e paid no attention to her. She opened the gate
and ran after him.

"Roy, Roy!" she called. "Here, Roy, come here."

But Roy took no heed of her; he just trotted on. When she ran faster
he ran, too, just as if she were a stranger. He turned into another
street and then another. She had to hurry after him for fear she might
lose him. He reached a dirty little narrow street and turned in. She
was not far behind him, and she saw the door he went into. She ran to
it. He was going up the stairs, climbing steadily one after another.
As she did not see anybody to catch him she went on up after him. She
saw him enter a door that was slightly ajar, and when she reached it
she started to follow him in, but at the sight that caught her eye she
stopped on the threshold. There was Roy up on a bed licking the face
of a little girl, and acting as if he were wild with joy.

V.

Molly's day had been very dark. It was dark without and within. She
had suffered a great deal. She had seen the little girl on the gallery
playing with her puppy and running about, and her own life had seemed
very wretched. Mrs. O'Meath was drunk and had threatened her with the
Poorhouse, and she had not got any breakfast; she was very unhappy.

It seemed to her that she and the bird in the cage outside the window
were the most wretched things in the world. She thought of her mother,
and wondered if she should go to Heaven if she would know her.
Perhaps, she would not want her. She lay back and looked around her
little dark room, and then shut her eyes and began to pray very hard.
It was not much of a prayer, just a fragment, beginning, "Our Father,
who art in Heaven"--which had somehow stuck in her memory, and which
she always used when she wanted anything. Just then she heard a noise
outside on the steps. It came pulling up step by step, and Roy trotted
in at the open door and came bouncing and twisting over toward the bed.
In an instant she had him on the bed, and he was licking her face and
walking over her. She heard a noise at the door and was aware that
some one was there, and, looking up, she saw standing in the door the
most beautiful creature she had ever beheld--a little girl with brown
curls and big brown eyes. She was bareheaded and beautifully dressed,
and her eyes were wide open with surprise. In her hand she held a
small green bough, with a wonderful red thing on the end. Molly
thought she must be a fairy or an a