The Golden Shoemaker | Page 8

brought a smile to the faces of those to whom their peculiarities were known!
The boys of the Grammar School, which was situated in a neighbouring street, had, from time immemorial, furnished Tommy and John Dudgeon with an epithet accommodated from classic lore, and dubbed them, "the little Twin Brethren."
CHAPTER VI.
THE FATHER'S QUEST.
When Aunt Jemima came home, she was surprised, in no small degree, at the absence of Marian. With gathering indignation she called up the stairs, then searched the house, and finally presented herself before her brother, who was quite alone in his workshop, and sat calmly working on his stool.
"Then she is not here?"
"Who? Marian?" responded "Cobbler" Horn in no accent of concern, looking up for a moment from his work. "No, I thought she was with you."
"No; I left her in the room for a moment, and now she is nowhere to be found."
There seemed to "Cobbler" Horn no reason for alarm, and, as his sister returned to the kitchen, he quietly went on with his work. But Aunt Jemima's mind was ill at ease. Once more she searched the house, and called and called again. There was no response, and the silence which followed was profound and ominous. Swiftly she passed, with growing alarm, through her brother's workshop, and out into the yard. A glance around, and then a closer search; but still no sign of the missing child. The perturbed woman re-entered her brother's presence, and stood before him, erect and rigid, and with outstretched hands.
"The child's gone!" was her gloomy exclamation.
"Gone!" echoed "Cobbler" Horn blankly, looking up. "Where?"
"I don't know; but she's gone quite away, and may never come back."
Then "Cobbler" Horn perceived that his sister was alarmed; and, notwithstanding the occasion, he was comforted by the unwonted tenderness she had expressed. As for Marian, he knew her for a born rambler; and it was not the first time she had strayed from home.
"Perhaps," he said placidly, "she has gone to the little shop over the way."
Then he resumed his work, as though he had simply told his sister where she would be likely to find her spectacles.
Aunt Jemima took the hint, as a drowning person catches at a straw. She made her way to the front-door, and having opened it, was on the point of crossing the street, when Tommy Dudgeon emerged from the shop, and came over towards where she stood.
"Good morning, ma-am," he said, halting at a respectful distance. "You are looking for little miss?"
"Well," snapped Aunt Jemima, "and if I am, what then? Do you know where she is?"
"No, ma-am; but I saw her go away."
Miss Jemima seized the arm of the little man with an iron grip.
"Man! you saw her go away, and you let her go?"
With difficulty Tommy freed his arm.
"Well, ma-am, perhaps I ought----"
"Of course you ought," rapped out the lady, sharply. "You must be a gabey."
"No doubt, ma-am. But little miss will come back. She knows her way about. She will be home to dinner."
Having spoken, Tommy was turning to recross the street.
"Stop, man!"
Tommy stopped and faced around once more.
"Which way did she go?"
"That way, ma-am," replied Tommy, pointing along the street, to Aunt Jemima's left-hand, and his own right.
The troubled lady instantly marched, in the direction indicated, to the end of the street; but, finding that five ways branched off therefrom, she returned baffled to her brother's house, and sought his presence once more.
"Thomas," she cried, almost fiercely, "the child has certainly run away!"
Still "Cobbler" Horn was not alarmed.
"Well," he said calmly, "never mind, Jemima. She has a habit of going off by herself. She knows her way about, and will not stray far. She will be back by dinner-time, no doubt."
Though by no means satisfied, Miss Jemima was fain to accept this view of the case for the time. With a troubled mind, she resumed her suspended domestic duties. Unlikely as it might seem, she could not banish the dread that Marian had actually run away; and, as the morning passed, the fear grew stronger and stronger in the troubled lady's breast that she would see her little niece no more. Accordingly when dinner-time arrived, Aunt Jemima was not surprised that Marian did not appear. The dinner consisted of Irish stew--Marian's favourite dish. On the stroke of twelve it was smoking on the table. For the twentieth time the perturbed lady went to the door, and gazed wistfully up and down the street. Then, with a sigh, she re-entered the house, and called her brother to dinner.
"Cobbler" Horn, feeling sure that Marian would soon return, had dismissed the fact of her disappearance from his mind; and when, on coming in to dinner, he found that she was still absent, he was taken by surprise.
In reply to his inquiry, Aunt Jemima jerked out the opinion that