"Help!" was the answer. "I'm past that. There, good night! Don't trouble your kind head about me."
And then the old woman went on again, getting into narrow, darker streets, with fewer shops, and people of a rougher, poorer class. But it would overtax your patience and my powers to describe the old woman's wanderings in the maze of London. Enough to say, that when, an hour or two later, footsore and ready to drop, she stumbled along a little street near Soho Square, a woman, with a baby in her arms, uttered a loud cry of pleased recognition, and darted out to stop her.
"Why, it ain't never you! Whoever would have thought of seeing you so soon; and however did you find me out? This is the house. Why, there, there! Dontee cry, sure! dontee, now! You're tired out. Come in and have a cup of tea. I've got the kettle boiling all ready, for my Harry'll be in soon."
It was the young woman she travelled with the day before,—only the day before, though it seemed months to look back to; only her face was bright and happy now, in spite of the fog and dirt about her; for had not her Harry a home and welcome for her, in spite of all her fears and people's evil prophecies; and was not this enough to make sunshine through the rainiest day?
Very improbable, you will say, perhaps, that these two waifs, these floating straws, should have drifted together on the great ocean of London life. Yes, very improbable, well-nigh impossible, I agree, if it is mere chance that guides our way; but stranger, more improbable things happen every day; and, if we mean anything by Providence, it is no longer difficult to understand, for we can see the Hand leading, guiding, arranging, weaving the tangled, confused threads of human life into the grand, clear, noble pattern of divine purpose.
CHAPTER V.
Eighteen months have passed away since my story began; and it is no longer dull, foggy, November, but May, beautiful even in London, where the squares and parks are green and fresh, and the lilacs and laburnums in bloom, and the girls sell lilies-of-the-valley and wall flowers in the streets, and trucks with double stocks and narcissus "all a-growing and a-blowing" pass along, leaving a sweet, reviving scent behind them. The sky is blue, with great soft masses of cotton-wool cloud; and the air is balmy and pure in spite of smoke and dirt; and sweet spring is making his power felt, even in the very midst of London. It is blossoming time in the heart as well as in the Kentish apple orchards; and the heart cannot help feeling gay and singing its happy little song even though its cares, like the poor larks in the Seven Dial's bird shops, ruffling their soft breasts and knocking their poor brown heads against their cages in their ecstacy of song.
