me, her only thought was for herself
and her unfortunate predicament. She had never been so frightened in her
life. Nothing had ever looked so big, so dismal, and so altogether
hopeless as this wretched side street where her fugitive had
disappeared. There was not a policeman in sight. She didn't know which
way to go, but promptly realized that she should not stay just there in
that degraded neighborhood. Even the wider street from which she had
diverged, with its endless lines of wagons and people, was better.
But--she must go somewhere!

She set out forward, resolutely, and as it proved eastward toward that
famous Broadway which threads the city from its north to south, but that
was yet many blocks removed. Indeed, it seemed an endless way that
stretched beyond her; and it was not until she had run for some distance
that her common sense awoke with the thought:

"Why, how silly I am! I must go back to the boat. That's where I'll be
missed and looked for. Of course, Miss Greatorex wouldn't go on and
leave me, and oh! dear! I reckon I've made her wait till she'll be
angry. I'll ask the first nice looking gentleman I see, if no policeman
comes, the way to the 'Mary Powell.' Here comes one now--"

A busy man came speeding toward her, whose coat skirt she tried to
clutch; but he didn't even hear the question she put. He merely waved
her aside, as he would any other street beggar with the passing remark:
"Nothing. Get away!"

The second person to whom she applied was German and shook his head with
a forcible negative. So he, too, moved on and she stopped to think and
recover some portion of that courage which had almost deserted her.

"Of course. I couldn't be really lost, not really truly so, right in the
broad daylight and a city full of people. But I am ashamed to have
stayed so long. Oh! good! There comes a man in uniform--a policeman, a
policeman!"

Quite at rest now she darted forward and caught at the hand of the
uniformed person who stared at her in surprise but not unkindly.

"Well, little maid, what's wanted?"

"O, sir! Are you a policeman? Will you take me to where I belong?"

"Sorry to say 'no' to both your questions, but I'm only a railway
conductor, in a hurry to catch my outgoing train. Wait a minute, child,
and a real police officer will come and will look out for you."

The blue-coated, much brass-buttoned man snatched his hand from her
clinging grasp and strode westward in desperate haste. He ha