termined to go alone.

She knew the address, and though she didn't know exactly how to reach it,
she felt sure she could learn by a few enquiries. But, after leaving the
Broadway car, she discovered that she had to travel quite a distance
east, and there was no cross-town line in that locality. Regretting the
necessity of keeping Miss Sinclair waiting, Patty hurried on, and after
some difficulty reached the place, only to find that the costumer had
recently moved, and that his new address was some distance farther up
town.

Patty did not at all like the situation. She was unfamiliar with this
part of the town, she felt awkward and embarrassed at being there alone,
and she was extremely sorry not to have kept her engagement with Miss
Sinclair.

All of this, added to the fact that she was nervous and overwrought, as
well as physically tired out, rendered her unable to use her really good
judgment and common sense.

She stood on a street corner, uncertain what to do next; and her
uncertainty was distinctly manifest on her countenance.

The driver of a passing hansom called out, "Cab, Miss?" And this seemed
to Patty a providential solution of her difficulty.

Recklessly unheeding the fact that she had never before been in a public
cab alone, she jumped in, after giving the costumer's number to the
driver. As she rode up town she thought it over, and concluded that,
after all, she had acted wisely, and that she could explain to her father
how the emergency had really necessitated this unusual proceeding.

It was a long ride, and when Patty jumped out of the cab and asked the
driver his price, she was a little surprised at the large sum he
mentioned.

However, she thought it was wiser to pay it without protest than to make
herself further conspicuous by discussing the matter.

She opened the little wrist-bag which she carried, only to make the
startling discovery that her purse was missing.

Even as she realised this, there flashed across her memory the fact that
her father had often told her that it was a careless way to carry money,
and that she would sooner or later be relieved of her purse by some
clever pickpocket.

Patty could not be sure whether this was what had happened in the present
instance, or whether she had left her purse at home. As she had carried
change for carfare in her coat pocket, she had not expected to need a
large sum of money, and her confused brain refused to remember whether
she had p