For many minutes, he gratefully communed with God. He was thankful his child had come back to him so beautiful, and clever, and good. He could regard her with as much pride as love; though he told himself he would have loved her, and done all in his power to make her happy, whatever she had proved to be. And then, how glad he was that she had found her way into his heart before he knew she was his child.
Great, indeed, was the joy of “the Golden Shoemaker!” That very day he was to clasp his long-lost child to his heart!
The door of his room had been left ajar. Presently he heard the front-door open downstairs; and then there were voices in the hall, one of which he recognised as hers. The next moment he knew that she was coming upstairs. They had not told her the great news yet, of course? No; she was going direct to her own room.
He took up the little shoes, which had been left lying on the bed. How well he remembered making them! He had selected for the purpose the very best bit of leather in his stock. He was proceeding to examine more closely the shoe that had been mutilated, when he heard the sound of a door being opened which he knew to be that of his young secretary’s room.
Would she come to him before going downstairs? In truth, he wished not to see her until she had been told the great news. He breathed more freely when he heard her foot on the stairs.
When “Cobbler” Horn had been alone about half an hour, Miss Jemima returned to the room. Mrs. Burton, she said, was in the dining-room, with——Marian. There was just the slightest hesitation in Miss Jemima’s pronunciation of the name. Her brother’s tea would come up in a few minutes. After he had taken it, he would perhaps be ready for the interview he so much desired.
“Tea!”
“Oh, but,” said his matter-of-fact sister, “you must try to take it—as a duty.”
“I’ll do my best,” he said; “but I must be up and dressed before she comes, Jemima.”
Miss Jemima demurred, but ultimately agreed.