"I swear that I will protect them," said Harding, warmly. John quietly pressed his hand, and turned his face away. After a moment they parted, Harding down Broadway on his way to the theater, and John up Broadway, on his way home. And Harding gazed after John for a moment,--"I'm glad he didn't want to borrow money! Nell is quite a beauty!" Walking slowly, and pausing every now and then to breathe, John gazed in the bright shop-windows, and into the contrasted faces of the hurrying crowd as he passed along. "Soon this will be all over for me," he muttered, with a husky laugh. "I'm afraid, friend John, that you are taking your last walk." An arm was gently thrust through his own, and a voice light and trilling as the notes of a bird, said quietly,-- "I'm so glad I've caught up with you John,"--and he leaned upon that gentle arm, and turned to look upon the face of the speaker. It was his sister Eleanor, a very pretty child of some fourteen years, dressed in a faded cloak, and with a hood on her dark hair. Her complexion was a rich brown, tinged with red in the cheeks; her eyes, brows and hair, all black as midnight. And by turns, over that face, in which the woman began to mingle with the child, there flitted a look of the brightest joyousness, and an expression of the most touching melancholy. "I've just been taking my work home, John. They paid me half a dollar for what I have done this week, (and that, you know, John, will keep us in bread and coal to-morrow,) and O, I am so glad you've got eight dollars saved for the rent. I am _so_ glad! The rent is due to-morrow, and the landlord is such a hard man." "Yes, I have eight dollars," John said, and there was an indefinable accent marking every word. "Yes, Nelly, dear, I have eight dollars." "John, do tell me, who are those good ladies who pass us every moment, dressed so richly,--all in velvet, and satin, and jewels; who are they, John?" John stopped,--bent upon his cane,--looked for a moment upon the crowd which whirled past him,--and then into the happy, innocent face of his sister. And then his shrunken chest heaved with a sigh. "O God!" he said, in a low voice. "Who are they, John,--do tell me,--they must be very, O, ever so rich." "Those handsome ladies, dressed so gaudily, Nelly, are sisters and daughters. Once they had brothers and fathers who protected them, and now their fathers and brothers are dead. The world takes care of them now, Nelly." The poor girl heard his words, but did not guess their hidden meaning. Still supporting her brother on her arm, she continued,-- "Do you know, John, that your handsome friend, Mr. Harding, met me in the store the other day, and said he took such an interest in me, and that if I chose I might be dressed as rich and gayly as these grand ladies, who pass us every moment." John started as though he had trodden upon a snake. "And only a moment ago he promised to protect her when I am gone," he muttered,--"_Protection_!"