Love's Golden Thread

by E. C. Kenyon

The two went on discussing the matter whilst Doris drank her tea and ate her egg and bread and butter; and then Mrs. Austin took the tray down, and waited impatiently for the return of her nephew.

At last he came in, bringing the manager's compliments to Miss Anderson, and he begged her to call upon him the next day.

Doris, therefore, went to the ironmonger's shop in the morning, was duly shown into the manager's room, and, after remaining there, some little time talking over the matter with him, the result was that she was engaged to work at lamp-shade making for the firm, in a little room behind the shop, for eight hours a day, at a salary commencing at sixteen shillings a week.

This arrangement Doris thought a more desirable one than another which would necessitate her providing her own materials, making the shades in her attic, and receiving so much a dozen for them. She stipulated, however, that if the shades sold well her salary should be increased in proportion.

Weeks and months of pretty, if monotonous work followed for Doris. Her candle- and lamp-shades were a decided success, and sold quickly at low prices. One window of the shop was given up for a display of them, and they made a "feature," or a "speciality," which attracted customers. The head of the firm, Mr. Boothby, sent for Doris one day, praised her handiwork, and raised her salary to a pound a week.

Doris was very thankful for the additional money, as it enabled her gradually to pay her kind landlady all she owed, and still have fifteen shillings a week for her board and lodging. More than this the good woman would not take, and as for Sam, he stoutly refused to be paid anything for the use of his cab on the picture business. One favour only he begged, and that was that Miss Anderson would give him one of the little pictures he had endeavoured to assist her to sell.

Doris chose one of the best, and wrote his name on the back of it, much to his delight.

She became contented, if not happy, as time went on, knowing that she could earn her living by work which was not too hard for her strength; but her old dream of partially repaying Bernard Cameron was no nearer fulfilment, for what could she do with only a few shillings a week for dress and personal expenditure? Sometimes, as her fingers worked busily, her thoughts were turning over new schemes for earning money, which might in the future develop into something greater and more lucrative than what she had in hand just then; and on a Saturday afternoon or Sunday, when walking or sitting in Regent's Park, or more occasionally in Hyde Park, or even at Richmond or Kew Gardens, her thoughts would fly to those who loved her, and she would long to see again her mother and father, and look once more on the beloved face of Bernard Cameron.

Did they ever think of her? she wondered. Would she ever meet them again? They could have no possible clue to her whereabouts. She, buried in a little back room at the ironmonger's shop for eight hours a day, had small chance of being seen by any one except workpeople and shop assistants. And even if she were out-of-doors more, walking about in those North London streets, or in the parks, or mingling with the "madding crowd" within the City, what likelihood was there that she would run across any of the three who, in spite of the sad separation from her, yet occupied the largest share of her heart of hearts? Where were they now? Probably her parents were hiding away somewhere abroad, perhaps in America or Australia, banished for ever from England by her father's sin and fear of the penalty of the laws which he had broken. It was wretched to think of them in their self-imposed, compulsory exile. Her mother's words, "Farewell, my child: my heart would break at parting from you, were it not that what has happened has broken it already!" recurred to her, to fill her eyes with tears, and make her heart ache painfully.

Scarcely less painful was it to think of Bernard, and of his tender love, because that was followed by his shrinking back from her when she last saw him, and by his mother's upbraiding and harsh cry, "If you marry, you will take your husband a dowry of shame." And again, "Do you mean to say that there is anything between you, the daughter of a criminal who shall yet be brought to justice if there be any power in the arm of the law, and my son, my stainless, innocent child?" and then her excited denunciation: