought Mrs. Shaddock, who was busy with Mollie in the dining-room writing invitations for an "At Home" the next week.

The explanations were soon made, and Mrs. Shaddock went into the other room to make acquaintance with Mrs. Leigh, and in her hospitable way to beg her to use her house as if it were her own.

Rose's tearful eyes were a grateful answer enough.

"I am going to the house to see if I can find out anything," said Rose, rising. "You cannot wonder that I dare not delay after my sad experiences!"

They let her go, and Gertrude went back to the schoolroom to tell Daisy about it, and to wait her sister's return. Rose had begged them not to accompany her or be seen outside.

Meanwhile with trembling steps, growing more firm as she went along, Rose tried to remember Otto's words of there being no "blind streets" in God's paths, and so gathered courage as she leaned on Him who is mighty.

But her repeated knocks at the door brought no answer, and after she had stood there a whole quarter of an hour, she began to despair at last.

She ceased knocking and ringing, and then could bear the strokes of a spade in the back garden.

She went to the side gate and shook it, and after some time an elderly man came shuffling up the path and approached the green lattice-work fence.

"Does Mrs. Swift live here?" said Rose as boldly as she could, her heart beating.

"My name's Brown," said the man surlily.

"Could I speak to your wife?" asked Rose, looking earnestly in his face.

"I'm alone," answered the man with increased surliness. "What's the good of asking me to see my wife? She went away from me a long time ago,—and, as I tell you, I'm all alone."

He began to turn towards his garden again.

"Oh, please!" implored Rose. "Would you tell me if you ever lived at Blank—?"

A startled look, despite an evident effort, overspread the man's face.

"No, I never did!" he answered heartily enough. "You never heard of a Mrs. Swift there, a lodging-house keeper, with one little boy?"

Did Rose fancy a spasm passed across the haggard face before her? It was only for an instant.

"Didn't I tell you," he asked roughly, "that I was never at the place? How is it likely I should know any one there? Why do you come here hindering me at my work?"

He left her abruptly, and Rose stood baffled.

"Oh, please!" she called in her soft, musical voice, which must have reached him well enough. "Please do come and talk to me a little while!"

But the man crunched over the gravel unheedingly, and took up his spade within sight of her, and so dug and dug persistently till, tired out, and fearing she was ridiculous, Rose turned back to the Shaddocks' house, feeling that indeed this had been "No thoroughfare" in good earnest.

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