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XVIII. THE METROPOLITAN FIRE BRIGADE. 79 XIX. A SAINTLY LADY. 83 XX. CAUGHT AGAIN. 87 XXI. SAFE HOME AT LAST. 94 XXII. NEWS OF SUE. 105 XXIII. AMATEUR DETECTIVE. 109 XXIV. MOTHER AND SON. 112 XXV. ABOUT RONALD. 113 XXVI. TWO CUPS OF COFFEE. 124 XXVII. DELAYED TRIAL. 127 XXVIII. CINDERELLA WOULD SHIELD THE REAL THIEF. 130 XXIX. A LITTLE HEROINE. 132 XXX. WHAT WAS HARRIS TO HER? 134 XXXI. A STERN RESOLVE. 136 XXXII. AN UNEXPECTED ACCIDENT. 137 XXXIII. A POINTED QUESTION. 138 XXXIV. PICKLES TO THE FORE AGAIN. 141 XXXV. THE WINGS ARE GROWING. 142 XXXVI. A CRISIS. 143 XXXVII. THE HAPPY GATHERING. 151

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SUE: A LITTLE HEROINE.

Sue made a great effort to push her way to the front of the crowd. The street preacher was talking, and she did not wish to lose a word. She was a small, badly made girl, with a freckled face and hair inclined to red, but her eyes were wonderfully blue and intelligent. She pushed and pressed forward into the thick of the crowd. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and looking up, saw a very rough man gazing at her.

"Be that you, Peter Harris?" said Sue. "An' why didn't yer bring Connie along?"

"Hush!" said some people in the crowd.

The preacher raised his voice a little higher:

"'Tell His disciples and Peter that He goeth before you into Galilee.'"

Peter Harris, the rough man, trembled slightly. Sue found herself leaning against him. She knew quite well that his breath was coming fast.

"His disciples and Peter," she said to herself.

The street preacher had a magnificent voice. It seemed to roll above the heads of the listening crowd, or to sink to a penetrating whisper which found its echo in their hearts. The deep, wonderful eyes of the man had a power of making people look at him. Sue gazed with all her might and main.

"Father John be a good un," she said to herself. "He be the best man in all the world."

After the discourse—which was very brief and full of stories, and just the sort which those rough people could not help listening to—a hymn was sung, and then the crowd dispersed.

Sue was amongst them. She was in a great hurry. She forgot all about John Atkins, the little street preacher to whom she had been listening. She soon found herself in a street which was gaily lighted; there was a gin-palace at one end, another in the middle, and another at the farther end. This was Saturday night: Father John was fond of holding vigorous discourses on Saturday nights. Sue stopped to make her purchases. She was well-known in the neighborhood, and as she stepped in and out of one shop and then of another, she was the subject of a rough jest or a pleasant laugh, just as the mood of the person she addressed prompted one or other. She spent a few pence out of her meager purse, her purchases were put into a little basket, and she found her way home. The season was winter. She turned into a