Thus, after having unconsciously passed through peril and danger, the heroine of this story may be said to have found a place in the world. Lowly indeed was her home--as low as a grave; but as from the grave, where the lifeless clay rots and moulders, the spirit rises to purer space, so doubtless will the Duchess of Rosemary Lane find means to rise in her mortal state, to a higher rung in the ladder of life than the humble cellar of Seth Dumbrick. At present she is helpless, dependent on strangers for food and shelter--thrown into the arms of charity, and saved from early suffering by the cunning and devotion of a child but two or three years older than herself. From the evening of Seth's party his fame increased, and that of the Duchess of Rosemary Lane was firmly established. The gossips were firmly convinced that a thrilling mystery was connected with the child's birth, and the title of Duchess was willingly admitted. It conferred distinction upon the neighbourhood, and, apart from that consideration, it was pretty and fantastic, and took the fancy of the humble folk. Her position as the aristocratic head of Rosemary Lane being, therefore, indisputably recognised, the Duchess at once assumed her proper position in society. She held her court in the narrow byways and thoroughfares of the district, and no monarch ever had a more devoted and admiring following. All the children in and about Rosemary Lane walked in her train, and wherever she sat and made her throne, in mud-gutter or on windowsill, she was surrounded by flatterers, aping their betters in a short-sighted, wrong-headed fashion; for from this little queen of the humble streets, nothing was to be gained but smiles and thanks. Which renders apparent the fact that, although, as has been demonstrated, these children were to some extent worldly, they were not yet sufficiently wise to know that the heart is a good-enough mint in its way, but that its coinage is scarcely available for material uses.