l read it with pleasure, if I can. And I'm getting out at Crow
Junction, and I can help you change, if I can find out what it means."

"It's getting out of one train into another, and you might carry my
basket, maybe. You see, I've got a band-box, and my umbrella and
pattens besides. I had to bring them, not knowing how the roads might
be up there, and with damp feet I get rheumaticy directly."

Dick managed to get through the ill-spelled letter, and learned its
instructions by heart, and then was rewarded with a home-made flakey
cake, out of the big basket, that was better than all the fairings they
had left behind.

It was splendid to feel that the swift engine was bearing him on
towards his destination so easily, and that every mile made one less to
be tramped on foot.

Both Pat and his master would have been willing to travel on all night
by rail, but the forty miles were soon passed, and they got out at the
busy junction.

The old woman was helped in her changing, and then Dick earned twopence
by carrying a heavy portmanteau for another passenger. And then the
two pilgrims took to the road again.

The days that followed were very much alike, and in after years Dick
remembered little about this part of the journey.

Sometimes he earned enough to buy a meal or pay for a humble night's
lodging, but they would often have been very hungry but for Paddy's
half-crown. This was spent carefully, a penny at a time, and chiefly
for dry bread.

The last sixpence had been changed when a sign-post with the words
"Ironboro' two miles" was passed. Dick took off his cap and looked up
to the wintry sky with joy and gratitude, and there and then thanked
God.

No Lionheart crusader could have felt more fervent gladness at the
first sight of the Holy City!

Bub Dick's goal did not look very promising, as he drew near. A pall
of smoke hung low over the narrow streets, tall chimneys sent black
clouds into the biting air, and there was the clang and whirl of
machinery, and the throb of huge hammers going on all the time.

He was entering the town by the least inviting road. On one side were
rows of miserable houses with broken windows and grimy walls and doors,
that looked as if all their brightness had gone into the smart
public-houses on each corner.

On the other side stretched a piece of waste land, where iron clinkers
and slag lay in great heaps, and rubbish of all kinds was deposited.
Not a blade of grass or