endence of the male" they
chattered so much about.

* * * * *

When Milly turned on the electric light in the little apartment, it was
forebodingly still. She glanced at once into the room where Virginia
slept and found it empty, with the bedclothes tumbled in a heap. She
rushed to the maid's room. That too was empty and the rear door was
locked on the outside. For a moment Milly's heart ceased beating, then
with a shriek,--"Virgie, Virgie--where are you!" she ran into the front
hall and plunged, still shrieking, down the stairs.

A door opened on the floor below, and the figure of a large woman in a
rose-pink negligee confronted Milly.

"Lookin' for yer little girl?" the stranger asked in a loud, friendly
voice. "Well, she's all right--just come in here!"

She held open the door and pointed to the front room, where under a
crocheted shawl little Virginia was curled up asleep on the divan. Milly
fell beside her with an hysterical sob. The child, partly awakened, put
out her thin arms and murmured sleepily, "The strange lady's very nice,
but she's queer. Take me home, mama, please."

The "strange lady," who was looking on interestedly, explained,--

"I heard the kid runnin' round up above and cryin'--oh, that was hours
ago when I first com' home--and as she kep it up cryin' as if she were
scared and callin', I went up there and brought her down to stay with me
till you got back.... Guess she woke up and was lonesome all by
herself."

"That brute Hilda," Milly gasped, "must have gone off and left her."

"They're all like that,--them Swedes," the woman of the rose-pink
negligee agreed. "Got no more heart than a brick."

She spoke as from a vast experience with the race.

"The little girl has been as nice as pie," the woman replied to Milly's
stammered thanks. "We've been real friendly. Good-by, girlie, I'll be up
to-morrer some time and tell you the last of that story.... Good-night!"

Milly gathered her precious bundle in her arms and with renewed thanks
staggered back to her own quarters.

"She's queer, mama, and something happened to her arm and leg, long ago,
but she's very kind," the small Virginia explained sleepily as her
mother dropped her on her own bed.

By "queer" Virginia merely meant that her good Samaritan was not of the
class she had been accustomed to, and did not use language precisely as
her mother and her mother's friends used it. To Virginia the janitor of