"An' if grandpa maybe goes alone, 'cause they don't take little girls, nohow, then that colonel'd have me sent off to one o' them Homeses or 'Sylums for childern that hasn't got no real pas nor mas. Huh, needn't tell me. I've seen 'em, time an' again, walkin' in processions, with Sisters of Charity in wide white flappin' caps all the time scoldin' them poor little girls for laughin' too loud or gettin' off the line or somethin' like that. An' them with long-tailed frocks an' choky kind of aperns an' big sunbonnets, lookin' right at my basket o' peanuts an' never tastin' a single one. Oh, jest catch me! I'll be a newspaper boy, first, but--but, Jane dear, do you s'pose anything--any single thing, such as bein' terrible hungry, or not gettin' paid for frames or singin'--could that make my grandpa go and leave me?" For at her own breathless vivid picture of the orphanage children, as she had seen them, the doubt concerning the captain's future actions returned to torment her afresh. "He might be sick, honey, or somethin' like that, but not o' free will. Old Simon Beck'll never forsake the 'light o' his eyes,' as I've heard him call you, time an' again." "Don't you fret, child," continued Posy Jane. "Ain't you the 'Queen of Elbow Lane'? Ain't all of us, round about, fond of you an' proud of you, same's if you was a real queen, indeed? Who'd look after Mis' McGinty's seven babies, when she goes a scrubbin' the station floors, if you wasn't here? Who'd help the tailor with his job when the fits of coughin' get so bad? 'Twas only a spell ago he was showin' me how't you'd sewed in the linin' to a coat he was too sick to finish an' a praisin' the stitches beautiful. What'd the boys do without you to sew their rags up decent an' tend to their hurt fingers an' share your dinner with 'em when--when you have one an' they don't? "An' you so masterful like," went on the flower-seller, "a makin' everybody do as you say, whether or no. If it's a scrap in a tenement, is my Glory afraid? not a mite. In she walks, walks she, as bold as bold, an' lays her hand on this one's shoulder an' that one's arm an' makes 'em quit fightin'. Many's the job you've saved the police, Glory Beck, an' that very officer yonder was sayin' only yesterday how't he'd rather have you on his beat than another cop, no matter how smart he might be. He says, says he, 'That little girl can do more to keep the peace in the Lane 'an the best man on the force,' says he. 'It's prime wonderful how she manages it.' An' I up an' tells him nothin' wonderful 'bout it at all.' It's 'cause everybody loves you, little Glory, an' is ashamed not to be just as good as they know you think they be.