l of imagination,
and during the dreadful time spent at Mother Warren's, and in especial
since Ronald had come, she began to compare her father with Ronald's,
and gradually but surely to forget the cruel and terrible scenes when
that father was drunk, and to think of him only in his best moments when
he kissed her and petted her and called her his dear little motherless
girl.

Oh, he would be glad to see her now! He would rejoice in her company.

Connie quickly found the old house in Adam Street, and ran up the
stairs. One or two people recognized her, and said, "Hullo, Con! you
back?" but being too busy with their struggle for life, did not show any
undue curiosity.

"Is my father in?" asked Connie of one.

The man said, "He be." And then he added, "Yer'd best be careful. He
ain't, to say, in his pleasantest mood to-night."

Connie reached the well-known landing. She turned the handle of the
door. It was locked. She heard some one moving within. Then a rough
voice said:

"Get out o' that!"

"It's me, father!" called Connie back. "It's Connie!"

"Don't want yer--get away!" said the voice.

Connie knelt down and called through the keyhole:

"It's me--I've 'ad a dreadful time--let me in."

"Go 'way--don't want yer--get out o' this!"

"Oh father--father!" called Connie. She began to sob. After all her
dreams, after all her longings, after all her cruel trials--to be
treated like this, and by her father! It seemed to shake her very belief
in fathers, even in the great Father of all.

"Please--please--I'm jest wanting yer awfu' bad!" she pleaded.

Her gentle and moving voice--that voice for which Peter Harris, when
sober and in his right mind, so starved to hear again--now acted upon
him in quite the opposite direction. He had not taken enough to make him
stupid, only enough to rouse his worst passions. He strode across the
room, flung the door wide, and lifting Connie from her knees, said to
her:

"Listen. You left me without rhyme or reason--not even a word or a
thought. I sorrowed for yer till I turned to 'ate yer! Now then, get out
o' this. I don't want yer, niver no more. Go down them stairs, unless
yer want me to push yer down. Go 'way--and be quick!"

There was a scowl on his angry face, a ferocious look in his eyes.
Connie turned quite gently, and without any apparent anger went
downstairs.

"Ah!" said a man in the street, "thought yer wouldn't stay long."

"He's wery bad," said Connie. She wa