ge along Melpomene Street,
stopping to collect stray bits of cabbage leaves and refuse vegetables
where the bridgeway leads through Dryades Market. Some said that she had
a friend there, who hid such things for her to find, under one of the
stalls, but this may not have been true.

It was on the Saturday morning after their first search that three
little "Daughters of the King" started out a second time, determined if
possible to trace Old Easter to her hiding-place.

It was a shabby, ugly, and crowded part of town in which, following the
bridged road, and inquiring as they went, they soon found themselves.

For a long time it seemed a fruitless search, and they were almost
discouraged when across a field, limping along before a half-shabby,
fallen gate, they saw an old, lame, yellow dog.

It was the story of her sharing her dinner with the dog on the street
that had won these eager friends for the old woman, and so, perhaps,
from an association of ideas, they crossed the field, timidly, half
afraid of the poor miserable beast that at once attracted and repelled
them.

But they need not have feared. As soon as he knew they were visitors,
the social fellow began wagging his little stump of a tail, and with a
sort of coaxing half-bark asked them to come in and make themselves at
home.

Not so cordial, however, was the shy and reluctant greeting of the old
woman, Easter, who, after trying in vain to rise from her chair as they
entered her little room, motioned to them to be seated on her bed. There
was no other seat vacant, the second chair of the house being in use by
a crippled black man, who sat out upon the back porch, nodding.

As they took their seats, the yellow dog, who had acted as usher,
squatted serenely in their midst, with what seemed a broad grin upon his
face, and then it was that the little maid who had seen the incident
recognized him as the poor old street dog who had shared old Easter's
dinner.

Two other dogs, poor, ugly, common fellows, had strolled out as they
came in, and there were several cats lying huddled together in the sun
beside the chair of the sleeping figure on the back porch.

It was a poor little home--as poor as any imagination could picture it.
There were holes in the floor--holes in the roof--cracks everywhere. It
was, indeed, not considered, to use a technical word, "tenable," and
there was no rent to pay for living in it.

But, considering things, it was pretty clean. And