ple Sally by his side. The act of reckless imprudence which he was
committing was nothing but an act of Christian duty, to his mind. Not
the slightest misgiving troubled him. "I shall provide for her in some
way!" he thought to himself cheerfully. He looked at her. The weary
outcast was asleep already in her corner of the cab. From time to time
she still shivered, even in her sleep. Amelius took off his great-coat,
and covered her with it. How some of his friends at the club would have
laughed, if they had seen him at that moment!

He was obliged to wake her when the cab stopped. His key admitted them
to the house. He lit his candle in the hall, and led her up the stairs.
"You'll soon be asleep again, Sally," he whispered.

She looked round the little sitting-room with drowsy admiration. "What a
pretty place to live in!" she said.

"Are you hungry again?" Amelius asked.

She shook her head, and took off her shabby bonnet; her pretty
light-brown hair fell about her face and her shoulders. "I think I'm too
tired, sir, to be hungry. Might I take the sofa-pillow, and lay down on
the hearth-rug?"

Amelius opened the door of his bedroom. "You are to pass the night more
comfortably than that," he answered. "There is a bed for you here."

She followed him in, and looked round the bedroom, with renewed
admiration of everything that she saw. At the sight of the hairbrushes
and the comb, she clapped her hands in ecstasy. "Oh, how different from
mine!" she exclaimed. "Is the comb tortoise-shell, sir, like one sees
in the shop-windows?" The bath and the towels attracted her next; she
stood, looking at them with longing eyes, completely forgetful of the
wonderful comb. "I've often peeped into the ironmongers' shops," she
said, "and thought I should be the happiest girl in the world, if I had
such a bath as that. A little pitcher is all I have got of my own, and
they swear at me when I want it filled more than once. In all my life, I
have never had as much water as I should like." She paused, and thought
for a moment. The forlorn, vacant look appeared again, and dimmed the
beauty of her blue eyes. "It will be hard to go back, after seeing all
these pretty things," she said to herself--and sighed, with that inborn
submission to her fate so melancholy to see in a creature so young.

"You shall never go back again to that dreadful life," Amelius
interposed. "Never speak of it, never think of it any more. Oh, don't
look at me like