h heated the house.

When he became convinced that he could not recover his own attire,
Towsley accepted that which Miss Lucy had provided. He drew on the
underwear with a gratified sense of its comfort and daintiness, but
with the idea that he was only "borrowing."

"Adopted me, did she? I know what that means. Peter-the-Cripple he got
adopted, that time he was run over by a lady's carriage. She adopted
him, and he went to a big house and he died. No, siree! there isn't
anybody going to catch me that way! least of all a little wizzly old
lady like her! No, siree! Of course, I'll have to wear these things
till I get down-town and can borrow some more of a kid, and then I'll
send 'em back. Say, if I'm a swell like she said I was, and my name's
Lionel Armacost, if you please, what's the matter with my pressing the
button and getting a little light on a dark subject?"

Towsley's bright eyes had observed where the electric button was, when
Jefferson had lighted the hall bedroom earlier in the night, and he
now manipulated it for his own benefit. A soft radiance promptly
filled the pretty room and showed him where each article lay. In a
wonderfully brief time the waif had arrayed himself from head to foot,
and coolly surveyed himself in the long mirror that stood upon its
rollers in one corner.

"Pshaw! Ain't I a guy! But--but--it's sort of tasty, too. I wonder
what the fellows'll say! Wait till they see that feather and feel that
velvet! Cracky! then you'll hear them howl! I wonder what time it is?
I wonder if I'm too late to get my papers? If I'm not, what a haul
I'll make in these duds! Maybe enough to buy a suit for myself down at
Cheap John's store. Then I'd have these wrapped in brown paper and
sent back to Miss Armacost with my compliments. The compliments of
Mister Towsley Lionel Towhead Armacost, esquire! Hi! ain't that a
notion! But plague take these shoes! They aren't half as comfortable
as my own old holeys! But it all goes! And she really is a dear little
old lady. I'd like to oblige her if I could, but--adopted! No, siree!"

A country child of Towsley's age would have been puzzled how to escape
from the well-locked and bolted mansion; but the keen-witted gamin of
the city's streets had little difficulty. True, the great front door
did open rather slowly to his puny grasp, but that was on account of
the storm.

The wind swept and howled around the corner where the big house stood,
and the white marble ste