h information the subject
languished. Some one said he had heard the Carson kid call her Lizzie,
he thought, but he wasn't sure. Ordinarily Bi would have known the full
name, but Bi seemed to be dozing, and so the matter was finally dropped.
But the hounds were out and on the scent, and it was well for Betty
sleeping quietly in her little cot beneath the roof of the humble Carson
home, that she had committed her all to her heavenly Father before she
slept.

CHAPTER X

"WELL, he gave me notice t'day," said James Ryan sadly as Jane and he
rounded the corner from her boarding-house and turned toward their
favorite movie theater. "I been expectin' it, an' now it's come!"

Jane stopped short on the sidewalk appalled:

"He gave you notice!" she exclaimed, as if she could not believe it was
true. "Now, Jimmie! You don't mean it? Did he find any fault? He'd
better not! B'leeve me, if he did he gets a piece of _my_ mind, even if
I am a poor workin' girl!"

"Oh, no, he didn't find any fault," said Jimmie cheerfully. "He was
awful nice! He said he'd recommend me away up high. He's gonta give me
time every day to hunt a new place, an' he's gonta recommend me to some
of his rich friends."

"But what's the matter of him keepin' you? Did you ast him that?"

"Oh, he told me right out that things wasn't working the way he hoped
when he started; the war and all had upset his prospects, and he
couldn't afford to keep me. He's gonta take an office way down town and
do his own letters. He says if he ever succeeds in business and I'm free
to come to him he'll take me back. Oh, he's pleased with me all right!
He's a peach! He certainly is."

"Jimmie, what d'you tell him?"

"Tell him? There wasn't much for me to tell him, only I was sorry, and I
thanked him, and I told him I was gonta stick by him as long as I didn't
have a place. Of course I can't live on air, but seeing he's willing I
should go out and hunt a place every day, why I ain't that mean that I
can't write a few letters for him now and then. He don't have that many,
and it keeps me in practice. I s'pose I've got to get another place but
I haven't tried yet. I can't somehow bring myself to give him up. I kind
of wanted to stick in my first place a long time. It doesn't look well
to be changing."

"Well, if it ain't your fault, you know, when you can't help it,"
advised Jane.

They were seated in the theater by this time, and the screen claimed
their attention.