rty, "I must cut and run. I'll make
it all right for the old ladies, for I'll send 'em Anne. She'll like it
here first rate."

She hunted up such remnants of her original wardrobe as had been
thought worth washing and preserving, and having put them on, together
with a hat whose trimmings had been vehemently burned by Miss Martha,
she set out to seek her fortune. Of all her new possessions, she took
only a pair of boots, and those she carried in her hand as she crept
softly down stairs.

"Save us!" exclaimed Biddy, who had been to a Mission Mass of
incredible length, and was already sweeping the doorsteps. "Christmas!"
she added, as a still more pious ejaculation, when the child said,
"Good by, Biddy, I'm off now."

"Where to, thin?" exclaimed Biddy.

"To Providence," said Gerty. "But don't you tell."

"But ye can't go the morn's mornin'," said Biddy. "It's Sunday and
there's no cars."

"There's legs," replied the child, briefly, as she closed the door.

"It's much as iver," said the stumpy Hibernian, to herself, as she
watched the twinkling retreat of those slim, but vigorous little
members.

They had been Gerty's support too long, in body and estate, for her to
shrink from trusting them in a walk of a dozen or a score of miles. But
the locomotion of Stephen's horse was quicker, and she did not get
seriously tired before being overtaken, and--not without difficulty and
some hot tears--coaxed back. Fortunately, Madam Delia came down from
Providence that evening, on a very unexpected visit, and at the
confidential hour of bedtime the child's heart was opened and made a
revelation.

"Won't you be mad, if I tell you something?" she said to Madam Delia,
abruptly.

"No," said the show-woman, with surprise.

"Won't you let Comstock box my ears?"

"I'll box his if he does," was the indignant answer. The gravest
contest that had ever arisen in the museum was when Monsieur Comstock,
teased beyond endurance, had thus taken the law into his own hands.

"Well," said Gerty, after a pause, "I ain't a great lady, no more 'n
nothin'. Them things I brought to you was Anne's."

"Anne's things?" gasped Madam Delia,--"the ring and the piece of a
handkerchief."

"Yes, 'm," said Gerty, "and I've got the rest." And exploring her
little trunk, she produced from a slit in the lining the other half of
the ring, with the name "Anne Deering."

"You naughty, naughty girl!" said Madam Delia. "How did you get 'em
away from Anne