Like a frightened hare I scurried along the pavement until I came to a big crossing. I paused here in new peril. To go over alone meant to risk contact with the wheels and horses continually rolling and stamping by. I had not the courage to do this, and I stood gazing disconsolately across at the happy people walking so unconcernedly on the other side. While I stood there a policeman marched up in a leisurely fashion. He looked as if he might help a little girl, and I knew when robbers attacked you the proper person to assist you was a policeman. "Please, Mr. Policeman, will you take me across the street?" I asked, going boldly up to him. The amiable giant put out his hand, grasped my eager fingers, and I pattered along at his side as he gravely led me over the crossing. Without a word, I raced ahead; the quicker I ran, the quicker I believed I would reach Mamma Cochrane's house, and my dear friends, nurse, and Louie, and Mary Jane. In what direction I ran I know not to-day; I seemed to have been running down interminable streets for hours and hours, till at last my feet in their thin slippers began to ache. Gradually my legs stiffened, and it was less and less easy to continue running. Nobody stopped me, but I have an idea many stared at me. I hardly knew which I most feared, to be overtaken and carried back to my mother, or to be let die of hunger in those big unfriendly streets. Either prospect seemed so terrible to me in a moment of lucid vision, that I at once dropped upon a doorstep and began to cry. "What's the matter, little lady?" a tall policeman asked, with a smile of insidious kindliness. "I want to find my everyday mamma so badly," I sobbed. "But it's so far away,--I'm very tired, and nobody is sorry for me, though I'm so unhappy." I gazed anxiously up into the face of the big policeman, and wondered if such a very big person could possibly understand and pity the sorrows of such a very small person as myself. "What's your name?" asked the big policeman. "Angela." "And where do you live, missy?" "Oh, a drefful long way off--in a big house down there," pointing vaguely in front of me, "in a horrid big house, without any fields or flowers at all." "Won't you come along with me, missy?" coaxed the policeman, and if he had asked me to go to prison with that look and smile, I would cheerfully have gone, I think. He lifted me into his arms and carried me, I know now, to the nearest police-station. Here I was installed upon an inspector's knee, and an army of giants stood round me and made much of me. How the gentlemen of the force may appeal to others, I know not, but I must ever regard them as my kindest friends. They petted me prodigiously, and vied with each other in providing me with luxuries. One held a piece of bread-and-jam for me, another a slice of bread-and-honey, and various hands held out sweetmeats and cakes and apples. The thing was to satisfy everybody and devour each delicacy successively.