hat her story was told grew her gentle self again, and smoothed
down the brown hair with a promise of aid and sympathy which was not
likely to be forfeited.

CHAPTER IV.

ANOTHER ADVENTURE OF THE TWO FRIENDS--THE LIGHT IN THE WINDOW--A
SINGULAR SPOT ON THE WALL--A CLIMB, A TUMBLE AND A PURSUIT--HOW IT ALL
ENDED FOR THE TIME.

We left Walter Harding and Tom Leslie, at the conclusion of a former
chapter, coming out from the lodgings of the latter, on Bleecker Street
near Elm, Leslie accompanying Harding out to a car on the Bowery before
betaking himself to bed. "Man proposes but God disposes," says the
French proverb: There is "a divinity that shapes our ends," even in the
matters of going to bed and getting into railroad cars. It was somewhat
longer than either had expected, before he reached the "desired haven"
of home and a bed-chamber.

It was past midnight when the two friends reached the Bowery, and the
Third Avenue cars, on one of which Harding was going up, were running
less frequently than early in the evening. There was not one of the
green lights in sight down the Bowery from the corner of Bleecker
Street, and the friends chatted a moment while waiting for one to make
its appearance. Then they grew tired and restless, as people very soon
do who are waiting for cars (or boiling tea-kettles, or marriage-days,
or any thing of that kind); and they walked down to the corner of Prince
to meet the tardy conveyance. There was a green light coming up, some
blocks down the Bowery, but it seemed to the two sleepy fellows as if it
would never reach the corner. They walked listlessly a block or two down
Prince Street toward Broadway, still arm in arm as they had left the
house on Bleecker. They wheeled to walk back. Suddenly the eyes of
Harding were attracted by the very bright light in one of the upper
windows of an old brick house on Prince Street, large and stately and
giving evidence of having once been the residence of some person of
fortune, though now a little dilapidated.

"People in that house must have an interest in one of the Gas
Companies," said Harding, "by the quantity of light they show at this
time of night! Why, the window is all ablaze!"

Tom Leslie looked up, as his friend spoke. They were on the opposite
side of the street from the house in question, and consequently had a
fair view of the lighted window. It _was_ very light indeed, a perfect
flood of gas-light pouring on a white curtain