The woman knew now that she must soothe and deceive the child with some plausible pretext for leaving her alone for a minute—a minute in which she should make her retreat. Else, if she did not do this, the child would be frightened, would cry, and—though she saw no policeman—there might be one not too far off. So she answered: “Yes, dearie. Pretty little Lucky Fine Feathers, we is almost there. In fact, almost at the door. But will you jest bide quiet here a minnit while I go over there and ask that boy which is the best way to get ’round to the house?” “Is it a black boy?” Owlet inquired, unconsciously asking a leading question. “Yes, dearie, werry black,” answered the ragpicker, intelligently following the lead. “Then that is Puck—poor, dear, old Puck! But he’s not a boy really, though they call him so, because he’s so little, I s’pose, or because they forgot to call him anything else. But he is a man grown, a married man, too, and Ducky Darling’s uncle,” said Owlet, brightly. “Oh! is he? Then I’ll go and speak to him directly,” said the ragpicker. “Oh, do! And tell him you have found me. And tell him I want to see them all awful bad, and I’m coming home directly. And, oh! won’t he be glad? And won’t Lady and Ducky Darling and all of them be glad? Just as glad as I shall be. For, oh! I know they have all been grieving about me as much as I have been about them. Now we shall be so glad! And you shall be glad, too. And the poor people in that horrid place—I must have gone dead again. How did you get me out of it?” suddenly inquired Owlet, trying to piece together the broken threads of her memory. “Brung you out of it, dearie, while you was in a dead faint,” said the woman, impatient to be off. “That—must—have—been so,” said the child, very solemnly—then she added: “Oh, the poor people what have to live there all the time! I don’t believe Lady knows about it, or she wouldn’t let them. But I’ll tell her. And she will take them out of it, and you, too, and everybody shall be glad. Lady is like an angel in heaven in her lovely home and garden. She don’t know anything about such——” “Hells!” added the crone. “And now I’ll go and fetch the black boy to tote you home.” “Oh, yes; go,” said Owlet, eagerly. The crone turned away, muttering to herself: “She’ll do. ’Tain’t a cold night for the last of April. And she’s well wrapped up in my ole shawl, too. Lor’, yes. And the perlice’ll find her presently, and then she’ll be took to the station and took care on. And, Lor’, it’s little account she can give of herself to they. It’s little account she could give to me, as was like a gran’mother to her, toting her in my arms as if she’d been one of Soph’s own kids. And, after all, the Ventures of Cruelty will care on her till her own people turn up. Lor’, yes. She’ll be all right. No fear for her; them rich allers falls onto their feet, somehows,” concluded the ragpicker.