"Well," he said, laughingly, "I found the little Bruders famishing on the sidewalk, and they got the best part of your supper." "What an escape I have had!" she exclaimed. "Do you think I should have survived the night if I had eaten those strangely assorted dainties, as in honor bound I would have done, since you brought them?" Then with a face of comical severity she turned upon him and said: "Mr. Fleet, you need some one to take care of you. What kind of economy do you call this, sir, especially on the part of one who has burdened himself with four helpless children?" There was a mingling of sense and seriousness in her raillery, which he recognized, and he said, with a half-vexed laugh at himself: "Well, really, Miss Ludolph, I suppose that I have not wholly regained my wits since the fire. I throw myself on your mercy." (The same expression he had used once before. She remembered it, and her face changed instantly.) Turning hastily away to hide her feelings, she said, in a rather husky voice, "When I was a wicked fool, I told you I had none; but I think I am a little changed now." Then she added, sharply, "Please don't stand there keeping our friends waiting"; and she led the way into the lecture-room, now filled with tables and hungry people. Dennis was in a maze, and could scarcely understand her, she was so different from the pensive lady, shrinking from rude contact with the world, that he had expected to meet. He did not realize that there was not a particle of weak sentimentality about her, and that, since now pride was gone, her energetic spirit would make her as truly a leader in scenes like these as in those with which she had been familiar. Much less could he understand that she was hiding a heart brimming over with love to him. He followed her, however, with much assumed humility. When in the middle of the room, who should meet him squarely but Bill Cronk? "Hello!" he roared, giving Dennis a slap on his back that startled even the hungry, apathetic people at the tables. Dennis was now almost desperate. Glad as he was to see Cronk, he felt that he was gathering around him a company as incongruous as was the supper he had brought home. If Yahcob Bunk or even the red-nosed bartender had appeared, to claim him as brother, he would scarcely have been surprised. He naturally thought that the Baroness Ludolph might hesitate before entering such a circle of intimates. But he was not guilty of the meanness of cutting a humble friend, even though he saw the eyes of Christine resting on him. In his embarrassment, however, he held out the washbasin in his confused effort to shake hands, and said, heartily, "Why, Cronk, I am glad you came safely out of it." "Is this gentleman a friend of yours?" asked Christine, with inimitable grace. "Yes!" said Dennis, firmly, though coloring somewhat. "He once rendered me a great kindness--"