re we were ready for tea. Take it off and put it on the
hob; and be careful, for goodness' sake, Susy Hopkins, or you'll scald
yourself."

Susy removed the kettle from its position on the glowing bed of coals,
and then resumed her narrative.

"They're all coming," she said, "and you will have to get them in by
hook or crook."

"You're enough to deave a body. Who's coming, and where are they coming
when they do come?"

"They're coming here, Aunt Church, a lot of them--girls like me--big
girls and little girls, old girls and young girls, bad girls and good
girls; girls who'll laugh at you, and girls who'll respect you; some
dressed badly, and some dressed fine. They are all coming, up to forty
of them in number, and Miss Kathleen O'Hara is the queen amongst them.
Miss Katie O'Flynn is coming, too, and it's to your house they're to
come; and it's to happen to-morrow night."

"Really, Susy, of all the impertinent children, I do think you beat all.
Forty people coming into this tiny house, where we can scarcely turn
round with more than two in the house! You are talking pure nonsense,
Susan Hopkins, and I'll break my word if that's all you have to tell."

"It's true enough. Have you never heard of our society? Well, of course
not, so I will tell you. It is this way, Aunt Church: When Miss Kathleen
came to the school she took pity on us foundationers. She founded a
society, and we used to meet in the old quarry just to the left of
Johnson's Field; and right good times we had. She promised us all sorts
of things. It was she who gave me that blouse that you seemed to think I
had bought with the money which was taken from mother's till. And she
gave me this. See, Aunt Church; if you look you will believe."

Here Susy pulled from the neck of her dress a little heart-shaped locket
with the device and name of the society on it.

"Look for yourself," she said.

Mrs. Church did look. She put on her spectacles and read the words, "The
Wild Irish Girls, October, 18--."

"Whatever does this mean?" she said. "The Wild Irish Girls! It doesn't
sound at all a respectable sort of name."

"I am one," said Susy, beginning to skip up and down. "I am a Wild Irish
Girl."

"That you ain't. You don't know the meaning of the thing. You are
nothing but a little, under-bred Cockney."

"Thank you, Aunt Church. I do feel obliged for your kind opinion of me.
But now, are you going to help Miss Kathleen, or are you not? She can't
have the