ay from me again."

The girls remained a while longer, getting better acquainted with Norah,
and with the brood of younger O'Briens. There was the livestock in the
back yard to look over, too; and Norah made tea and cut a cake, doing
the honors of the house because Mrs. O'Brien was not at home.

"She does her scrubbin' at the offices Saturday afternoon instead of at
night. Then we have her home Saturday evenings," said Norah, proudly.
"And Patrick Sarsfield does not go to school Saturday evenings."

"Oh, say!" ejaculated the red-haired boy. "Call me 'Scorch.' 'Patrick
Sarsfield' makes me feel top-heavy. I'd soon get round-shouldered
carrying that around."

John Bruce met the girls at the station, to which Scorch escorted them
in time for the afternoon train. Nancy shook hands with her champion
warmly before they separated.

"You be a good boy and keep out of trouble," she advised him. "Maybe Mr.
Gordon isn't as bad as--as you think. He never refuses me anything, and
I feel ashamed to doubt him so."

"Say! what did he ever give you but money?" demanded Scorch.

"But that, you once told me," said Nancy, laughing, "was about the best
thing in the world."

"It's good to have, just the same," quoth Scorch. "But perhaps havin'
folks is better. And if Old Gordon has hidden you away from your folks,
Miss Nancy, he'd oughter be made to give you up to them."

"That's a _new_ idea, Scorch," returned Nancy, reflectively. "Do you
suppose that I might have been stolen from my people for some reason?"

"Maybe you were stolen by Gypsies!" cried Jennie.

"Old Gordon doesn't look like a Gypsy," said Scorch, slowly, "nor yet
the gray man I was telling you about."

"Come on and get aboard," said John Bruce, smiling. "I wouldn't worry my
head about such things, if I were you, Nancy. We all like you quite as
well as we should if you had a family as big as the Bruces'."

That was not the only time the girls saw Scorch O'Brien that summer;
and on one occasion the entire O'Brien family--from the fat, ruddy-faced
Mother O'Brien, down to Aloysius Adolphus O'Brien, the baby--came clear
out to Hollyburg on the train, where they were met by the Bruces' man,
and Nancy and Jennie, with a two-horse beach-wagon and transported to
the lake for a picnic.

But Scorch--greatly to his disappointment--had nothing of moment to
communicate to Nancy on that occasion, or on any other that summer. The
"gray man" did not again appear at the offices