be,' said the little girl. 'I ain't doing nothing to you.'

'But what is it?' Anthea asked. 'Has someone been hurting you?'

'What's that to you?' said the little girl fiercely. 'YOU'RE all right.'

'Come away,' said Robert, pulling at Anthea's sleeve. 'She's a nasty,
rude little kid.'

'Oh, no,' said Anthea. 'She's only dreadfully unhappy. What is it?' she
asked again.

'Oh, YOU'RE all right,' the child repeated; 'YOU ain't agoin' to the
Union.'

'Can't we take you home?' said Anthea; and Jane added, 'Where does your
mother live?'

'She don't live nowheres--she's dead--so now!' said the little girl
fiercely, in tones of miserable triumph. Then she opened her swollen
eyes widely, stamped her foot in fury, and ran away. She ran no further
than to the next bench, flung herself down there and began to cry
without even trying not to.

Anthea, quite at once, went to the little girl and put her arms as tight
as she could round the hunched-up black figure.

'Oh, don't cry so, dear, don't, don't!' she whispered under the brim of
the large sailor hat, now very crooked indeed. 'Tell Anthea all about
it; Anthea'll help you. There, there, dear, don't cry.'

The others stood at a distance. One or two passers-by stared curiously.

The child was now only crying part of the time; the rest of the time she
seemed to be talking to Anthea.

Presently Anthea beckoned Cyril.

'It's horrible!' she said in a furious whisper, 'her father was a
carpenter and he was a steady man, and never touched a drop except on a
Saturday, and he came up to London for work, and there wasn't any, and
then he died; and her name is Imogen, and she's nine come next
November. And now her mother's dead, and she's to stay tonight with
Mrs Shrobsall--that's a landlady that's been kind--and tomorrow the
Relieving Officer is coming for her, and she's going into the Union;
that means the Workhouse. It's too terrible. What can we do?'

'Let's ask the learned gentleman,' said Jane brightly.

And as no one else could think of anything better the whole party walked
back to Fitzroy Street as fast as it could, the little girl holding
tight to Anthea's hand and now not crying any more, only sniffing
gently.

The learned gentleman looked up from his writing with the smile that had
grown much easier to him than it used to be. They were quite at home
in his room now; it really seemed to welcome them. Even the mummy-case
appeared to smile as if in its distant s