rom me too, Delia! Please
don't! Honest Injun, I'll try to behave! Cross my heart I will. And
I tell you this much, I feel just awfully about Miss Blake. I
shouldn't wonder a bit but it would snow tonight, and she hasn't a
place to go and no money, and--O dear! I feel like a person that ought
to be in jail!"

Delia extricated herself gently from the clinging arms. "What makes
you think Miss Blake's as poverty-stricken as that?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't know," responded the girl. "But I just feel she is. And
she is so little too. She looked so glad to get into this house that I
guess she never had much of a place to stay before."

"She don't dress like a person that's next-door to a beggar," mused
Delia.

"No, she doesn't. She has really pretty things, hasn't she? But I
guess they're made over and cast-off, or something. Maybe the lady she
lived with last gave them to her?" speculated Nan.

"Maybe she did," said Delia.

The two made their way slowly down to the kitchen. It was beginning to
grow dark and the dinner must be prepared.

"I never in all my life saw such little hands and feet," the girl
pursued. "And she's dreadfully particular about them. There's never a
speck on her fingers that she doesn't run right up and scrub them, and
she wears the cunningest slippers I ever saw."

"I guess she comes of nice folks," said Delia, as she began to peel the
potatoes.

"Wonder why she doesn't stay with them then?" put in Nan.

"Perhaps they're dead."

Nan pondered. Her own motherless life had given her a very tender
sympathy for those whose "folks" were dead. For the first time she
felt sorry for Miss Blake. She was uneasy and distressed. It made her
shift about uncomfortably in her chair.

"Goodness me!" she ejaculated impatiently at last, and then one of her
wild impulses took possession of her and she ran frantically up into
her own room and flung on her coat and hat.

"The whole thing's as plain as preaching. Why didn't I think of it
before?" she said to herself, with a shake of impatience. "Mr. Turner
told Miss Blake if she was worried or anything to go to him. She
hasn't any money, and she's left here, so of course that's where she
is. I'll go and bring her back."

The front door opened and shut with a bang, and Nan was out in the
street alone. As she scudded down the pavement the electric lights
suddenly gleamed out pale and vivid from their lofty globes, and sent
wavering sh