which sat but curiously on her slender form, and swaggered up to the door of the house in which she lived. As she came to it, a careless, but active little boy of her own size came running out of it. With the spring of a panther Pollyooly was upon him, her fingers clenched in his abundant hair.
"I'll teach you to call me 'Ginger,' Henry Wiggins," she said, and she smacked him with striking vigor.
Henry yelled and scratched and kicked, but not till she had lavished on him his due meed of smacks did Pollyooly loosen her grip. Henry bolted, howling, down the street, and Pollyooly went up the stairs smiling the serene smile of one who had done her duty and done it well.
For the next twenty days Pollyooly retained her two posts of laundress undisturbed. Five or six times the Honorable John Ruffin and Mr. Gedge-Tomkins inquired how her aunt was; and she replied that she was no better. Mrs. Meeken was more frequent in her inquiries, and she received the same answer.
But Pollyooly was not happy; always the fear of the inevitable discovery hung upon her spirit, some-
