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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
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