she offered her, she did,
in this very room, a' here before me, to buy out a Costumer as is
leavin' the business, an' start Norma in for herself, along of her
knowin' how to run a business such as that."

"And oh girls," declared Miss Stannard as she told this part of the
story to her assistant teachers afterward, "it was the bravest thing
I've met among the poor people yet. Think of the courage of those two
women, with poverty grimmer than they have yet known, ahead of them in
all probability, yet determined to resist the temptation because they
are assured it is not well for the child. Picture making jean
pantaloons, year in, year out, at barely living wages, yet having the
courage to put the matter so resolutely aside. After that, I could not
bring myself to tell them they had done wrong in the beginning in not
notifying the authorities. Of course there is some mystery about it. I
cannot for a moment accept their explanation of it. The child, beyond
question, is well born and has been carefully trained. And she goes
about among all the strange, queer inmates of that Tenement house as
fearlessly as a little queen. But, oh, the one that is a chorus-singer!
If you could see her! So lean, so sallow, so airy and full of manner.
But I will never laugh at another elderly chorus-singer again in my
life, she is grand, she's heroic," and the pretty Kindergartner
threaded gay worsteds into needles with a vigor which lent emphasis to
her words.

"She's powerful stuck up, too," asserted the gloomy tones of 'Tildy
Peggins, and she shook her mournful head, as she moved about
straightening the disordered room for the next day, "there's a man lives
in our Tenement wanted to keep comp'ny with her, but, la, she tossed her
yellow head at his waffle cart, she did, an' she said if he'd had a
settled h'occupation she might a thought about it in time, but she
couldn't bring herself to consider a perambulating business, an' that
was all there was to it. La, maybe she is grand an' 'eroic, but she's
got a 'aughty 'eart, too, that woman has!"

CHAPTER VII.

MISS RUTH MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF OLD G. A. R.

The Angel, as the cooler weather came on, being suitably clothed by Miss
Stannard and the invisible though still generous Mrs. Tony, and the good
ladies of the Tenement seeing that she was properly fed, her little
ladyship continued to thrive, and to pursue her way, sweet and innocent,
in the midst of squalor, poverty and wicke