"whether I really had wings, or not, eh?"

Katie said this with a still darker frown; for she thought that the
urchin was jesting. Nothing was further from his intention. Knowing
this, and, not finding the angelic looks and tones which he had been led
to expect, Billy felt still more puzzled and inclined to be cross.

"Seems to me that there's a screw loose somewheres," said Billy,
scratching the point of his nose in his vexation. "Hows'ever, I came
here to ax your advice, and although you cer'nly don't 'ave wings nor
the style o' looks wot's usual in 'eavenly wisiters, I'll make a clean
breast of it--so here goes."

Hereupon the poor boy related how he had been decoyed from the Grotto--
of which establishment he gave a graphic and glowing account--and said
that he was resolved to have nothing more to do with Morley Jones, but
meant to return to the Grotto without delay--that evening if possible.
He had a difficulty, however, which was, that he could not speak freely
to Nora about her father, for fear of hurting her feelings or
enlightening her too much as to his true character, in regard to which
she did not yet know the worst. One evil result of this was that she
had begun to suspect there was something wrong as to his own affection
for herself--which was altogether a mistake. Billy made the last remark
with a flush of earnest indignation and a blow of his small hand on his
diminutive knee! He then said that another evil result was that he
could not see his way to explain to Nora why he wished to be off in such
a hurry, and, worst of all, he had not a sixpence in the world wherewith
to pay his fare to London, and had no means of getting one.

"And so," said Katie, still keeping up her fictitious indignation, "you
come to beg money from me?"

"Not to beg, Miss--to borrer."

"Ah! and thus to _do_ me a second time," said Katie.

It must not be supposed that Katie's sympathetic heart had suddenly
become adamantine. On the contrary, she had listened with deep interest
to all that her youthful visitor had to say, and rejoiced in the thought
that she had given to her such a splendid opportunity of doing good and
frustrating evil; but the little spice of mischief in her character
induced her still to keep up the fiction of being suspicious, in order
to give Billy a salutary lesson. In addition to this, she had not quite
got over the supposed insult of being mistaken for an angel! She
therefore declined, in the