y naturally took a great interest in the
odd-looking pair which came suddenly into their midst. The dusty,
shabby little girl and the lanky yellow dog.

Huldah did not appreciate their interest. She felt ill with
nervousness, when she saw all the eyes turned towards her, and, she
longed to be out on the moor again,--anywhere, lost, hungry, lonely,
tired, rather than under this fire of eyes. She had wanted very much
to try to sell one of her baskets, that she might be able to buy some
bread, but the staring people daunted her. She felt she could not
have stopped and spoken to one of them, or have offered her wares, to
have saved her life. It was all she could do to drag her trembling
limbs past them, and out of their sight.

The end of the street was reached at last, though the cottages grew
more and more scattered, then stopped altogether, and the pair found
themselves alone once more. Poor Dick was by this time past doing
anything but plod wearily along, his tail down, his ears drooping,
his tongue hanging out. Huldah herself was in a half-dazed state,
she scarcely knew where she was, or what she was doing. She plodded
on and on mechanically, every step becoming harder, every yard a
greater tax on her. She had almost given up hope, and decided to lie
down under a hedge for the night, when her dim eyes were attracted by
a light which suddenly shone out on the darkness, down a little lane
on her right.

She paused in her walk, and stood gazing at it longingly. To the
exhausted, lonely, frightened child it seemed a beautiful sight.
It was like a friendly smile, a kindly welcome reaching out to her in
her hopelessness.

"I will go and ask them to help me," she thought, dully. "They won't
kill me; perhaps they'll give me a bit of bread for one of my
baskets. They won't call the p'lice so late as this."

Dick looked up at her and obediently followed. It was all one to him
where he went. He had no hopes and no fears, he was better off than
poor Huldah in that respect, but he roused to renewed interest and
expectation when his little mistress stopped before a cottage, and
walking timidly up the garden, knocked at the front door.

CHAPTER II.

A NIGHT SCARE.

Silence! Seconds passed, to Huldah they seemed endless, her heart,
which at first had beat furiously, quieted down until it seemed
scarcely to beat at all. Save for the good-night calls of the birds,
and the sad mooing of a cow in a field n