me," with grim solemnity, "an' since He
sent you here huntin' a room, an' since He helped me get the machine,
hard to run as it is, somehow I'm believin' more He's the Lord of us
poor folks too,--an' Him a-helpin' me to turn out one more pair of pants
a day, I'll never be the means of puttin' no child in a refuge no-how
an' no time. An' there it is, how I feel about it!"

Miss Bonkowski turned from a partial view of herself such as the
abbreviated glass to her bureau afforded. "Well," she said amiably,
"coming as I did from across the ocean as a child," and she nodded her
head in the supposed direction of the Atlantic, "and, until late years,
always enjoying a good home, what with father getting steady work as a
scene-painter, as I've told you often, and me going on in the chorus
off and on, and having my own bit of money, I don't really know about
the asylums in this country. But I have heard say they are so fine,
people ain't against deserting their children just to get 'em in such
places knowin' they'll be educated better'n they can do themselves."

Mary's pale eyes blazed. "Do you mean, Norma Bonkowski," she demanded
angrily, "that you'd rather she should go?"

Miss Bonkowski shrugged her shoulders somewhat haughtily. "How you do
talk, Mary! You know I don't,--but neither do I believe she is any
deserted child, and it's worrying me constant, what we ought to do. Poor
as I am, and what with father dying and the manager cutting my salary as
I get older,--I'll admit it to you, Mary, though I wouldn't have him
know I'm having another birthday to-day--" with a laugh and a shrug,
"why, as I say, I am pretty poor, but every cent I've got is yours and
the child's, and you know it, Mary Carew," and the good-hearted
chorus-lady, with a reproachful backward glance at her room-mate,
flounced out the door, leaving the re-assured Mary to sew, by the light
of an ill-smelling lamp, until her return from the theatre near
midnight.

CHAPTER III.

INTRODUCES THE LITTLE MAJOR.

While the fine, embroidered dress in which the Angel had made her
appearance was all Mrs. O'Malligan had claimed it as to daintiness and
quality, after a few days' wear, its daintiness gave place to dirt, its
quality thinned to holes.

Upon this the Tenement was called into consultation. The Angel must be
clothed, but what, even from its cosmopolitan wardrobe, could the house
produce suitable for angelic wear? Many lands indeed were represented