always
at it."

"But old Sal doesn't beat you, does she?"

"I wish she would."

"What do you mean?" asked Diamond, quite bewildered.

"She would if she was my mother. But she wouldn't lie abed a-cuddlin' of
her ugly old bones, and laugh to hear me crying at the door."

"You don't mean she won't let you in to-night?"

"It'll be a good chance if she does."

"Why are you out so late, then?" asked Diamond.

"My crossing's a long way off at the West End, and I had been indulgin'
in door-steps and mewses."

"We'd better have a try anyhow," said Diamond. "Come along."

As he spoke Diamond thought he caught a glimpse of North Wind turning a
corner in front of them; and when they turned the corner too, they found
it quiet there, but he saw nothing of the lady.

"Now you lead me," he said, taking her hand, "and I'll take care of
you."

The girl withdrew her hand, but only to dry her eyes with her frock, for
the other had enough to do with her broom. She put it in his again, and
led him, turning after turning, until they stopped at a cellar-door in a
very dirty lane. There she knocked.

"I shouldn't like to live here," said Diamond.

"Oh, yes, you would, if you had nowhere else to go to," answered the
girl. "I only wish we may get in."

"I don't want to go in," said Diamond.

"Where do you mean to go, then?"

"Home to my home."

"Where's that?"

"I don't exactly know."

"Then you're worse off than I am."

"Oh no, for North Wind--" began Diamond, and stopped, he hardly knew
why.

"What?" said the girl, as she held her ear to the door listening.

But Diamond did not reply. Neither did old Sal.

"I told you so," said the girl. "She is wide awake hearkening. But we
don't get in."

"What will you do, then?" asked Diamond.

"Move on," she answered.

"Where?"

"Oh, anywheres. Bless you, I'm used to it."

"Hadn't you better come home with me, then?"

"That's a good joke, when you don't know where it is. Come on."

"But where?"

"Oh, nowheres in particular. Come on."

Diamond obeyed. The wind had now fallen considerably. They wandered on
and on, turning in this direction and that, without any reason for one
way more than another, until they had got out of the thick of the houses
into a waste kind of place. By this time they were both very tired.
Diamond felt a good deal inclined to cry, and thought he had been very
silly to get down from the back of North Wind; not that he would have
minded it