It was some distance from the railroad station to the block on which Carolyn May Cameron had lived all her life until she had gone to stay with Uncle Joe Stagg. The child knew she could not take the car, for the conductor would not let Prince ride. She started with the dog on his leash, for he was not muzzled. The bag became heavy very soon, but she staggered along with it uncomplainingly. Her dishevelled appearance, with the bag and the dog, gave people who noticed her the impression that Carolyn May had been away, perhaps, for a “fresh-air” vacation, and was now coming home, brown and weary, to her expectant family. But Carolyn May knew that she was coming home to an empty apartment—to rooms that echoed with her mother’s voice and in which lingered only memories of her father’s cheery spirit. Yet it was the only home, she felt, that was left for her. She could not blame Uncle Joe and Miss Amanda for forgetting her. Aunty Rose had been quite disturbed, too, since the forest fire. She had given the little girl no hint that provision would be made for her future. Wearily, Carolyn May travelled through the Harlem streets, shifting the bag from hand to hand, Prince pacing sedately by her side. “We’re getting near home now, Princey,” she told him again and again. Thus she tried to keep her heart up. She came to the corner near which she had lived so long, and Prince suddenly sniffed at the screened door of a shop. “Of course, poor fellow! That’s the butcher’s,” Carolyn May said. She bought a penny afternoon paper on a newsstand and then went into the shop and got a nickel’s worth of bones and scraps for the dog. The clerk did not know her, for he was a new man. They ventured along their block. The children all seemed strange to Carolyn May. But people move so frequently in Harlem that this was not at all queer. She hoped to see Edna or some other little girl with whom she had gone to school. But not until she reached the very house itself did anybody hail her. “Oh, Carolyn May! Is that you?” A lame boy was looking through the iron fence of the areaway. He was the janitor’s son. “Oh, Johnny! I’m real glad to see you!” cried the little girl. Then she added more slowly: “We—we’ve come home again—me and Prince.” “You’ve growed a lot, Carolyn May,” said the boy. “My pop and mom’s away.” “I’ll go up into Edna’s flat, then,” the weary little girl sighed. “The Prices have gone away, too. They won’t be back till to-morrow some time.” “Oh!” murmured Carolyn May. “But, say, I can get the keys to your flat. The water’s turned on, too. Everything’s all right up there, for Mrs. Price she sweeps and dusts it all every once in a while. Shall I get the keys?” “Oh, if you will, please!” returned the relieved child. The boy hobbled away, but soon returned with the outer-door key and the key to the apartment itself. Carolyn May took them and thanked him. Then she gladly went in and climbed the two flights to their floor.