up by saying,--

"Why, you see, we thought you's dead!"

Flyaway, who had at first been very much astonished at the fuss made
over her, now looked deeply offended.

"Who said I's dead? What--a--drefful--lie!"

"O, nobody said so, Fly; only we thought p'rhaps you was; and _what_
would we do without you, you know?"

"Why, if I's dead," said Fly, untying her bonnet strings, "then the
funy-yal would come round and take me; that's all."

"We are most grateful to you," said Aunt Madge, turning to Mrs. Brooks,
"for bringing home this lost child; but do tell us where you found her."

Then Mrs. Brooks related all she knew of Fly's wanderings, the little
one putting in her own explanations.

"I didn' be lost," said she sharply. "I feel jus' like frettin', when
you say I's lost. 'Tis the truly truth; I's walking on the streets, and
a naughty woman, she's got my hangerfiss--had ashes roses on it."

"Yes, I put some otto of rose on it this morning," said Prudy. "What a
shame!"

"And I gave my flowers to the sick man. He was on the bed, with a blue
bed-kilt. A girl name o' Maria, tookened me home. The seeingness is all
gone out of her eyes, so she can't see."

"How long has your husband been sick?" asked Mrs. Allen of the woman,
while she was taking lunch in the dining-room. "Did you tell me he knew
Colonel Allen?"

Mrs. Brooks dropped her knife and fork; but her lips trembled so she
could not speak. Flyaway, who sat in Horace's lap, eating ginger-snaps,
exclaimed, "She wants some perjerves, auntie. She don't get no
perjerves, nor nuffin nice to her house."

"'Sh!" whispered Horace. The woman looked so respectable and well bred,
that it seemed a great rudeness to allude to her poverty.

But Mrs. Brooks drank some water, and then answered Aunt Madge,
calmly,--

"I'm not ashamed of being poor, Mrs. Allen; it's no disgrace, for there
never was an honester man than my husband, nor none that worked harder,
till a beam fell on him from the roof of a house, two years ago, and he
lost the use of his limbs.--Yes, ma'am; he did use to know your husband.
He was one of the workmen that helped build this house. I came and
looked on when he was setting these very doors."

"What is his name?" asked Aunt Madge, looking very much interested, and
taking out her note-book and pencil. "What street and number?"

"Cyrus Brooks, Number Blank, Blank Street, ma'am. Before the accident,
we lived on Thirty-third Street, in very good shape