robably obtain by the sale of the
golden miniature-frame, and finished the castles which they had built
with it in the air, the frame was again enfolded in the sound part of
the parchment, the rags and rottenness of the law were cast away, and up
they rose to bend their steps homeward to the little hovel where Peggy
lived, she having invited the others to tea that they might talk yet
more fully over the wonderful good luck that had befallen them.

"Why, if there isn't a man's head in the canal!" suddenly cried little
Jem. "Looky there!--isn't that a man's head?--Yes; it's a drowndedd
man?"

"A drowndedd man, as I live!" ejaculated old Doubleyear.

"Let's get him out, and see!" cried Peggy. "Perhaps the poor soul's not
quite gone."

Little Jem scuttled off to the edge of the canal, followed by the two
old people. As soon as the body had floated nearer, Jem got down into
the water, and stood breast-high, vainly measuring his distance with one
arm out, to see if he could reach some part of the body as it was
passing. As the attempt was evidently without a chance, old Doubleyear
managed to get down into the water behind him, and holding him by one
hand, the boy was thus enabled to make a plunge forward as the body was
floating by. He succeeded in reaching it; but the jerk was too much for
the weakness of his aged companion, who was pulled forward into the
canal. A loud cry burst from both of them, which was yet more loudly
echoed by Peggy on the bank. Doubleyear and the boy were now struggling
almost in the middle of the canal with the body of the man swirling
about between them. They would inevitably have been drowned, had not old
Peggy caught up a long dust-rake that was close at hand--scrambled down
up to her knees in the canal--clawed hold of the struggling group with
the teeth of the rake, and fairly brought the whole to land. Jem was
first up the bank, and helped up his two heroic companions; after which
with no small difficulty, they contrived to haul the body of the
stranger out of the water. Jem at once recognized in him the forlorn
figure of the man who had passed by in the morning, looking so sadly
into the canal, as he walked along.

It is a fact well known to those who work in the vicinity of these great
dust-heaps, that when the ashes have been warmed by the sun, cats and
kittens that have been taken out of the canal and buried a few inches
beneath the surface, have usually revived; and the same has often