strangely. He smelled around that hole,
then ran in, and barked and growled and seemed much excited.

"I guess there's a cat in there," said one of the boys, calling the
dog out. He came, but in a minute rushed back, and barked more and
seemed to be pulling at something.

This aroused the curiosity of the boys, who got down by the opening
and peered in. It was so dark that they could see nothing, but the dog
refusing to come out, they went into the house and brought out a
candle, and by the light of that, saw what looked like a bundle of
rags, which, however, stirred a little as the dog tugged at it.

Then the boys called to her to come out; they threw sticks to see if
she were alive; they tried all ways they could think of, and at last
they went away. But soon they came back and men with them. Nora,
through half-shut eyes, could see them. She knew their blue coats and
bright stars--they were policemen.

They called, they coaxed, they commanded, but she did not move. They
found a boy small enough to crawl under the barn, and he went in. He
found that she was alive, but she would not speak. Never a wish or a
hope crossed the child's mind, except a wish to be let alone.

At last the boy, by the directions of the policemen, pulled her
towards the opening. She did not resist--she did not know how to
resist; her whole life had been a crushing submission to everything.

Finally the men could reach her, and the poor, little, half-dead
figure was brought to the light.

"Poor soul!" said one of the men, almost tenderly. "She's near dead
with cold and hunger."

She could not walk. Kind though rough hands carried her to the station
house, where a warm fire and a few spoonfuls of broth--hastily
procured from a restaurant--brought her wholly back to life, and she
sat up in her chair and faced a row of pitying faces with all her
young misery.

Little by little her story was drawn from her.

But what to do with her--that was the question. She was not an
offender against the law, and this institution was not for the
protection of misfortune, but for the punishment of crime. They did
the best they could. They fed her, made her a comfortable bed on a
bench in the station house, and the next morning the whole story went
into the papers.

This story was read by a lady of wealth over her morning coffee. She
had lately been reading an account of the poor in our large cities,
and had begun to think it was her duty to do somethin