"He's a fren' o' mine. Show up, Tim, and lemme interduce yer."

There was a movement on the other side of the table where Becky lay; and then Lizzie saw, struggling up from a chair, a tiny crippled body, wasted and shrunken,--the body of a child of seven with a shapely head and the face of an intelligent boy of fifteen.

"That's him,--that's Tim,--the fightin' gen'leman I tole yer 'bout,"

said Becky, with a gay little smile at the remembrance of her joke and how she "played it on 'em," and at the look of astonishment now on Lizzie's face. And still with the gay little smile, but fainter voice,--

"Yer'll tell 'em, Lizzie,--the girls in the store,--how I played it on 'em; and when I git back--I'll--"

"Give her some air; she's faint," cried one of the women.

The tall young rough, Jake, sprang to the window and pulled it open, letting in a fresh wind that blew straight up from the gra.s.sy banks beyond the Cove.

"Do yer feel better, Becky?" he asked, as he saw her face brighten.

"I--I feel fus' rate--all well, Jake, and--I--I smell the Mayflowers.

They warn't burnt, were they? And oh, ain't they jolly, ain't they jolly! Tim, Tim!"

"Yes, yes, Becky," answered Tim, in a shaking voice.

"Wait for me here Tim,--I--I'm goin' to find 'em for yer, Tim,--ther, ther Mayflowers. They're close by; don't yer smell 'em? Close by--I'm goin'--to find 'em for yer, Tim!" And with a radiant smile of antic.i.p.ation Becky's soul went out upon its happy quest, leaving behind her the grime and poverty of Cove Street forever.

The two women--and one of them was Becky's aunt with whom the girl had always lived--broke into sobs and tears; but as the latter looked at the radiant face, she said suddenly,--

"She's well out of it all."

"But there's them that'll be worse for her goin'," said the other; "and 't ain't only Tim I mean, it's the like o' _him_," nodding towards Jake, who was slipping quietly out of the room,--"it's the like o' him. They looked up to her, they did,--bit of a thing as she was. She was that straight and plucky and gin'rous she did 'em good; she made 'em better.

Jake's often said she was the Cove Street mascot."

And with these words sounding in her ears, Lizzie crept softly from the room. Just over the threshold, in the shadow of the broken bits of furniture that had been saved from the fire, she started to see Matty and Josie still waiting for her.

"What!" she cried, "have you been here all the time--have you seen--have you heard--"

They nodded; and Matty whispered brokenly,--

"Oh, Lizzie, I ain't never again goin' to think bad things of anybody I don't know."

"Nor I, nor I," said Josie, huskily.

ALLY.

CHAPTER I.

"What have you done with those new overshoes, Ally?"

"Put 'em away."

"Well, you can just go and get 'em, then. Come, hurry up, for I want to wear 'em down town."

But Ally didn't move.

"Ally, do you hear?" cried her cousin Florence.

"Yes, I hear, but I ain't a-going to mind you. The rubbers are mine, and you've worn 'em about enough already; you're stretching 'em all out, for your foot is bigger than mine."

"No such thing. I'm not hurting them in the least."

"Yes, you are; and you are taking the gloss all off 'em, too, and I want 'em to look new when I wear 'em in Boston."

"Well, I never heard of such selfish, stingy meanness as this. It's raining hard, and you'd let me go out and get my feet sopping wet rather than lend me your new rubbers."

"Why don't you wear your own old ones?"

"Because they leak."

"They've leaked ever since I got this new pair!" retorted Ally, scornfully. "But it isn't these rubbers only; you're always borrowing my things. There's my blue jacket; you've worn it till the edge is threadbare, and you've worn my brown hat until it looks as shabby--and--there! you've got my silver bangle on now! You're no better than a thief, Florence Fleming!"

"A thief! that's a nice pretty thing to say to _me_! I should like to know who buys your things for you? Isn't it _my father_ and Uncle John?

I should like to know where you'd be, Alice Fleming, if it wasn't for Uncle John and father. Here, take your old bangle and keep it, and everything else that you've got. I never want to see anything of yours again; and I'm glad you're going off to Boston to Uncle John's for the rest of the winter, and I wish you'd stay there and never come back here,--I do!"

"I wish so too. n.o.body in Uncle John's family would ever be so mean as to fling it in my face that I was a poor little beggar of an orphan."

"Uncle John's family! Uncle John's wife said the last time she was here that she dreaded the winter on your account,--there!"

"Aunt Kate--said that?"

"Yes, she did; I heard her."

A strange look came into Ally's eyes, and all the pretty color faded from her cheeks, as she cried out in a hoa.r.s.e, pa.s.sionate voice,--

"You're a cruel, bad girl, Florence Fleming, and I hope some day you'll have something cruel and bad come to you to punish you!" and with these words the excited child flung herself across her little bed, and burst into a paroxysm of stormy sobs and tears.

"Here, here, what's the matter now?" called out Mrs. Fleming, Florence's mother, coming across the hall and pushing the bedroom door open.

"Ask Ally," answered Florence, coolly,--so coolly, so calmly, that it was quite natural to suppose that she was much less to blame in the present disturbance than her cousin; and as poor Ally was past speaking, Florence had a double advantage, and Mrs. Fleming, glancing from one girl to the other, thought she understood the situation perfectly, and in consequence said rather sharply,--

"I do wish, Ally, you would try to control your temper a little more!"

and with these words the lady turned and left the room, her daughter Florence following her. As they crossed the hall, Ally unfortunately overheard her aunt say to Florence, "I am thankful that you two are to be separated to-morrow for the rest of the winter. I hope by spring some other arrangement can be made to keep you apart. We shall never have any peace while--"

The rest of the sentence was lost to Ally. But she was quite sure it was--"while Ally is with us;" and a fresh gust of stormy sobs and tears shook the child's frame, as she thus concluded the sentence. A fresh gust also of stormy resentment and self-pity shook the girl. "Oh, yes, it's always Ally, always Ally, that's to blame," she said to herself. "It would be very different if I wasn't a poor little beggar of an orphan; yes, indeed, very different. If I was a _rich_ orphan, if papa and mamma had left a lot of money to be taken care of with me, I guess things would be different,--I guess they would. I guess Florence Fleming and her mother wouldn't lay everything that goes wrong to _me_ then, and I guess Aunt Kate wouldn't say that she dreaded the winter on account of me,--no, I guess she wouldn't! Oh, oh!" with a fresh sob, "I wish some other arrangement _could_ be made away from 'em all. They don't any of 'em want me, not any of 'em, and I'd rather go to an orphan asylum. I'd rather--I'd rather--oh, I'd rather go to _jail_ than to _them_!" and down into the pillow again went the fuzzy yellow head of this little hot-tempered Ally Fleming, who called herself so pityingly "a poor little beggar of an orphan."