bring
her in here."

The speaker opened the door and almost shoved the pale-faced,
trembling child out upon her strange mission.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XVIII.

HELEN IN THE MOUNTAINS.

It was snowing. The flakes that fell were not large fluffy ones; they
were small and compact, so that as the northwest wind drove them into
Helen's face, she realized that she was being pelted with something
more substantial than eiderdown.

The severity of the storm startled the girl. It spurred her to a
fuller consciousness of her obligation to her friends, that she remove
from their minds all occasion for worry as to her whereabouts as soon
as possible.

Putting her muff up to shield her face from the cutting blast, Helen
set out bravely up the street. She was not a timid or timorous girl.
In fact, the words of warning uttered by her sister-in-law had made no
lasting impression on her mind, so far as her own personal safety was
concerned. She scarcely thought of looking out for danger from any
human agency as she left the house.

As the storm was beating into her face, she did not attempt to look
ahead much farther than each step as it was taken. It was necessary
for her to lean forward slightly and push her head, as it were, right
into the storm, and before she had reached the nearest corner it
became evident that she must undergo no little inconvenience, if not
actual suffering, before her evening's mission were completed.

"Well, maybe this exercise will give me just the life I need to talk
real business to Dave when he comes," she mused, punctuating her
conjecture with a gasp or two as she fought against a gust of wind
that forced her almost to a standstill. Winning this skirmish with the
storm, she pressed forward again, when suddenly another gasp was
forced from her by an entirely different cause. She almost stumbled
over an object directly in her way, and as she recovered her
equilibrium she recognized before her the form of a small girl
scantily clad in a short-sleeved coat much too small for her and a
hood that came down scarcely far enough to cover her ears. Her hands
were bare and she held them up pitifully before the comfortably--to
her richly--clad maiden so out of her element in this poverty-stricken
district.

"Please, Miss," the girl pleaded; "won't you come and help me? Ma's
sick--she fainted--and pa's gone away. I'm all alone with her. Ma's
down on the floor an' don'