Winifred, who had opened her lips to say something more, shut them
closely again, and sat back with the air of a person determined to
have no further share in the conversation.

Dr. Cricket hastened to occupy the floor. "A charming girl--upon my
word, a charming girl--if she _is_ a Hallelujah lassie."

"A what?" ejaculated Brady.

"A Hallelujah lassie--Feminine of Salvation Soldier, don't you know!
Why, she had one of the coal-scuttle bonnets hanging by its draggled
strings round her neck when Flint pulled her in, and a number of 'The
War Cry' was in the pocket of her dress, when we stripped it off."

"Oh," said Brady, with a touch of disappointment in his tone, "I took
her for a different sort of a person; she looked quite the lady."

"So she is, young man," answered Dr. Cricket, with his fierce little
frown. "There is no doubt of that. She told me her story this morning.
I wanted her to rest; but the poor thing was so nervous I thought it
would hurt her less to talk than to keep still."

Flint smiled sardonically. The Doctor's little foible of curiosity had
not escaped his observant eye.

"You would have done much better to shut her up; but what did she
say?" queried Miss Standish.

Flint smiled again. But the Doctor began briskly:--

"Why, it seems that the Costellos are the children of a Scotch
minister; though, from his name, I should guess that he had a drop
more or less of Irish blood in his veins, and their looks show it too.
They were brought up in a manse on one of those brown and bare Scotch
moors. The boy was to be educated for the church, like his father;
but when he was seventeen, he grew restive under the strictness of his
training, turned wild, and ran away. For ten years they had no word of
him. The father reproached himself for having been too hard on the
boy; and he never stopped loving and praying for him. On his
death-bed, he charged Nora--that's the girl's name you know--to sell
all the things in the manse, and start out into the world to find her
brother, and never to give up the search as long as she lived."

"That is always the way," said Flint, with a shrug: "the reward of
virtue is to be appointed trustee of vice--no assets--assume all the
liabilities."

"Hm! wide, of the mark this time, Mr. Flint. The very day after her
father's death, Nora Costello received a letter from her brother,
saying that he was ashamed to come home without first securing
forgiveness, and asking his siste