eavy boots.

"Not a penny, Aunt Jane!" cried her niece, wildly. "I never thought of it!"

"Ha! you're not so much like your mother, then, as I thought. _She_ would
never have overlooked such a detail."

"I know it! I know it!" moaned Lyddy.

"Now, you stop that, Aunt Jane!" exclaimed the bolder 'Phemie. "Don't you
hound Lyd. She's done fine--of course she has! But anybody might forget a
thing like insurance."

"Humph!" grunted the old lady. Then she began again:

"And what's the matter with John?"

"It's the shop, Aunt," replied Lyddy. "He cannot stand the work any
longer. I wish he might never go back to that place again."

"And how are you going to live? What's 'Phemie getting a week?"

"Nothing--after this week," returned the younger girl, shortly. "I sha'n't
have any work, and I've only been earning six dollars."

"Humph!" observed Aunt Jane for a second time.

There came a light tap on the door. They could hear it, for the confusion
and shouting in the house had abated. The fire scare was over; but the
floor above was gutted, and a good deal of damage by water had been done
on this floor.

It was a physician, bag in hand. 'Phemie let him in. Lyddy explained how
her father had come home and lain down and she had found him, when the
fire scare began, unconscious on the bed--just as he lay now.

A few questions explained to the physician the condition of Mr. Bray, and
his own observation revealed the condition of the tenement.

"He will be better off at the hospital. You are about wrecked here, I see.
That young man who called me said he would ring up the City Hospital."

The girls were greatly troubled; but Aunt Jane was practical.

"Of course, that's the best place for him," she said. "Why! this flat
isn't fit for a well person to stay in, let alone a sick man, until it
is cleared up. I shall take you girls out with me to my boarding house
for the night. Then--we'll see."

The physician brought Mr. Bray to his senses; but the poor man knew
nothing about the fire, and was too weak to object when they told him
he was to be removed to the hospital for a time.

The ambulance came and the young interne and the driver brought in the
stretcher, covered Mr. Bray with a gray blanket, and took him away. The
interne told the girls they could see their father in the morning and
he, too, said it was mainly exhaustion that had brought about the sudden
attack.

Aunt Jane had been stalking about the sloppy fla