CHAPTER XIV.

GOOD SAMARITANS.

JOHNNY BREEZE had been so full of wonder all day that the children in the park feared he was ill. He forgot to switch the air and pretend to run after them with savage demonstrations. The P. K. was thinking about his wife's new lodger, thinking of her pretty innocent face, wondering if Mrs. Breeze would make her one of the family, or what she would do. Women have often notions about pretty young girls that differ with masculine opinions. Johnny hoped she would take to this stranger, and he hoped the result would be satisfactory. He had a daughter of his own growing up, and this. excited his special interest in young people of every class, apart from the professional feeling which his calling as a P. K. gave him.

It was therefore a gratifying circumstance to Johnny when he reached home that the wife of his bosom was just sitting down to tea with the young lady and the eldest Miss Breeze and Master Harry, who were all eyes and ears.

"I said you'd be here punctual, Johnny, as you always are, thank goodness," said Mrs. Breeze, giving the P. K. a conjugal smack on the cheek. "The tea is just ready. Now, Henry, take your arms off the table; and Lotty, I'm surprised you cannot keep your fingers out of the sugar-and in presence of a lady too."

"Don't mind me," said Clytie, with a smile.

Number 43, St. Mark's Crescent, had seen Clytie's first smile since she left Dunelm.

"But we do mind you, my dear young lady, we do mind you. Don't we, Johnny ?" said Mrs. Breeze, cutting bread and butter with all her might.

"Certainly, my dear," said the P. K., hanging up his hat. "You found the way, miss; I suppose Primrose 'Ill guided you. It's a good landmark. I've bin a thinking of you all day, and a wondering if you'd be here."

"Oh, thank you," said Clytie, more pleased than she could express at finding herself an object of interest and sympathy with these honest people.

"We had such a talk," said Mrs. Breeze, pouring out the tea, and frowning Master Harry's elbows off the table; "such a talk; and if we can afford it, we are going to have a piano, and Miss-but she will not tell me her name at present-will teach Lotty to play."

Miss Lotty blushed at the picture of herself sitting at the piano, and the P. K., passing the bread and butter and watercresses to

Clytie, looked proudly upon the company and said: "Ah, that will be fine."

Mrs. Breeze was a rosy, comfortable looking woman, with a round face and bright dark eyes; a sort of representative type of the lower middle class of Englishwoman; the kind of woman who is sure to wear a large shawl out of doors, and a little one pinned round her neck at home; a brown-haired, healthy-looking woman, ready to do anything to keep a home together: to scrub, and wash, and cook, and let lodgings, and have a smiling face for her husband at night. Of course she was taller, and bigger, and stronger than her husband. She was the daughter of a Surrey dairyman, and he was the servant of a gentleman, through whose interest he had obtained the appointment of a keeper of Regent's Park. A guinea a week was not much, as Mrs. Breeze said, but it was a certainty, and clothes to the good made it worth a few shillings more, and it would be very hard if she could not make it up to a reasonable sum out of her lodgings; for three hundred and fifty pounds spent on furniture, and paying fifty-five pounds a year rent, must somehow be made to bring in a fair percentage, not to mention having milk free and a few useful presents now and then from the Surrey dairy.

"Miss Mary-that is all we are going to call her at present," went on Mrs. Breeze, chattering over the tea and smiling pleasantly on Clytie all the time-" she has been telling me all her history, and there, I'm sure-well, if it does not beat a book I never read one; and I never knew my heart warm to any one, rich or poor, old or young, as was not good and true; and I'm sure if she were my own—well, I could not feel more interest in her."

Ah, you always was a kind-hearted soul, as your father used allers to say when I was coming down after you to the Dairy, Maggie'll never turn no milk sour;' and true it was.”

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"I don't know for that," said Mrs. Breeze. "I have my bit of temper, like other people, and if I'd only the power to make it felt. wouldn't I clean out some o' them gilded dens of infamy as deceives people and looks honest when it is the ashes on the lips in that St. John's Wood. But Queen Victoria don't take the interest she used to in having respectable women about, and no wonder she's grieved as she is for Prince Albert. Well, he was handsome, that's true; but I'm wandering from what I was saying. Where was I, Johnny?" "Down at the Dairy, Maggie," said the P. K. promptly.

"No, you were there," said Mrs. Breeze.

Yes, father said as you didn't turn the milk sour. Ah, ah, ah!" burst in Master Harry, who had been devouring the conversation and bread and butter with an intense relish.

"Hold your tongue, sir," said Mrs. Breeze promptly.

Master Harry looked at Clytie to signify that he complied with his mother's request in deference to his mother's visitor; otherwise, he would have contested the point.

At this moment there was a heavy tread on the stairs, which acted like a charm upon the family.

"That's Mr. Stevens, the first floor; I must go and see about his meat-tea; you will excuse me, won't you?" said Mrs. Breeze, bustling to the door; " and you children-Harry, you may go out and play, and Lotty, go and see if your sister is at her aunt's."

This command broke up the party, the P. K. saying he would just like to cross the 'Ill, and see Mr. Robinson, and tell him as the young lady had found lodgings, just out of politeness to him, you know, as he was a very experienced officer, expecting to be inspector soon, don't you see-and all that.

So Clytie was left alone, and without hesitating for a moment about how she should occupy herself, she tucked up her sleeves and washed up the tea things, and then going down into the kitchen she washed her dimpled hands and arms, and came upstairs to find Mrs. Breeze in ecstacies of delight at Clytie's condescension and usefulness.

"And now if I promise you, on my honour, to keep your secret, if I give you my word, as solemn as my oath, you will tell me who your friends are and what you mean to do; because without prying into other people's affairs, I think I ought to know, for my own satisfaction, you see, and I'm sure you may trust me not to mention what you wishes kept back, even to Johnny. Of course I don't hold with a young lady running away from home; Lotty, for instance, why it would break my heart; but circumstances alter cases, and as you had only a grandfather, you say, and he was going to let the neighbours scorn and point at you, and all for nothing, I dare say I should have done. the same."

“Mrs. Breeze, I will trust you," said Clytie, laying her head on the good woman's shoulder, for the P. K.'s wife had put her arm round the girl's waist. "If you are not good and true, I am sure I never saw any one whom I could trust; and you have been so kind to me--more than kind. I am sure you are the answer to my prayer that God would take care of me to-day, and find me a new home."

"Heaven bless the child," said Mrs. Breeze, stroking Clytie's silky hair.

"In addition to all I have told you, my story is finished when I say that my grandfather is Mr. Luke Waller, organist of St. Bride's,

Dunelm, and that my mother died soon after I was born; that my father was a nobleman who married my mother, and ran away and left her at Boulogne; she was a famous actress under the name of Miss Olivia Pitt. But all this is to be a secret at present, my dear Mrs. Breeze; it has done me good to tell you," said Clytie, and the tears came into her eyes.

"Yes, yes, my dear child; but there is no need to cry; don't be afraid."

"I am only crying because I am glad, because you press me to your heart, because I have been oh! so miserable and wretched, and I have never known a mother, and it is so nice to be with you. I shut my eyes and try to think I am somebody's child who loves

me."

"My poor dear," said Mrs. Breeze, with her apron to her eyes, "my poor dear, you have been forlorn indeed. I will be a mother to you, God willing, and who knows but He may have guided your footsteps here? for, after all, poor folk have the most feeling heartsthey knows what it is to suffer; there, there, cheer up, we must make the best of things; but you have not told me what you think of doing."

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Perhaps you will not agree with me if I do tell you," said Clytie; "I think I had better not tell you."

"Tell me everything, dear, now you've begun, just as we must tell all to a doctor or a lawyer, as Johnny says."

Then, my dear Mrs. Breeze, I mean to go upon the stage,” said Clytie, looking up almost appealingly into Mrs. Breeze's face, and waiting anxiously for her reply.

Mrs. Breeze did not speak.

"To be an actress," said Clytie, still keeping her eyes fixed upon the face of the P. K.'s wife.

"You've made up your mind?" said Mrs. Breeze, inquiringly. "Yes. I was afraid you would be against it," said Clytie.

"Well, I don't know, my child. I suppose it runs in the blood. Your mother was an actress. My grandfather was a soldier, and although the liking for that kind of life skipped my father, just as the gout, they say, skips a generation, my brothers to a man, and I've three of them-at least had, for one fell in the Crimea-all three went into the army; there is no accounting for these things, but I only hope as Harry may not be similarly taken. An actress-well, I don't see why an actress should not be a good woman, though the temptations are very great, and the wretches as waits about and stares at 'em from them private boxes; well, I often says to Johnny, when we goes sometimes to the play, they ought to be kicked out, but

Johnny says the managers encourage them; well, my dear, I see you are looking at me, and wanting me to say 'Yes.' It's no matter what a person does in this life, to my thinking, if they respects themselves; it aint the calling, whatever it may be, as lowers a personit is their own conduct. I'm sure I once had one of them newspaper fellows as a lodger for a month—a reporter I think he said, and he were a perfect gentleman, and paid his way as regular as Mr. Stevens, who is a tea merchant in the City. You must give me time to think, Miss Mary."

"Call me Mary," said Clytie.

"You might call me

'If you'll call me Maggie," said the woman. mother, only it would make me feel older than I would like to think myself but I'll be a mother to you as I said, God willing; and as to your being an actress, don't you think it would be best to write and tell your grandfather where you are, and make it up, and have his consent to go on the stage, and all be happy and comfortable?"

"No, dear, no," said Clytie earnestly, "not yet; I will write this week, but not to tell him where I am; I will write and say I am safe and happy, but not where I am until I am an actress—until I am engaged and cannot go back, cannot withdraw-and then grandfather shall come. But no more threats, dear; no more cruelty, no more dragging down the garden, no more harsh words, and no more Dunelm, though its trees and rivers and fields are the loveliest in the land."

Clytie's eyes flashed as she spoke, and her face was all aglow. She pressed Mrs. Breeze's hand. She kissed her, and suddenly stood before her a proud defiant figure, so lovely that for a moment she seemed to Mrs. Breeze like a vision, or, as she told Johnny afterwards, like one of those beautiful ladies, though more clothes, thank goodness, stepped out of a picture in the National Gallery."

"And you have your bit of temper, too," said Mrs. Breeze, looking at her with undisguised admiration; "and you're simply the most beautiful creature I ever looked upon. Come to me, my child; there is a sort of charm in you; I feel as if you were indeed my own it is not for me to say what you shall do or what you shall not; only be good; live so that you can always pray to God with a pure heart, and you may defy the devil and all his works; if I were asked what I really think in my heart I should say 'Don't go on the stage,' but I don't know as I should be right or wrong; and as it runs in the blood, which is stronger than water, why there aint no good fighting against nature.”

"My dear Mrs. Breeze, you shall never have cause to be ashamed of the poor maligned runaway whom you have taken to your heart— heaven reward you for it. I shall be a great lady some day."