CHAPTER II.
MAT MORRIS.
"I've been discharged, mother."
"What?"
"I've been discharged."
The face of Mrs. Morris became very grave, and presently her eyes wereturned on the boyish yet manly face of her son Mat. Earnestly she gazedat him for several seconds, and then her lips parted with a smilewhich, wan as it was, expressed satisfaction.
"It was no fault of yours. You did nothing wrong, my son?"
"No, mother, it was not through any fault of mine that I wasdischarged. Business has fallen off so very much of late that theywere compelled to reduce the number of hands. And as I was one of thenewest, I was among those laid off."
"Of course I am sorry," said poor Mrs. Morris, "but we must do the bestwe can."
"I'll not act the part of a sluggard, mother, you can depend on that.I'll try and find something to do to keep the wolf from the door. Andmy boss gave me a splendid recommendation, and said if business gotbetter he'd send for me at once."
Mat was a good son.
Few better were to be found.
His worst fault, perhaps, was in being a little reckless, or over-braveand independent.
None could insult him with impunity, nor could he nor would he stand byand silently witness anybody being imposed upon. He invariably took thepart of the under dog in the fight.
Hardly had Mat finished speaking, when the door opened and a girlentered; a girl whom both mother and son greeted with glances ofaffection.
Her name was Helen Dilt.
Five years before, when the circumstances of the Morris family had beenbetter, they had taken her from the street--found starving and freezingthere on a cold winter's night--and had cared for her.
Mr. Morris had died only a year later, since which time Helen had clungto them, doing what little she could to keep the roof above their heads.
She was not yet sixteen--a slight and winsome little creature; notbeautiful, but with a sweet face that when lighted by a smile wasremarkably winning.
Of her history she knew nothing.
Her knowledge of herself could be summed up in a few words.
For years cared for by a drunken old hag, with only a faint remembranceof a sweet, sad face before that, she had lost even such a squalid homeas she had when the hag died.
Then she had come with the Morris family.
And well did they love her.
Mrs. Morris loved her like a daughter, and Mat loved her much betterthan a sister. And Helen returned the latter's deep regard.
While no word had openly been spoken, it was tacitly understood byall three that some day, when Mat and Helen were old enough, and thecircumstances permitted, they were to be married.
Mat was of slight build, of lithe and willowy frame, in which, however,resided an amount of strength which few would have dreamed possible.
He was just eighteen.
There is an old saying--"that it never rains but it pours."
It seems true sometimes.
Helen, employed in a situation bringing her three dollars a week, hadalso come home with the news of having been discharged.
It was a grave little trio that gathered about the supper table thatnight.
Latterly they had been getting along comfortably, but now destitutionand want again stared them in the face, and must inevitably take upquarters in the household, unless some one obtained work of some kindto bring in some money.
Mat was up and away early the next morning, and for many morningsthereafter, but although he honestly searched all day long foremployment, none was to be found.
And Helen, too, sought for work, but failed to find it, and day by daytheir slender stock of money diminished, until at last they had eatenthe last meal, and had no money wherewith to buy another.
That evening Helen left the house and was gone for a short while, andwhen she came back she did not say where she had been.
But she had gone with her shawl to a pawn-shop, and hid away in herdress was the pittance which had been loaned on it.
In the morning she stole out unheard, not long after daylight, andinvested her capital in newspapers.
Her cheeks were flushed with shame as she stood on the street, offeringher papers for sale. But she fought back her pride. They had been verykind to her, and she should be only too glad, she told herself, to makethe sacrifice for their dear sakes.
And how happy she was when she hastened to their home, and put hermorning's earnings into the hand of Mrs. Morris.
In vain Mat protested against Helen's selling papers. Let him do it, hesaid.
"It will need all we can both make to live and pay the rent," Helenquietly returned.
"But you must not go on the street to sell papers, Helen," protestedMat.
"I am young and can afford better to do this than that our good mothershould work," said Helen, bravely, casting an affectionate glancetoward Mrs. Morris.
And Mat said no more.
It was one day several weeks subsequent to the time when she firstbegan selling papers, that a gentleman stopped to purchase a _Herald_of Helen.
He had paid for it in a mechanical way, and was turning away when hechanced to glance at the face of the newsgirl.
He started slightly, then cast a keen glance at her, paused, and thenin a tone of assumed carelessness, asked:
"Haven't I seen you somewhere else, my girl? You have not always soldpapers?"
"No, sir."
"Where can I have seen you?"
"I don't know, sir," was the only reply, for Helen did not care to talkto him.
But she saw that he was an elderly man, his hair was streaked withgray, and in clothing and manner he bore the impress of apparentrespectability.
"What is your name?" he inquired.
"Helen."
"What!" with another start. "Your name is Helen, is it?" recoveringhimself. "Helen what, my girl?"
"Helen Morris," was the reply, for she had now for a long time used thename of her benefactors as her own.
Again the gentleman glanced keenly at her, and then moved away slowly,muttering to himself:
"Morris--Morris! I can't understand it. That likeness is wonderful, andcannot exist as a mere accident. I must investigate this, and I'd betanything that that is not her name."
The gentleman entered a large building on Broadway, ascended in theelevator, and opened the door of an office, on which was lettered thelegend:
"JOSEPH BROWN, _Attorney at Law_."
Having written a note, he dispatched his office boy with it to a liquorsaloon, it being directed to James McGinnis, in care of the saloon'sproprietor.
Late that afternoon a beetle-browed and forbidding-looking individualentered Brown's office.
"Well, I got your letter and I've come!" was the rather sullensalutation he gave Brown. "What's up now? Want to badger me again?"
"Don't talk to me in that manner!" said Brown, quietly, yet in a grimtone. "Remember that I saved your neck from a halter, which I can againput around it at any moment."
The man shuddered, and became meek as a lamb.
"What do you want?"
"That's better," and Brown smiled. "I don't want much of you just now,"and then he sank his voice to a whisper.
"That's easy enough," McGinnis said, a few minutes later. "I can letyou know to-morrow morning, I think."
"Very well."
When McGinnis put in an appearance the next morning, it was evidentfrom his expression that he had been successful in the task required ofhim by Brown.
"I've found out that her name isn't Morris. That's the name of thepeople as she lives with. She's a kind of an adopted daughter, and theysaid as how her real name was Dilk, or something like that."
"Ha! I thought so," Brown exclaimed, inwardly. And then he badeMcGinnis sit down, and for nearly half an hour they conversed in lowtones.
Then Brown put a roll of bills into his confederate's hands, and the
latter withdrew, saying:
"I'll do the job nately, and there'll be no trouble after it."
And that night Helen did not return home. Half-crazed with alarm, Matand his mother awaited her coming until nine o'clock, or a littleafter, and then the young fellow could stand it no longer, but went insearch of Helen.
He could not find her.
She did not return during the night, nor even the next day, nor whennight again fell.
Mat had scoured the city for her, had visited the places whereshe usually sold papers, and had questioned all the boot-blacksand newsboys, but had only obtained the meager and unsatisfactoryinformation from one little fellow that he had seen Helen in companywith a man just after dusk.
She had disappeared completely, had vanished as utterly as a mist thatis dissolved by the sun's warm rays.
"She is gone from us, mother," Mat at last said, in a choking voice."You remember, mother, what Helen has told us--her impressionsconcerning her early childhood. And, mother, I believe there is moneyat the bottom of the thing, that Helen stood in somebody's way, and hasbeen spirited off by this person's orders."
"It is possible."
"Possible! I feel it to be the truth. And I shall not rest night orday, mother, until I have found her. Good-bye, mother, for I am going.Heaven in mercy assist you and care for you until I can come back to doso. Good-bye!"
Mrs. Morris did not wish him to go, but she could not thwart him,for she knew how much he loved Helen. But her face was very pale andanguished as she saw him go.