ting sentence I ever
heard," declared Bess, afterward.

The girls made special inquiries of the child, however, and they did more
than carry over something for the sick girl to eat. They bought an oil
heater and a big can of oil, for the girl's room was unheated.

There was extra bed-clothing and some linen to get, too, for Inez was an
observant little thing and knew just what the sick girl needed. Walter
meanwhile bought fresh fruit and canned goods--soup and preserved
fruit--and a jar of calf's foot jelly.

The procession that finally took up its march into the alley toward
number four hundred and sixteen _and a half_, headed by Inez and with the
boy from the shop bearing the heater and the oil can as rear guard, was
an imposing one indeed.

"See what I brought you, Jen Albert!" cried Inez, as she burst in the
door of the poorly furnished room. "These are some of me tony friends
from Washington Park, and they've come to have a picnic."

The room was as cheaply and meanly furnished as any that the three girls
from Lakeview Hall had ever seen. Nan thought she had seen poverty of
household goods and furnishings when she had lived for a season with her
Uncle Henry Sherwood at Pine Camp, in the woods of Upper Michigan. Some
of the neighbors there had scarcely a factory made chair to sit on. But
this room in which Jennie Albert lived, and to which she had brought the
little flower-seller for shelter, was so barren and ugly that it made Nan
shudder as she gazed at it.

The girl who rose suddenly off the ragged couch as the three friends
entered, startled them even more than the appearance of the room itself.
She was so thin and haggard--she had such red, red cheeks--such feverish
eyes--such an altogether wild and distraught air--that timid Grace shrank
back and looked at Walter, who remained with the packages and bundles at
the head of the stairs.

Nan and Bess likewise looked at the girl with some trepidation; but they
held their ground.

"What do you want? Who are you?" asked Jennie Albert, hoarsely.

"We--we have come to see you," explained Nan, hesitatingly. "We're
friends of little Inez."

"You'd better keep away from here!" cried the older girl, fiercely. "This
is no place for the likes of you."

"Aw, say! Now, don't get flighty again, Jen," urged little Inez, much
worried. "I tell youse these girls is all right. Why, they're pertic'lar
friends of mine."

"Your--your friends?" muttered the wild looking g