And with this “flattering unction” laid to her paralyzed but not quite deadened conscience, she turned the next corner and wound in and out through the labyrinth of streets and alleys that lay between the spot on which she had left the desolate child and the den which she called her home. She reached the room at length, opened the door, lighted her stump of tallow candle, and searched for her stolen booty in the pile of rags. She found them safe. She drew them out and gloated over them. Finally she selected the coral necklace for immediate investment and replaced all the other treasures under the malodorous pile of rags. Then she went forth again, and on this occasion to the nearest pawnbroker’s shop. Here she pledged the necklace for two dollars, with which she bought, at the next groggery, a half gallon of uncommonly poisonous whisky, even as whisky goes, and then she went back to her den with joyful anticipations to lock herself in and have what she called “a glorious drunk” all to herself. Meanwhile Owlet, hidden under the front steps of that tall house, waited fearlessly and patiently, without the slightest idea that she had been left to her fate. But now the change in her clothing, which in her intense interest in the prospect of getting home to “Lady’s house” she had scarcely noticed before, began to trouble her. It irritated her skin and offended her nose. Still the foul envelope did not suggest foul play to the unsuspicious child. “It must have rained while I was gone dead,” she said to herself, “and that poor, ragged woman took off my wet clothes and hung them up to dry, and wrapped me in her poor old shawl. It was all she had, too, poor thing. And it was very good of her. Still, I do wish she hadn’t. I would rather be soaked to the skin than be so very, very nasty.” Just then a policeman passed on his beat. Owlet saw him on the lighted sidewalk, but she did not know him for a policeman, and he did not see her, all in the deep shadow of the stoop. Still she waited patiently, almost stupidly. It was strange that she felt no fear, for she did not; strange, also, that she was growing indifferent, almost unconscious of her noisome change of clothes, for she was. She was becoming dazed and stupefied by her present state and by all that she had gone through since her flight, and even before she was driven to that flight which was so desperate a venture for a child only six years old. Sometimes she dozed and started, waked up suddenly, and tried to gather her scattered thoughts, and wondered why it took so long a time for her new friend to fetch Puck. “Oh, I reckon they have gone on to the house to tell Lady I am found, and to fetch the carriage to take me home, for, after all, the house must be a good way off from here for me to walk, or for Puck to carry me. And Lady will come herself, I know.”