"Dear, have you a mother?" I inquired. "Yes, only two blocks from here; but she doesn't know I'm anywhere near her. She never comes near such a neighborhood as this. Don't tell her. please don't. It would break her heart." "Very well, my child; I won't." But she hadn't told Anna not to tell; so I excused myself, called Anna out of the room, and whispered: "Get me a certain medicine; and if you know where her mother lives, go there, gently break this news, and tell her that if she still loves her child to come immediately with blankets, pillows, and a hack; to be very, very gentle and quiet with her; to talk as little as possible. And we will help to take her home; then she must send quickly for a doctor." Before five o'clock poor, forgiven, suffering Flora was in bed in her mother's home, where we shall leave her for the present, in order that we may hear Anna's story. She said: "I'm not seventeen years old till next month, and I'm the oldest of five children--three girls and two boys. My father is a mechanic, but sometimes he's out of work, and then didn't he used to scold! Just as though we were to blame! Poor Mother! I've often pitied her for marrying my father, who was naturally cross and ill-tempered even when things didn't go wrong. Half the time mother daren't say her soul was her own, and, besides, she was naturally one of those meek, timid kind that would put up with anything for the sake of peace. "Winter before last when he was out of a job for quite a while and mother was having a hard time of it trying to keep us warm and fed, I heard of a place in the next town, just a car-ride away, where I could work for my board and get my fifty cents a day and car-fare if I wanted to go home at night. It was to work in a nice, genteel restaurant; so I coaxed mother to let me take it, which she did. I didn't ask father. "No, he wasn't what you'd call a drinking man, though he liked a glass of beer once in a while. "I soon caught on now to do my work well; sometimes used to get tips, but not often, 'cause I had the family and ladies' department to wait on. There was one swell-looking lady used to eat there, and used to come to my table whenever she could. We weren't allowed to chat with the customers, though sometimes we did, if the boss wasn't looking. One day she told me she was very much taken with me, asked if I had a mother and father, and several other questions. So I told her just how it was with us and how I happened to take a situation until father got back to work. Then she asked where I lived. I told her, but that now I was only going home once a week in the afternoon for a little while, it being too dark and cold to get up so early to take my car, and that, besides, I had to work late sometimes, so the boss gave me one dollar and fifty cents extra a week to pay my room rent. She asked if I liked my room. "'Well, nothing extra. One can't expect much of a place for one dollar and fifty cents a week, can they?'