hey had just sallied forth for their first visit when, out of the
Stower tenement in which the Goronofskys lived, boiled a crowd of
shrieking, excited children. Sadie Goronofsky was at their head and a
man in a blue suit and the lettered cap of a gas collector seemed the
rallying point of the entire savage little gang.

"Oh! what is the matter, Sadie?" cried Tess, running to the little
Jewish girl's side.

"He's a thief! he's a gonnif! he's a thief!" shrieked Sadie, dragging at
the man's coat. "He stole mine money. He's busted open mine bank and
stoled all mine money!"

"That red bank in the kitchen?" asked Tess, wonderingly. "That one your
mother put the quarter in every week for you?"

"Sure!" replied the excited Sadie. "My mother's out. I'm alone with the
kids. In this man comes and robs mine bank----"

"What _is_ the trouble?" asked Ruth of the man.

"Why, bless you, somebody's been fooling the kid," he said, with some
compassion. "And it was a mean trick. They told her the quarter-meter
was a bank and that all the money that was put in it should be hers.

"She's a good little kid, too. I've often seen her taking care of her
brothers and sisters and doing the work. The meter had to be opened
to-day and the money taken out--and she caught me at it."

Afterward Agnes said to Ruth: "I could have _hugged_ that man,
Ruthie--for he didn't laugh!"

CHAPTER XVI

A QUARTETTE OF LADY BOUNTIFULS

For once the stolid little Sadie was unfaithful to her charges. She
forgot the little ones her step-mother had left in her care; but the
neighbors looked out for them.

She stood upon the icy walk, when she understood the full truth about
"the big red bank in the kitchen," and watched with tearless eyes the
gas collector walk away.

Her face worked pitifully; her black eyes grew hot; but she would not
let the tears fall. She clenched her little red hands, bit her lower
lip, and stamped her worn shoe upon the walk. Hatred of all mankind--not
alone of the woman who had so wickedly befooled her--was welling up in
little Sadie Goronofsky's heart.

It was then that Ruth Kenway put her arm around the little Jewish girl's
shoulders and led her away to Mrs. Kranz's back parlor. There the Corner
House girls told her how sorry they were; Mrs. Kranz filled her hands
with "coffee kringle." Then some of the very best of the presents the
Corner House girls had brought were chosen for Sadie's brothers and
sisters, and Sadie