ay you are not hurt," he continued; "but you may be, without
knowing it. I have heard of people receiving serious injuries, and never
finding them out till they got home. Have you far to go, miss?"

"Only two blocks farther," said Pet, turning the corner.

"The very route I was going," observed the young man.

Although Pet felt that the young man's company was unnecessary and
disagreeable, she did not like to tell him so. She kept silence until
she reached her home, when she said, "I stop here, sir." She would have
added, "Good-by, sir," or "Thank you, sir," or something equivalent, but
instinct checked the expression, and she darted into the entry (the door
being accidentally ajar), and shut the door after her, before the young
man could say a word. Although the door was shut, he raised his hat
respectfully as one often does on Broadway _after_ he has passed a
female acquaintance upon whom he suddenly comes--the salute being
received and acknowledged with a stare by the next lady, or ladies,
following after. The young man then noted the number of the house,
nodded satisfactorily to himself, and strolled very leisurely along the
street, as if neither business nor pleasure had urgent demands upon him.

CHAPTER III.

SNEAKING JUSTIFIED.

Neither Pet nor the young man saw the awkward figure of an overgrown
boy, who had followed them at a distance, on the other side of the
street, keeping the trunks of trees between them and him. This clumsy
figure, upon which a suit of good clothes and a new cap looked strangely
out of place, was Bog.

The boy Bog was often seen lounging about the neighborhood of Miss
Pillbody's school; and if the policeman on that beat had not known him
to be an honest lad from childhood, he would have watched him as a
suspicious character. From whatever part of the city Bog came home after
a bill-posting expedition, he invariably made a circuit past Miss
Pillbody's school, keeping the other side of the street always, and
never looking at the house. He walked hurriedly by, but came to a sudden
stop at a grocery store halfway up the second block beyond, and there he
would stand, partly covered by an awning post, and look strangely
around, letting his eyes fall occasionally, and as if by accident, on
that house. If his object in these singular manoeuvres was to see Miss
Minford, he always failed to improve the opportunity when it offered;
for, as surely as Pet came out from the school, or turned