m thinking ye know a little
more about poor folk than you did a bit ago, when ye came prancing into
a _dacent_ house to show off yer grand airs and yer finery. It's an
adventure as will be good for your proud young stomach, miss."

As Bessie, too much frightened and shocked to speak, was hastening out
after Larry, Molly sprang forward, caught her hand, kissed it, and
sobbed out, "O, forgive me! forgive me! I did n't think they would
treat you so, or I wouldn't have let you come!"

The next instant the poor girl was dashed backwards by a sudden blow
from her mother's heavy hand, and Bessie saw her no more.

Master Larry Magee, a sharp-eyed and fleet-footed little vagabond,
hurried Bessie off in a different direction from that in which she had
come, and by many different and devious ways, for his object evidently
was to confuse her, so that it would be impossible for her to act as a
guide to the den of thieves in which she had been robbed. There was
little danger. Poor child, she had not even thought to take note of
the name of the miserable little alley to which she had been conducted
by the melancholy Molly.

At first, in her joy at having escaped alive from that dreadful Irish
ogress, Bessie was hardly sensible of the cold; but at length it
pierced through her thin and ragged garments, and struck chills to her
very heart. It seemed to clutch at her bare throat, and to snip her
ears, under the old cotton handkerchief which covered her head. Her
hands, muffless and gloveless, grew stiff, and the rosy tips of her
fingers changed to a dismal purple; while her poor little toes, peering
through great holes in shoes and stockings, looked as piteous as little
baby birds, left unbrooded to the storm, in dilapidated nests.

After a long, bewildering, winding walk, or rather run, the two
children reached a wide, respectable-looking street, when they came
suddenly upon a policeman, at sight of which officer Master Larry
halted, wheeled, and executed a brilliant retreat down a dark alley.
But Bessie, who in her innocence believed in a policeman, as a sort of
street guardian-angel, went confidently up to this one, the star on his
breast shining as the star of hope to her, related to him her wonderful
Christmas adventure, and begged him to conduct her home. To her
surprise and grief, he refused to believe a word of the story, but,
taking her for the little vagrant she seemed, gruffly ordered her to
"move on," adding, "You