rpose of exciting sympathy, but a
plain recital of facts, around which was woven no romance to soften the
hardships, and there were tears in aunt Dorcas's faded eyes when the boy
concluded.

"It seems wicked for me to be living alone in this house, when there are
human beings close at hand who haven't a roof to shelter them," the
little woman said, softly. "Why don't boys like you go out to the
country to work, instead of staying in the city, where you can hardly
keep soul and body together?"

"We couldn't do even that, if we turned farmers," Master Plummer
replied, quickly. "Nobody'd hire us."

"Why not?"

"I know of a feller what tried to get a job on a farm, an' he hung
'round the markets, askin' every man he met, but all of 'em told him
city boys was no good,--that it would take too long to break 'em in."

"But what's to prevent your getting a chance to work in a store, where
you could earn enough to pay your board?"

"I had a notion last year that I'd try that kind of work," Plums said,
slowly, "an' looked about a good bit for a job; but the fellers what
have got homes an' good clothes pick up them snaps, as I soon found out.
It seems like when you get into the business of sellin' papers, or
shinin', you can't do anything else."

"Selling papers, or what?" aunt Dorcas asked, with a perplexed
expression on her face.

"Shinin'; that's blackin' boots, you know. Here's Joe, he scraped
together seven dollars an' eighty-three cents, an' said to hisself that
he'd be a howlin' swell, so what does he do but start a fruit-stand down
on West Street, hire a clerk, an' go into the business in style. It
didn't take him more'n two months to bust up, an' now he ain't got
enough even to start in on sellin' papers, 'cause he spent it all on the
princess."

"Who is the princess?" aunt Dorcas asked, with animation.

"She's a kid what he picked up on the street."

"Oh!" and the little woman looked relieved. "I thought, last night, when
he spoke of the princess, that it was a child he meant."

"Why, didn't I tell you it was?"

"You said she was a kid."

"So she is, an' ain't that a child, or the next thing to it,--a girl?"

"Joseph, what does he mean? Who _is_ the princess?"

"She's a little girl, aunt Dorcas, who's lost her folks, an' I found her
in the street. She hadn't anywhere to go, so I had to take care of her,
'cause a bit of a thing like her couldn't stay outdoors all night,
same's a boy."

"And, even tho