and in particular to the work of
altering and fitting up the old Hall for the great and gracious purpose
on which its owner had resolved. "The Golden Shoemaker" was gratified to
learn, from these letters, that the work of renovating his dilapidated
property had been so well begun, and that already, amongst his
long-suffering tenants, great satisfaction was beginning to prevail.
The remaining letters were passed under review, and then "Cobbler" Horn
lingered for a few moment's chat.

"I mean to take my sister and you to see the village and the Hall one day
soon, Miss Owen," he said.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Horn!" enthusiastically exclaimed the young secretary.

"You would like to go?"

"I should love it dearly! I can't tell you, Mr. Horn, how much I am
interested in that kind and generous scheme of yours for the old Hall."

In her intercourse with her employer, "Cobbler" Horn's secretary was quite
free and unreserved, as indeed he wished her to be.

"It's to be a home for orphans, isn't it?" she asked.

"Not for orphans only," he replied, tenderly, as he thought of his own
lost little one. "It's for children who have no home, whether orphans or
not,--little waifs, you know, and strays--children who have no one to care
for them."

"I'm doing it," he added, simply, "for the sake of my little Marian."

"Oh, how good of you! And, do you know, Mr. Horn, its being for waifs and
strays makes me like it all the more; because I was a waif and stray once
myself."

She was leaning forward, with her elbows on the table, and her pretty
but decided chin resting on her doubled hands. As she spoke, her somewhat
startling announcement presented itself to her in a serio-comic light,
and a whimsical twinkle came into her eyes. The same impression was
shared by "Cobbler" Horn; and, regarding his young secretary, with her
neatly-clothed person, her well-arranged hair, and her capable-looking
face, he found it difficult to regard as anything but a joke the
announcement that she had once been, as she expressed it, "a waif and
stray."

"You!" he exclaimed, with an indulgent smile.

"Yes, Mr. Horn, I was indeed a little outcast girl. Did not Mr. Durnford
tell you that the dear friends who have brought me up are not my actual
parents?"

"Yes," replied "Cobbler" Horn, slowly, "he certainly did. But I did not
suspect----"

"Of course not!" laughed the young girl. "You would never dream of
insulting me by supposing that I had once bee