"Eh! is that you, Bet Granger?" he exclaimed. "Eh--you are in a taking. You might stop a minute to pass a civil good-morning with a chap. Well, what a gel that is! But ain't she handsome--just." Bet flew past him like a whirlwind, and his last words were addressed to the empty air. Three pairs up she ran, her breath coming quicker and quicker. On the landing she paused, and pressed her hand to her wildly beating heart. It was all quite true. Louisa Perkins had not told her a lie. The room door stood wide open; the room itself was empty. "Boys!" she called, when she could gather breath to speak. "Little lads, I ha' come back to you! You needn't hide no more, for Bet's yere." But she knew as she said the words that the boys were not hiding. They had fallen into the clutches of the oppressor--they had gone. She went slowly now into the deserted room. She was waiting for her breath to return, for her heart to beat easily, to commence her search. Yes: that was the only duty left to her in life--to find the boys and redeem her promise to her mother. She sat down on a chair, and wiped her heated forehead, and gradually made her plans. First of all she would go to Mother Bunch--and then, then--away to Warrington. Warrington was not a big place; it would be impossible for Granger to elude her long there. Could she once again find the lads she need not greatly fear her father. After all she had nearly, if not quite, his physical strength; and she believed that if it came to a personal encounter between them, her muscles, joined to her woman's wit, would give her the victory. Opening the front of her dress, she pulled out a handkerchief, and, unknotting it, looked at the little money in her possession. The handkerchief only contained a few pence--certainly not the price of a third-class fare to Warrington. As she was leaving the room, however, she caught a hidden gleam on the little deal dresser. She ran to it and picked up half-a-crown. How had it got there? She had no time to think of that; it was hers now, to use as she thought best. She would go to Mother Bunch first. That worthy was offended with her; but what of that, she must soothe Mother Bunch's temper, make her once more her friend, get her to look out for any tidings of the boys, and then go on her wild goose chase to Warrington. Whenever Mother Bunch was not eating, sleeping, or scolding some one, she was engaged over the wash-tub. It might have puzzled an outsider to know what results she achieved from such arduous labor, for she scorned to take in washing as a profession; and neither she nor her good man, a certain lanky-looking Patrick O'Flaherty, were remarkable for the whiteness of their linen, or the general cleanliness of their apparel.