.

"I'll find a home for Dolly an' me," said Biddy; "I'll begin an' never
stop till I gits it."

"Ye'll find a home?" asked Charley. He was a good deal puzzled.

"Yis," said Biddy; "I telled ye my mind's made up. I'll look at every
man as I meets, an' I'll ax the first one as I likes the looks of to
take me an' try me. Some of 'em'll be wantin' a girl, _sure_."

Charley continued to look so astonished that Biddy explained: "'Most
every one wants a girl to do chores, an' sweep, an' dust, an' make
fires, an'--an' sich. I've seen lots o' girls no better nor me sweepin'
in the big houses, with cloths on their heads."

"Ye know all them things?" said Charley.

"An' if I don't, can't I be teached?" said Biddy, almost angrily. This
question seemed to make everything quite sure.

"Now I'm goin' to begin," said Biddy.

[Illustration: "BLESS ME! IF IT ISN'T PHIL KENNEDY."]

She darted away, and ran back to the place where she and Charley had
met. Charley slowly followed. He held his unsold papers under his arm,
and stopped by the jewelry window. Biddy had taken her stand on the
corner just opposite. A gentleman with a closed umbrella in his hand,
which he used as a cane, was coming down the Bowery toward them. He did
not seem to notice either of the children; his head was down as if he
was thinking. At the same instant another man, with his Ulster coat
flying back, came swiftly from a cross street, and taking the first
gentleman by the arm, said, so loud that both the children heard it:
"Bless me! if it isn't Phil Kennedy! How odd this is! The first day for
an age when I'm not thinking of and hunting for you, Phil, I find you."

"But I'm very busy; you really must not keep me," said the one called
Phil Kennedy. He smiled as he spoke. Biddy saw the smile. She did not
wait an instant; she stepped up close in front of him. "Does yer missus
be wantin' a girl?"

Both men looked down at her. The man in the Ulster laughed. "Get along,
you little drab!" said he, in the same loud voice as before.

Biddy did not move, or take her eyes from Phil Kennedy's face. The
fingers of her hands were twisting together as on the day when she had
first begged Mrs. Brown for her doll. Biddy did not know she was doing
anything with her hands.

"Be off, I say!" said the man in the Ulster. He spoke very sharply this
time. It was like a blow from a cane.

"Can you read?" said Phil Kennedy to Biddy. He was feeling in his vest
pocket as he as