s.
They warn't burnt, were they? And oh, ain't they jolly, ain't they
jolly! Tim, Tim!"

"Yes, yes, Becky," answered Tim, in a shaking voice.

"Wait for me here Tim,--I--I'm goin' to find 'em for yer, Tim,--ther,
ther Mayflowers. They're close by; don't yer smell 'em? Close by--I'm
goin'--to find 'em for yer, Tim!" And with a radiant smile of
anticipation Becky's soul went out upon its happy quest, leaving behind
her the grime and poverty of Cove Street forever.

The two women--and one of them was Becky's aunt with whom the girl had
always lived--broke into sobs and tears; but as the latter looked at the
radiant face, she said suddenly,--

"She's well out of it all."

"But there's them that'll be worse for her goin'," said the other; "and
't ain't only Tim I mean, it's the like o' _him_," nodding towards Jake,
who was slipping quietly out of the room,--"it's the like o' him. They
looked up to her, they did,--bit of a thing as she was. She was that
straight and plucky and gin'rous she did 'em good; she made 'em better.
Jake's often said she was the Cove Street mascot."

And with these words sounding in her ears, Lizzie crept softly from the
room. Just over the threshold, in the shadow of the broken bits of
furniture that had been saved from the fire, she started to see Matty
and Josie still waiting for her.

"What!" she cried, "have you been here all the time--have you seen--have
you heard--"

They nodded; and Matty whispered brokenly,--

"Oh, Lizzie, I ain't never again goin' to think bad things of anybody I
don't know."

"Nor I, nor I," said Josie, huskily.

ALLY.

CHAPTER I.

"What have you done with those new overshoes, Ally?"

"Put 'em away."

"Well, you can just go and get 'em, then. Come, hurry up, for I want to
wear 'em down town."

But Ally didn't move.

"Ally, do you hear?" cried her cousin Florence.

"Yes, I hear, but I ain't a-going to mind you. The rubbers are mine, and
you've worn 'em about enough already; you're stretching 'em all out, for
your foot is bigger than mine."

"No such thing. I'm not hurting them in the least."

"Yes, you are; and you are taking the gloss all off 'em, too, and I want
'em to look new when I wear 'em in Boston."

"Well, I never heard of such selfish, stingy meanness as this. It's
raining hard, and you'd let me go out and get my feet sopping wet rather
than lend me your new rubbers."

"Why don't you wear your own old ones?"

"Beca