"Here we are," announced Tim, steering Sunny Boy up the rickety steps
of a sagging brick house. "Go careful, 'cause you're not used to the
stairs. And don't take hold of the railing--it's weak."

Sunny Boy felt his way up three pairs of dark stairs behind Tim, and
when they reached the third floor a door opened to let a flood of
light out on them.

"That you, Tim?" some one called. "You're late. I set the stew back to
keep it hot. Glory be, and who is it you're bringing home with you?"

Sunny Boy blinked. The room was hot and the glaring light blinded him.
He was dizzily aware that a great many people stood around staring at
him.

Tim pulled his hand free.

"The rest of you get back," he commanded his family sternly. "Where's
Ma? This kid's lost, and if you don't want him crying again, keep away
till Ma's had a chance to tell him what's what."

Then from out another room stepped a large woman with a great kind red
face. She was drying her hands on her apron, and she had evidently
been washing, for her purple wrapper was splashed with soap-suds. But
her voice went right to Sunny's heart.

"Lost, is it?" she said tenderly. "Saints above, what a baby to be out
alone in this city! An' his poor mother, the saints pity her she'll be
that wild. There, there, dearie, you're all right. A bit of supper's
what you're needin'. And then 'tis Timmie himself who shall be taking
ye home."

She gathered Sunny Boy into her capacious lap and crooned over him in
the deep rich voice that her own six children knew and loved without
realizing its charm.

"'Tis a cruel city to the babies," she sighed, smoothing Sunny Boy's
hair with a touch as gentle as that of his own mother's. "But your
poor mother--the saints help her. Timmie, ye must not be waiting a
minute. Come, Theresa, give him a sup of stew. We must be taking him
home before the heart of the mother is broke entirely."

Tim, who had been noisily washing at the sink, was frowning into the
cracked mirror above it as he tried to part his hair exactly in the
center.

"I want to telephone first," he explained. "He's after giving me such
a crazy name--Sunny Boy, I've doped it out that he belongs at the
McAlpin Hotel, but there's no reason why I should make a fool of
myself by taking him 'way down there and then being told that no child
is lost from there."

A pretty, dark-haired girl, Sunny Boy called her a young lady in his
mind, was stirring something at the stove. She wo