The child stared for a few seconds at the stranger, and then she answered, bashfully: “Yes, sir. But he has got to go away.” “But he hasn’t gone yet?” continued Fred; and then noticing that the child, in her short calico skirt, was shivering from the cold, and that her feet were getting wet with the snow, he added, “Come inside a minute and tell me where I can find Mr. Cressy.” The two stepped into the dark narrow hallway that ran through the house to the stairway in the rear, where a narrow window with a broken pane let in just enough light to prove there was day outside. The little girl leaned against the wall, and looked up at the reporter as if she suspected him of having no good intentions toward the man for whom he was inquiring. Very few strangers ever came into that house to do good, she knew. Most of them came for money—rent money—and sometimes they came, as a man had come for Mr. Cressy, to tell him he must go. “What floor does he live on?” asked Fred. “On the fifth floor, sir,” answered the child. “In the back, sir. But I think he is really going away, sir.” “Well, no matter about that,” said Fred, smiling. “I will go up and see him. I hope he won’t have to go out in the storm. It is not good for little girls to go out in the storm, either,” he added. “Does your mamma know you are going out?” “Oh, yes, sir! She has sent me to the Sisters to try to get some medicine.” “Is she sick?” asked Fred, quickly. “Yes, sir,” continued the child. “What floor does she live on? I will stop in and see her.” “Oh, you’ll see her! She’s in the room, too.” “Then you are Mr. Cressy’s little girl?” “Yes, sir.” So Fred patted her on the head and told her to hurry over to the Sisters in Eleventh Street, and gave her ten cents to ride in the horse-cars; and then he opened the door for her, and as soon as she had left he felt his way back to the staircase and climbed to the fifth floor. There he knocked upon a door, which was soon opened by a man apparently forty years of age, a man of slightly foreign appearance, with a careworn look, but with as honest a face as you could find anywhere. “Is this Mr. Cressy?” asked Fred. “Yes, my name’s Cressy,” replied the man. He spoke with so slight an accent that it was hardly noticeable. “I am a reporter from the _Gazette_,” continued Fred. “Oh!” said the man. “Come in,” and as he spoke he looked somewhat embarrassed and anxious, for this was doubtless the first time he had had any dealings with a newspaper. Lying on a bed in an alcove was a woman who looked very ill, and piled in a corner near the door were a couple of boxes and a few pieces of furniture. The stove had not yet been taken down, and some pale embers in it only just kept the chill off the atmosphere. Fred took off his hat, and led the man across the room toward the window. “Have you been dispossessed?” he asked. “Yes,” said the man; “we must leave to-night.” “Why?” asked the reporter. Cressy smiled in a ghastly sort of way.