a restless glance at
the door of the shop.

"I don't think she is," Nan said.

"I should say not!" Bess added. "She seems to fairly hate you, child. And
didn't she beat you?"

"Yep. She's the biggest, ye see. She took away all me money and then
burned me basket. That was puttin' me on the fritz for fair, and I went
wild and went for her. This is what I got!"

She dropped the shawl off her head suddenly. There, above the temple and
where the tangled black hair had been cut away, was a long, angry wound.
It was partially healed.

"Oh, my dear!" cried Nan.

Grace fell to crying. Bess grew very angry and threatened all manner of
punishments for the cruel aunt.

"How did she do it?" Walter asked.

"Flat iron," replied the waif, succinctly. "I had the poker. She 'got' me
first. I didn't dare go back, and I thought I'd die that first night."

"Oh, oh!" sobbed Grace. "Out in the cold, too!"

"Yes'm," Inez said, eating and drinking eagerly. "But a nice feller in a
drug store--a night clerk, I guess youse call him--took me in after one
o'clock, an' give me something to eat, and fixed up me head."

"What a kind man!" exclaimed Bess.

"So you see, Inez, there are some kind folks in the world," said Nan,
smiling at the waif. "Some kind ones beside _us_."

"Yep," the child admitted. "But not rich folks like youse."

"Goodness, child!" gasped Grace. "We're not rich."

Inez stared at her with a mouthful poised upon her knife. "Cracky!" she
ejaculated. "What do youse call it? Furs, and fine dresses, and nothin'
ter do but sport around--Hi! if youse girls from Washington Park ain't
rich, what d'ye call it?"

Nan was looking serious again. "I guess the child is right," she said,
with a little sigh. "We _are_ rich. Compared with what _she_ has, we're
as rich as old King Midas."

"For goodness' sake!" cried Bess. "I hope _not_--at least, not in ears."

The others laughed; but Nan added: "I guess we don't realize how well
off we are."

"Hear! hear!" murmured Walter. "Being sure of three meals a day would be
riches to this poor little thing."

"Hi!" ejaculated Inez, still eating greedily. "That'd be _Heaven_,
that would!"

"But do let her finish her story, girls," urged Bess. "Go on, dear. What
happened to you after the kind druggist took you in?"

"I staid all night there," said Inez. "He fixed me a bunk on an old
lounge in the back room. An' next morning a girl I useter see at Mother
Beasley's seen me and brough