comforted.

'You ain't a bad little girl.' He felt called upon to reward her. 'You
can walk as far as the fence with me if you like.'

Kitty was properly grateful, and they walked together to the
furze-covered fence.

'Please don't tell anyone you're going to see her, Miss Christina says,'
whispered Kitty, at parting.

'Right y'are,' Dick said, delighted with the mystery. 'I say, Kitty, I
think p'raps I'll give you a fortune too.'

'Oh, Dickie, no; not a whole fortune, I'm too little,' cried Kitty,
overwhelmed.

'Yes, a whole fortune,' he persisted grandly; 'an' maybe I'll marry you.'

'Will you, Dickie, will you? Oh, that is kind!'

'Here.' He had turned over the treasures in his pocket and found a scrap
of gilt filagree off a gorgeous valentine. 'Here's somethin'.'

Kitty thought the gift very beautiful, and accepted it thankfully for its
own sake and the sake of the giver, as an earnest of the fortune to come;
and went her way happy but duly impressed with a sense of the
responsibilities those riches must impose.

Harry Hardy had loitered behind his mates on the flat, and when the boy
caught up to him again he turned to him with nervous anxiety.

'What did that girl want with you, Dick?' he asked. I heard her mention
Miss Shine's name.'

He noted the set, stubborn look with which he was now familiar fall upon
the boy's face like a mask, and he questioned no more on that point.

'Dick;' he said earnestly, 'you'll help her if you can. She's all alone,
you know; not a soul to stand by her, not a soul. You might get a chance
sometimes to make things easier for her. Would you?'

'My word! 'said Dick simply.

Harry wrung his hand, and Dick, looking into his face, was puzzled by its
expression; he looked, Dick thought, as he did on that Sunday morning
when he wished to flog the superintendent before the whole congregation.

'You're a brick--a perfect brick!' said Harry.

'I'd do anythin' fer her,' Dick replied.

'Thanks, old man. I'll never forget it.'

It did not surprise the boy that Harry should thank him for services to
be rendered to Miss Chris; he thought he understood the situation
perfectly, and it was all very sad and perfectly consistent with his
romantic ideas of such matters.

'Look here, Dick,' said Harry, before parting, 'I owe you an awful lot,
my life, p'raps; but for every little thing you do for her I'll owe you a
thousand times more--a thousand thousand times more.'

Dick's wise