y was at last well provided for, as I would have
her, and that I had carried my point with comparatively little trouble.

Jim beamed upon me every time he came near me, and he appeared to have
a sense of partnership which was not a little amusing.

Amy had "taken it awfully hard," my brothers, Norman and Douglas, said
as they ran me on my new burst of philanthropy; but I was too
complacent and well satisfied to be at all disturbed by their comments.

Little did I dream, while dwelling on the future I had planned for the
little hunchback, that a higher hand than mine was so soon to take all
provision for her into its own keeping.

On the afternoon of the next day, as Milly and I, just dressed for a
very different scene from that to which we were suddenly called, were
passing down the stairs to the carriage which was awaiting us, Jim came
rushing up in a state of terrible excitement, with distressed,
frightened eyes looking out of a deadly white face.

"Miss Milly! Miss Milly!" he gasped, all out of breath as he was with
rapid running, and addressing first the one to whom he was accustomed
to turn in all emergencies or need for help, "Miss Milly, oh, come
quick! No, no--it's Miss Amy I mean. Miss Amy, come quick; she wants
you!"

"Who wants me? what is the matter?" asked both Milly and I in one
breath, and very much alarmed as we saw that there was really some
serious trouble.

"Matty! She'll be gone, miss. Oh, come quick!" he answered, still in
the same breathless manner.

Visions of the drunken mother returning for the child, and striving to
take her away against her will, at once presented themselves to my
imagination; and now, indeed, my boasted interest in Matty was tried.
Was I expected to face this worthless, angry woman, and rescue my poor
little _protegee_? I could not do it; this was my first thought. Then,
again, was I to abandon the poor child without one struggle, without
one effort to prevail on the woman to leave the helpless child in the
better hands into which she had fallen? Like a flash of lightning all
this passed through my brain; then I said to Jim faintly and with a
faltering heart,--

"Is there any one there to help?"

"Yes, miss," answered Jim; "there's Johnny, an' Mrs. Petersen, an' the
policeman brought her in, an' the doctor. But, O Miss Amy, do make
haste! she wants you so bad, an' the doctor said to bring you quick."

The doctor? Then was Matty ill, in danger?

"What is it, Jim