One day Gabriella stood by the side of the stand, thinking how much happier her life had been when she went each day to the Mission School. She was wondering, at the same time, where she could have ever before seen the smartly dressed boy who stood in the doorway of the theatre office smiling at her. Somehow he was associated in her mind with Miss Barstow, yet where and when, if ever, she had seen him before was as indistinct in her mind as the memory of a dream. For several days she had seen him standing there, and from the first she had the impression that she had seen him somewhere else. She could not place him; he was much better and more stylishly dressed than any of the boys she had ever seen about her home or the school. He always had a friendly nod and smile for her, and she nodded and smiled in return; and although they had never spoken, she had never given up trying to think where, if anywhere, she had seen him besides there in front of the theatre. As he stood there this day, looking somehow as if he owned the Bowery, a rough young fellow loafed up to the stand and asked, in an impudent manner, "Say, sis, how much are dese bananas?" "A cent each," answered Gabriella. [Illustration: "WELL, JUST CHARGE DIS ONE," HE SAID, SEIZING A BANANA AND STARTING TO RUN.] "Well, just charge dis one," he said, seizing a banana and starting to run. As Gabriella began to cry out for the thief to stop, the smartly dressed lad in the doorway flew out like a Skye terrier after a rat. He had headed off the loafer with such surprising quickness that the latter was more amazed than frightened when the boy demanded of him to give up the stolen fruit. This demand only made the fellow laugh. The laugh soon came to an end, though, because Danny Cahill--for that was the name of the smaller boy--had not forgotten any of the quick and fierce methods he had learned to use in fighting larger boys when he had been a street arab. It was a very short struggle, and almost before the frightened Gabriella knew what was happening Danny was standing before her smiling, and her tormentor was skulking away, well thrashed for his meanness. Danny's victory had been complete; he had not only vanquished the enemy but recovered the stolen property; and as he put the banana carefully back on the stand he said, good-naturedly, "It's all right, little girl; what are you crying for?" Gabriella stopped crying, and answered, "Because if that boy had got away with the banana, and I did not have a penny for it, my father would have whipped me." Then to the great astonishment of Danny, Gabriella took a banana from the stand and offered it to him. Danny laughed outright at this, and exclaimed: "Den if you haven't a penny t' show for de banana, your father will whip you just de same wedder de banana is stolen or you give it away to me. Won't he?" Gabriella laughed too, now, and said, "Yes, but I'm willing to take a whipping for you, because you whipped that boy for me."