The Golden Shoemaker Part 42

"They have all gone, Marian," he said, gently. "Won't you look up, and let father see your face?"

She lifted her face, bedewed yet radiant; and he took it tenderly between his hands.

"It is indeed the face of my little Marian," he said, fondly. "How blind I must have been!"

He gazed long and lovingly--feasting his eyes upon the brown, glowing face, in every feature of which he could now trace so plainly those of his little Marian of days gone by. The hope which he had never quite relinquished was fulfilled at last! His gracious Lord had justified his confidence, as, indeed, there had never been any reason to doubt that He would.

"You feel quite sure about it, my dear; don't you?" he asked.

"Yes, father dear," she answered, in a thoughtful, contented tone. "There are so many things that help to make me sure."

Then she told him of her strange feeling of familiarity with the old house and street. She spoke of the little shoes, and of her having seen the one in the safe. She told him what she had overheard in the tent at Daisy Lane about her resemblance to himself.

"And besides," she concluded, "after all that----mother has told me, how can I doubt? But now, daddy--I may call you that, mayn't I?"

"The Golden Shoemaker" pressed convulsively the little hand he held.

"That is what Marian--what you always called me when you were a child, my dear. Nothing would please me better."

"Then 'daddy' it shall be. And now, do you know, daddy, I'm beginning to remember things in a vague sort of way. I'm just like some one waking up after a good sleep. Things, you know, that happened before one went to sleep, come back by degrees at such a time; and, in the same way, recollections are growing on me now of my childhood, and especially of the time when I was lost. Let me see, now! I'm like some one looking into a magic crystal to see the future, only I want to recall the past. After thinking very hard, I've been able to call up some remembrance of the day I ran away from home. I seem to remember being very angry with someone, and wanting to get away. Then there was a woman, and a man, but chiefly a woman, and some dark place that I was in. And I think they must have treated me badly in some way."

"Cobbler" Horn thought for a moment.

"Why," he said, "that dark place must have been the wood, on the other side of the field where I found your shoe."

"Yes, no doubt; and wasn't it in that wood that you picked up the string of my sun-bonnet?"

"To be sure it was!"

"Yes; and perhaps it was there that I was stripped of my clothes. When I fell into the hands of Mr. and Mrs. Burton, my chief garment was an old ragged shawl. My one shoe, and my socks, and my sun-bonnet, were almost all I had besides. I've kept all the things except the socks, and you must see them by and bye, daddy."

"Of course I must."

But, having found his child, he did not greatly care just now about anything else.

Presently she spoke again.

"Daddy!"

"Yes, Marian?"

"I'm so thankful it has turned out to be you!"

"Yes, my dear?" responded the happy father, in a tone of enquiry.

"I mean I'm glad it's you who are my father. It might have been somebody quite different, you know."

"Yes," he answered again, with a beaming face.

"I'm glad, you know, daddy, just because you're exactly the kind of father I want--that's all."

"And I also am glad that it is you, little one," he responded. "And how thankful we ought to be that we learnt to love one another before getting to know who we were!"

"Yes," she said, "it would have been queer, and----not at all nice, if we had first been introduced to each other as father and daughter, and told it was our duty to love one another without delay. And then there's another thing. Though, at first, it seemed cruel to you, daddy, that your little girl should have been lost for so many years, when I think how much more--very likely--we shall love one another, than we ever should have done if I had not been lost, and how much happier we shall be together, it seems quite kind of G.o.d to have allowed us to be separated for a little while--especially as He found such good friends to take care of me in the meantime."

"Cobbler" Horn gently stroked the dark head, which still nestled against his breast.

"We at least, little one," he said, "can say that 'all things work together for good.' But now, there are other things that we must talk about. You have come back, Marian, to a very different home from the one you left. Your father was a poor man when you went away; he is a rich one now. Are you glad?"

"Oh yes, daddy," she answered, simply, "for your sake, and because I think my daddy is just the best man in the world to have charge of money. And you know," she added, archly, "that, in that respect, your daughter is after your own heart."

"I know that well."

"You must let me help you more than ever, daddy."

She seemed scarcely to have realized the fact that she was heiress to all his wealth.

"You shall, my dear," he said, fondly; "but you mustn't forget that all I have will be yours one day."

She started violently.

"Well now, I declare!" she gasped. "I had scarcely thought of that. I was so glad and thankful to have found my father, that I forgot he had brought me a fortune. Well, daddy, that won't make any difference. We'll still do our best to put all this money to the right use. And, as for my being your heiress--you must understand, sir, that you've got to live for ever; so there's an end of that."

She had withdrawn herself from his embrace, and, kneeling back, was looking at him with dancing eyes.

"Well, darling," he said, with an indulgent smile, "we must leave that.

But there is something else that I must tell you. When I was arranging about the disposal of all this money, in case I should be taken away, I thought of my little Marian; and I had it set down in my will that you were to have everything after me, if you should be found. But, beside that, I directed the lawyers to invest for you the sum of 50,000. But, let me see, I think I must have told you about this at the time."

"Of course you did, daddy, the very day you came back from London, just before you went to America!"

"So I did. Well, now, Marian, that money is all your own from this time."

"Oh, daddy! daddy! How shall I thank you? So I shall be able to do something on my own account now!"

Did no stray thought flit through her mind of all the gaiety and pleasure so much money might buy? Perhaps; but she was her father's own child.

After a little more loving talk, the young secretary suddenly sprang to her feet.

"I am forgetting myself sadly! The evening letters will be in."

"Cobbler" Horn started. He had forgotten that she was his secretary.

"I shall have to look out for another secretary, now," he said, with a comical air of mock dismay.

"And, pray sir, why?" she demanded, standing before him in radiant rebellion. "I would have you to know there is no vacancy."

Then she laughed in her bewitching way.

"But, my dear----"