ng might help her, never occurred to Genevieve.
Genevieve knew policemen only as vaguely dreadful creatures connected
with jails and arrests.

In time it came to be quite dark. Genevieve wondered what would become
of her--by midnight. People did not starve or die, she supposed, in
Boston streets--not when the streets were as bright as these. But she
_must_ get to Sunbridge. _Sunbridge!_ How worried they must be about her
now in Sunbridge, and how she wished she were there! She would be glad
to see even Miss Jane's severest frown--if she could see Miss Jane, too!

It was six o'clock when Genevieve suddenly remembered Mr. and Mrs.
Thomas Butterfield. She wondered then how it was possible that she had
forgotten them so long.

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Butterfield were two friends of Mrs. Kennedy's not
very far from sixty years old. They lived in a quaint old house on Mt.
Vernon Street, on top of Beacon Hill--Genevieve thought she remembered
the number. She remembered the house very well, for she had called
there twice with Mrs. Kennedy the winter before.

It was with a glad little cry that Genevieve now turned to the first
woman she met and asked the way to Mt. Vernon Street.

* * * * *

In the somber Butterfield dining-room on Mt. Vernon Street, Mr. and Mrs.
Thomas Butterfield had almost finished dinner, when their pompous,
plainly scandalized butler, standing beneath the severest of the severe
Butterfield portraits, announced stiffly:

"There's a young person at the door, ma'am, with a bag. She says she
knows you, if you'll see her, please."

One minute later, the astonished Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Butterfield caught
in their arms a white-faced, almost fainting girl, who had sobbed out:

"Please, won't you give me a little money and some supper, and telephone
to Aunt Julia!"

Seven minutes later Mr. Thomas Butterfield had Mrs. Kennedy at the other
end of the wire.

CHAPTER XXIV

A BROWN DRESS FOR ELSIE

Christmas, for Genevieve, was not a happy time that year; and when the
day was over she tried to forget it as soon as possible.

She had stayed all night with the Butterfields--which had not been
unalloyed joy; for, though they obviously tried to be kind to her, yet
they could not help showing that they regarded her sudden appearance
among them, dinnerless and moneyless, as most extraordinary, and
certainly very upsetting to the equanimity of a well-ordered household.

In th