ul, too, lest some inquisitive neighbour, catching sight of
them, might stop them and challenge to know their business. The streets
once gained, she felt easier--easier indeed with every yard she put
between her and that house of horrors. But the streets, too, held their
dangers. The bells had rung in the elementary schools; all respectable
boys and girls were indoors, deep in the afternoon session, and she had
heard of attendance officers, those prowling foes.

At the end of Pollard's Row--a squalid street of tenement houses--she
suffered indeed a terrible scare. A benevolent-looking middle-aged
lady--a district visitor, in fact--emerging from one of these houses and
arrested perhaps at sight of the crutch or of the boy's strange rags,
stopped her and asked where she was going.

Tilda fell back on the truth. It was economical.

"To the 'orspital," she answered, "the Good Samaritan."

Then she blundered.

"It's 'ereabouts, ain't it, ma'am?"

"Not very far," replied the lady; "two or three streets only. Shall I
show you the way? I have plenty of time."

"Thank you," said Tilda (she was suffering a reaction, and for a moment
it dulled the edge of her wits), "but I know the Good Samaritan, an'
they know all about me."

"What's the matter?"

"'Ip trouble, ma'am. I been treated for it there these three weeks."

"That is strange," said the lady. "You have been going there for three
weeks, and yet you don't know your way?"

"I been a in-patient. I was took there"--she was about to say "on a
stretcher," but checked herself in time--"I was took there in the
evenin' after dark. Father couldn' take me by day, in his work-time.
An' this is my first turn as day-patient, an' that's why my brother 'ere
is let off school to see me along," she wound up with a desperate rush
of invention.

"You don't live in my district? What's your father's name?"

"No, ma'am. He's called Porter--Sam Porter, an' he works on the
coal-barges. But I wouldn' advise you, I reely wouldn', because
father's got opinions, an' can't abide visitors. I've 'eard 'im threaten
'em quite vi'lent."

"Poor child!"

"But I won't 'ave you say anything 'gainst father," said Tilda, taking
her up quickly, "for 'e's the best father in the world, if 'twasn' fur
the drink."

The effect of this masterstroke was that the lady gave her a copper and
let her go, wishing her a speedy recovery. The gift, although she took
it, did not appear to placa