ter yere;" and she pressed her
hand to her sunken chest.

"'Tis goin' to snow, too, sure as sure, to-day," answered Sue. "Don't
you think as you could jest keep back to-day, Mary Jones? Maybe you
mightn't be seen, and I'd try hard to fetch you in something hot when we
comes back."

"Ye're real good, and I'll just mak' shift to stay in," replied Mary
Jones. But then the manager came round, and the girls could say no more
for the present.

At twelve o'clock, be the weather what it might, all had to turn out for
half an hour. This, which seemed a hardship, was absolutely necessary
for the proper ventilation of the room; but the delicate girls felt the
hardship terribly, and as many of them could not afford to go to a
restaurant, there was nothing for them but to wander about the streets.
At the hour of release to-day it still snowed fast, but Sue with
considerable cleverness, had managed to hide Mary Jones in the warm
room, and now ran fast through the blinding and bitter cold to see where
she could get something hot and nourishing to bring back to her. Her own
dinner, consisting of a hunch of dry bread and dripping, could be eaten
in the pauses of her work. Her object now was to provide for the sick
girl.

She ran fast, for she knew a shop where delicious penny pies were to be
had, and it was quite possible to demolish penny pies unnoticed in the
large workroom. The shop, however, in question was some way off, and Sue
had no time to spare. She had nearly reached it, and had already in
imagination clasped the warm pies in her cold hands, when, suddenly
turning a corner, she came face to face with Harris. Harris was walking
along moodily, apparently lost in thought. When he saw Sue, however, he
started, and took hold of her arm roughly.

"Sue," he said, "does you know as Connie came back last night?"

"Connie?" cried Sue. Her face turned pale and then red again in
eagerness. "Then God 'ave heard our prayers!" she exclaimed with great
fervor. "Oh! won't my little Giles be glad?"

"You listen to the end," said the man. He still kept his hand on her
shoulder, not caring whether it hurt her or not.

"She come back, my purty, purty little gel, but I 'ad tuk too much, and
I were rough on her and I bid her be gone, and she went. She went to
Father John; _'e_ were kind to her, and 'e were taking her to you, w'en
some willain--I don't know 'oo--caught her by the arm and pulled her
down a dark alley, and she ain't been seen