How strange the frequent inability to perceive the
significance of circumstances plainly suggestive of the fulfilment of some
long-cherished hope! The joy, deferred so long comes, at last, in an hour
when we are not aware, only to find us utterly oblivious that it is so
near!

"Well, Miss Owen," said "Cobbler" Horn, rising to his feet, "I must be
going to my cobbling. If you want me, you will know where to come."

"Yes, Mr. Horn."

She was aware of his custom of resorting now and then to his old workshop.
When he was gone, she paused for a moment, with her penholder once more
between her lips.

"How nice to think that I am like what that dear little Marian would have
been! I wonder whether we should have been friends, if she had lived?
Poor little thing, she's almost sure to be dead! Though, perhaps not--who
can tell? How queer that Mr. Horn should have lost a little girl, just as
I must have been lost, and about the same time too! As for my being like
her--perhaps, after all, that's only a fancy of his. Well, at any rate, I
must comfort and help him all I can. I can't step into his daughter's
place exactly; but God has put it into my power to be to him, in many
things, what little Marian would have been if he had not lost her; and
for Christ's sake----"

At this point, the young secretary's thoughts became too sacred for prying
eyes. Very soon she turned to her writing again. Half an hour later, the
afternoon post arrived, bringing, amongst other letters, one or two which
necessitated an immediate interview with "Cobbler" Horn. To trip up to her
bedroom and dress herself for going out was the work of a very few
moments; and in a short time she was entering the street where "Cobbler"
Horn and his sister had lived so long, and whence the hapless little
Marian had so heedlessly set out into the great world, on that bright
May morning so many years ago.

As Miss Owen entered the narrow street, she involuntarily raised her hand
to her forehead. The weird feeling of familiarity with the old house and
its vicinity, of which she had already been conscious more than once, had
crept over her again.

"How very strange!" she said to herself. "But there can't be anything in
it!"

As she approached the house, she became aware of the unconcealed scrutiny
of a little man who was standing in the doorway of a shop on the other
side of the street.

It was Tommy Dudgeon, who had just then come to the door to show a
customer ou