en after all, as they always
say I am. And oh, I would like to find a real relation! And isn't it
good of Paddy to get that dear little Pat for me? I _must_ wait till
he is big enough to go too, and then I can have him for my very, very
own."

Dick was thirteen, and small for his age, but his mental powers were
keen, and he knew that if he stayed with the Fowleys he would have no
chance to get on in life.

And looking up into the blue summer sky, he prayed to his heavenly
Father to help him to get away.

CHAPTER II.

FIGHTING FIRE.

A sudden scream of terror from the cottage roused Dick from his
thinking, and laying the baby down he rushed in.

On the doorstep he met little Susy, with her lilac pinafore in flames.
She had been trying to reach something from the mantelpiece, and had
climbed up on the unsteady old fender. There was no guard in front of
the open fire, and the draught had drawn her pinafore towards the bars
and set it on fire, and the flames were mounting around her, and
already her hair was singed.

But Lionheart knew what to do. With a spring and a cry he caught her
just as she was rushing out-of-doors, and flinging her down he fell on
her, and tore and clutched at the burning rags with his bare hands.

She screamed with fright rather than with pain, but Dick did not let go
till the danger was past; and his clothes, being woollen, did not catch.

There was a scuffle of footsteps as Mrs. Fowley and two other women
came in with a great outcry. And the sobbing child was wrapped in a
big shawl, and the doctor sent for.

And her mother, to relieve her own fears, began as usual to upbraid
Dick.

"It's all your fault, you good-for-nothing pauper! Why didn't you look
after the child?"

"I thought you had her, she went out with you," he said, trembling with
dread of more than a scolding, and scarcely able to bear the pain in
his poor burned hands.

"Then you'd no business to think," she screamed. "What you've got to
do is to mind the children, and anything else I've a mind to order you
to do. Three years and better we've kep' you out of charity, and you
don't earn shoe leather yet. Where's the baby?"

"Asleep in the garden, I put her down under the tree when I heard Susy
cry out."

"Then go and fetch her this minute. And a fine hiding you'll get when
Fowley comes home. Susy's his favourite out of 'em all."

Dick looked appealingly at the neighbours and muttered, "I--I can't