ot--not if it's in
self-defence."

He would have said more but Terence interrupted: "What's the matter,
Rosie? Any one been teasing you?"

Rosie answered quickly, almost too quickly: "Oh, no, no! I was just
a-talkin' to Jarge----"

"Well, just stop yir talkin' and be off wid yez to school! Do ye hear me
now, all o' yez!" Mrs. O'Brien opened the kitchen door and, raising her
apron aloft, drove them out with a "Shoo!" as though they were so many
chickens.

CHAPTER II

THE SCHNITZER

"Tell me now, Rosie, are you having any trouble with your papers?"
Terence asked this as he and Rosie and little Jack started off for
school.

Terence had a regular newspaper business which kept him busy every day
from the close of school until dark. His route had grown so large that
recently he had been forced to engage the services of one or two
subordinates. Rosie had begged to be given a job as paper-carrier, to
deliver the papers in their own immediate neighbourhood, and Terence was
at last allowing her a week's trial. If she could be a newsgirl without
attracting undue attention, he would be as willing to pay her twenty
cents a week as to pay any ordinary small boy a quarter.

Twenty cents seemed a princely wage to one handicapped by the limitation
of sex, and Rosie was determined to make good. So, when Terence inquired
whether she were having any trouble, she declared at once:

"No, Terry, honest I'm not. Every one's just as nice and kind to me as
they can be. Those two nice Miss Grey ladies always give me a cookie,
and nice old Danny Agin nearly always has an apple for me."

"Well," said Terence, severely--besides being Rosie's brother, fourteen
years old and nearly two years her senior, he was her employer and so
simply had to be severe--"Well, just see that you don't eat too many
apples!"

Terence and Jack turned into the boys' school-yard and Rosie pursued her
way down to the girls' gate. Just before she reached it, a boy, biggish
and overgrown, with a large flat face and loosely hung joints, ran up
behind her and shouted:

"Oh, look at the paper-girl, paper-girl, paper-girl! Rosie O'Brien,
O'Brien, O'Brien!"

He seemed to think there was something funny in the name O'Brien, and
his own name, mind you, was Schnitzer!

Rosie marched on with unhearing ears, unseeing eyes. Other people,
however, heard, for in a moment, one of the little girls clustered about
the school-yard gate rushed over to her, jerking h