Glory had not thought of danger, though her new friend had not over-rated it. In obedience to this unexpected sternness, she crouched motionless beside him, though she firmly clutched at Bonny's skirts and began to think this her hardest experience yet, till after a time, at sight of a gamboling squirrel, the little one forgot her fear and laughed out gleefully. Then Glory laughed, too, for already her tiny "Guardian" could influence every mood, so dearly had she grown to love the child thus thrown upon her care. How the fences and the fields raced by! How the birds sang and the flowers bloomed! And how very, very soon the queer little car stopped short at a skeleton bridge over a noisy creek! There all the workmen leaped to the ground and hastily prepared for labor. Even Timothy had no further time to talk but coolly setting the children upon a bank pointed to a house across the fields and ordered Glory, "Go there an' tell your story, an' tell Mary Fogarty I sent ye." Then he fell to his own tasks and Take-a-Stitch had no choice save obedience. For a little distance, there was fascination in the meadow for both small wanderers; but soon Bonny Angel's feet lagged and she put up her arms with that mute pleading to be carried which Glory could not resist, yet the little creature soon grew intolerably heavy, and her face buried beneath her nurse's chin seemed to burn into the flesh, the blue eyes closed, the whole plump little body settled limp and inert, and a swift alarm shot through the other's heart. "Oh, oh, I believe she's sick! Do 'Angels' ever get sick? But she isn't a truly 'Angel,' I know now. She's just somebody's lost baby. Queer! Grandpa so old an' she so young should both of 'em get lost to onct, an' only me to look out for 'em! Yet, maybe, that Mary Fogarty woman'll help us out. I hope she'll be like Meg-Laundress, or darlin' Posy Jane. Strange, how long these fields are. Longer'n the longest avenue there is an' not one single house the hull length. Why ain't there houses, I wonder. Wake up, Bonny precious! We're almost there." But when they reached the door of the Queen Anne cottage, which was intended to be picturesque and had succeeded in being merely extremely dirty, and out of which swarmed a horde of youngsters each more soiled than the other, Glory's heart sank. For the big woman who followed the horde was not in the least like either old friend of Elbow Lane. Her voice was harsh and forbidding as she demanded, "Well, an' who are you; an' what are you wantin' here?" "Timothy sent us," answered Glory, meekly. "Huh! He did, did he? Well, he never had sense. Now, into the house with ye, every born child of ye!" she rejoined, indifferently, and "shooed" her own brood, like a flock of chickens, back into the cottage, then slammed its door in the visitor's face. CHAPTER XI A Haven of Refuge