Aunt Barbara's honest face, which she turned full toward the officer, was a sufficient voucher for her with the simple, straightforward explanation which she made to the effect that her niece had left home some time ago--run away, in fact--and she was hunting for her here in New York, where her letter was dated. "But it's wearisome work for an old woman like me, walking all over New York, as I have," Aunt Barbara said, and her lip began to quiver as she sat down upon one of the seats in the square, and looked helplessly up at the policeman. She was not afraid of him, nor of the five others of the craft who knew her by sight, and stopped to hear what she had to say. She never dreamed that they could suspect her of wrong, and they did not when they heard her story, and saw the truthful, motherly face. Perhaps they could help her, they said, and they asked the name of the runaway. At first Aunt Barbara refused to give it, wishing to spare Ethie this notoriety; but she finally yielded so far as to say, "She might call herself either Markham or Grant," and that was all they could get from her; but after that day the bombazine dress, and black Stella shawl, and large sun umbrella were safe from the surveillance of the police, save as each had a kindly care for the owner, and an interest in the object of her search. The light-fingered gentry, however, were not as chary of her. The sweet, motherly face, and wistful, pleading, timid eyes, did not deter them in the least. On the contrary, they saw in the bombazine and Stella shawl a fine field for their operations; and twice, on returning to her boarding house, the good soul was horrified to find her purse was missing, notwithstanding that she had kept her hand upon her pocket every instant, except once, when the man who looked like a minister had kindly opened the car window for her, and she had gathered up her dress to make more room for him at her side, and once when she got entangled in a crowd, and had to hold on to her shawl to keep it on her shoulders. Ten dollars was the entire sum purloined, so the villains did not make much out of her, Aunt Barbara reflected with a good deal of complacency; but when they stole her gold-bowed glasses from her pocket, and adroitly snatched from her hand the parcel containing the dress she had bought for Betty at Stewart's, she began to look upon herself as specially marked by a gang of thieves for one on whom to commit their depredations; and when at last a fire broke out in the very block where she was boarding, and she, with others was driven from her bed at midnight, with her bombazine only half on, and her hoops left behind, she made up her mind that the fates were against her, and wrote to Betty that she was coming home, following her letter in the next train so that both reached Chicopee the same day, the very last day of summer.