t her, and in wiping away the blood, that it was
several minutes before he thought of the music-box. When he picked it
up he found it was so badly broken that it would no longer play.

"Oh, what will papa say!" cried Elsie. The little fellow made no
answer, but could scarcely keep from crying himself, as he lifted it
on the barrow, to start back home.

"When will we be there, brother?" asked Elsie, when they had trudged
along for some time. She was holding on to the tail of his jacket,
sniffling dismally. Phil stopped, for they had reached a street
corner, and looked around. It was growing dusk. Then he turned to her
with a dazed, scared fate.

"Oh, Sis," he cried, "I don't know what to do. This isn't the street
that I thought it was. I'm afraid we're lost!"

They had reached the edge of the town by this time. Only one more
block of pretty suburban homes stood between them and the outskirting
fields.

"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Phil, after a moment's pause,
bravely choking back his own fears at sight of his little sister's
frightened face. "See that house over there with the firelight shining
through the windows, so bright and warm? It looks as if kind people
lived there. We'll go and ask them to show us the way home."

"I wish I was home now," mourned Elsie. "I wish I was all clean and
warm, sitting at the supper-table with my good clothes on, beside my
papa. Maybe we'll never find our way back, any more! Maybe he'll
never kiss me and say, 'Papa's dear little daughter,' again! He'll
think I'm dead. Maybe we'll have to go and live with beggars, and be
somebody's poor children all our life to punish us for running away;
and, oh, maybe we'll never have any 'home, sweet home' any more!"

At the picture she made for herself, of the cheerful room with the
dear home faces gathered around the table, which she might never see
again, she began to sob wildly. The tears were falling so fast now
that she could hardly see, but stumbled blindly along, stumping her
tired toes at every step, and clinging fast to Phil's old jacket.

They had almost reached the house with the friendly windows, when a
great iron gate just ahead of them swung open, and an elegantly
dressed old lady walked out to step into a carriage, drawn up at the
curbstone. Behind her came another old lady, tall and stately, and
with something so familiar in appearance that both the children stood
still in astonishment. She was looking about her with s