[Illustration: Cover art] [Frontispiece: "As she stood looking at John, the pale cheeks flushed a little."--P. 181.] JOHN'S LILY BY ELEANOR C. PRICE AUTHOR OF "A LOYAL MIND," "ALEXIA," "RED TOWERS," ETC. _ILLUSTRATED BY W. H. C. GROOME_ London WELLS GARDNER, DARTON & CO. 3, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C. AND 44, VICTORIA STREET, S.W. 1894 CONTENTS CHAP. I. A LITTLE CHILD II. STORM AND SUNLIGHT III. HOME AT MARKWOOD IV. THE CHURCHYARD STILE V. MRS. ALFRICK VI. AT THE FAIR VII. IN THE DARK VIII. THE TRUTH IX. PARTED X. IN DANGER XI. THE STRANGER XII. TAKEN AWAY XIII. GIVEN BACK XIV. SEVEN YEARS AFTER LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "In the Doorway stood a tall young Girl, dressed in white" ... Frontispiece Mary searching for Lily "In the Cart a Child was tied to the seat" "A Lily among the Lilies" JOHN'S LILY CHAPTER I _A LITTLE CHILD_ "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From GOD, Who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy!" --WORDSWORTH. It was a sultry evening in summer, and John Randal was standing on the departure platform of a London railway station, looking at the train. He was a tall, fine-looking young fellow of three or four and twenty, brown and sunburnt, with dark stern eyes and an extremely grave expression. His clothes were good, though rustic-looking, and he carried a brown paper parcel in his hand. Any one who watched him might have thought there was something odd in the deep interest with which he gazed at the train, for his eyes were not attracted from it by the hurrying passengers, the porters with their loads of luggage, the ticket-collectors and guards in handsome uniform. It might have been thought that he was looking out for a friend; but no, it was the train itself which interested him. Except in one or two short trips that same week on the underground railway, John Randal had never seen a train before. And yet his home was only thirty miles from London. But the small retired village where he had spent his whole life lay quite out of the world's track, in the quietest of valleys, sheltered among chalk hills and beech woods, ten miles at least from the nearest railway station. If the people in John's village wanted to go far from home they walked, or else they travelled in the carrier's cart which passed twice a week along the valley on its way to and from London. This state of things had lasted for many years, but its end was now drawing near. Already a new line of railway passed within four miles of John's home, and people thought that as soon as it was finished and opened, new times would dawn for that quiet country.