lked slowly, as though her heart
were bleeding, down Adam Street until she came to the house where Father
John Atkins lived.

It was a little house, much smaller than its neighbors. Father John's
room was on the ground floor. She knocked at the door. There was no
answer. She turned the handle: it yielded to her pressure. She went in,
sank down on the nearest chair, and covered her face with both her
hands.

She was trembling exceedingly. The shock of her father's treatment was
far greater than she could well bear in her present weak and
over-excited condition. She had gone through--oh, so much--so very much!
That awful time with Mammy Warren; her anxiety with regard to little
Ronald; and then that final, awful, never-to-be-forgotten day, that
night which was surely like no other night that had ever dawned on the
world--the noise of the gathering flames, the terrific roar they made
through the old building; the shouts of the people down below; the heat,
the smoke, the pain, the cruel, cruel fear; and then last but not
least--the deliverance!

When that gallant fireman appeared, it seemed to both Connie and Ronald
as though the gates of heaven had opened, and they had been taken
straight away from the pains of hell into the glories of the blest. But
all these things told on the nerves, and when Connie now had been turned
away from her father's door, she was absolutely unfit for such
treatment.

When she reached Father John's she was as weak and miserable a poor
little girl as could found anywhere in London.

"My dear! my dear!" said the kind voice--the sort of voice that always
thrilled the hearts of those who listened to him. A hand was laid on the
weeping girl's shoulder. "Look up," said the voice again. Then there was
a startled cry, an exclamation of the purest pleasure.

"Why Connie--my dear Connie--the good Lord has heard our prayers and has
sent you back again!"

"Don't matter," said Connie, sobbing on, quite impervious to the
kindness, quite unmoved by the sympathy. "There ain't no Father 'chart
'eaven," she continued. "I don't believe in 'Im no more. There ain't no
Father, and no Jesus Christ. Ef there were, my own father wouldn't treat
me so bitter cruel."

"Come, Connie," said the preacher, "you know quite well that you don't
mean those dreadful words. Sit down now by the cosy fire; sit in my own
little chair, and I'll talk to you, my child. Why, Connie, can't you
guess that we've been praying for yo