him clandestinely. Maud and her mother
put up a job to get rid of Little Rosebud, so Maud could get all the
money. So they told lies to her pa, who loved her something awful; and
one night, when she came in after walking in the grand garden with her
husband, who nobody knew she was married to, she found herself locked
out. Then she went to the hotel where he was staying, and told him what
had happened; but he turned her down flat when he heard it, for he
didn't want nothing to do with her when she wasn't to get her pa's
money; and then--"

She stopped her cornering to inspect my work, which had not flagged an
instant. Mrs. Smith took another bite of gingerbread, and continued with
increasing animation:

"And then Little Rosebud turned away into the night with a low cry, just
as if a dagger had been punched into her heart and turned around slow.
She was only sixteen years old, and she had been brought up in luxury
and idolized by her father; and all of a sudden she found herself
homeless, with nowheres to sleep find no money to get a room at the
hotel, and scorned by the man that had sworn to protect her. Her pa had
cursed her, too, something awful, so that he burst a blood-vessel a
little while afterwards and died before morning. Only Little Rosebud
never found this out, for she took the midnight express and came up here
to New York, where her aunt lived, only she didn't know the
street-number."

"Where did she get the money to come to New York with?" interrupted the
practical Phoebe. "That's something I don't understand. If she didn't
have no money to hire a room at a hotel down in South Carolina for
overnight, I'd like to know where she got money for a railroad ticket."

"Well, that's just all you know about them swells," retorted Mrs. Smith.
"I suppose a rich man's daughter like that can travel around all over
the country on a pass. And saying she didn't have a pass, it's only a
story and not true anyway.

"She met a fellow on the train that night who was a villain for fair!"
she went on. "His name was Mr. Paul Howard, and he was a corker. Little
Rosebud, who was just as innocent as they make 'em, fell right into his
clutches. He was a terrible man; he wouldn't stop at nothing, but he
was a very elegant-looking gentleman that you'd take anywheres for a
banker or 'Piscopalian preacher. He tipped his hat to Little Rosebud,
and then she up and asked if he knew where her aunt, Mrs. Waldron,
lived. This was nuts for