never had a pet, or anything living, of his own, to love since his father died.

"And his name's 'Pat,' unless there's something you'd like better, and I'll kape him till he's big enough to look after himself."

Suddenly Dick's face changed, and a sob came into his throat as he said, "Oh, Paddy, it's so good of you to offer him, but they'll never let me have him to keep. There is nowhere I could hide him, and Tim would hurt him every time he came near."

"Bad luck to him then, for a ondacent spalpeen as he is. It's a shame how they trate you. Oh, oi know, without telling. But shure, ye won't be there for ever. They've no claim on ye at all, at all. The bit of money your father left, and the insurance, have paid for your keep over and over, to say nothing of the work you're doing for that lazybones all the while. If you could only get to Ironboro' now, and find your Uncle Richard, he'd see you righted. And more by token he's a fitter, and would put you in the way of the same trade, and give you engines to your heart's content."

Dick's face was a study, as he held the puppy closely in his arms and looked up eagerly at Paddy.

"Do you mean that the Fowleys are not relations, and that I'm not beholden to stay there?"

"No relations in the world, me boy; and if I was you, I'd be off some fine morning and give 'em the slip. Your poor father was only a lodger there, after your mother died, and they took all he had and kept you, so to say, out of charity. Of course you was too young to know any different. I was well acquainted with your father and your uncle, years agone, but he had got work at Ironboro' long before your father died."

"And which is the way to Ironboro', and what is a fitter?"

"Ironboro'? Oh that's a hundred and fifty miles off, way up in the north, and you couldn't walk it yet, all alone. But some day—— And a fitter is a man who has learned his trade making engines, and can pull them to pieces, and put them together again as easy as I can fire these stoke holes."

Dick gently put the puppy back into the basket and straightened himself, like one taking a great resolve.

"Thank you, Paddy, ever so much for telling me, and if you'll only keep Pat till I can go, I'll save him a bit of my dinner every day."

"Indade and you won't, then, seein' as your dinner's none too hearty, judging by the leanness of your bones. No, I've no chick nor child of me own, and shure I can let the cratur alone enough to pay the milkman's bill for this little mite. You'll have to bring the dinner every day this week, and you'll see he'll get on fine in that time."

Dick gave his friend a hug of gratitude, and kissed Pat's silky head before he went away. And he hurried home and washed the dinner things, and cleared up the untidy kitchen like one in a dream. Sometimes it seemed to Dick that all his work went for nothing at all, for Mrs. Fowley always muddled things as soon as she came in.

She might have kept the house well on her husband's wages, but a large slice went to the "Blue Dragon," and out of the remainder she never had any left by the middle of the week. And she never did any work that could possibly be handed over to Dick, and the boy was in very truth the "slavey" they called him, and he rarely had enough to eat. Now she told him that he must stay away from school that afternoon and mind the baby, as she had business down the road at a neighbour's. And slipping a black bottle under her apron, she went out, and Susy, the youngest but one, followed her, leaving the baby fretting in the old wooden box that served as cradle.

As soon as Dick had finished he took her out into the dreary little garden and tried to pacify her. She was generally good with him, but the heat, and teething, had made her fretful, and he had to walk up and down the cinder path till his arms ached almost beyond bearing. She went to sleep at last, and Dick sat down and took a tattered book from his pocket and began to read once more the story of Richard the King.

It was the story that he loved best in the history lessons, for his own name was Richard Hart Crosby, and the fancy had come into his life like a sunbeam, that he might be Richard Lionheart too.

There were no books in the Fowleys' kitchen, and none of the children went to Sunday school regularly. Just for a week or two before the annual treat, or Christmas tree, they would go in great force, but Dick could not be spared.

But he had one other little book that was kept as a hidden treasure—his mother's Bible, that she had left to him. And in that he had learned how to be a true Lionheart and a good soldier of Jesus Christ. And every day he managed to read a few verses at least.

Now, as the sultry afternoon wore away, and the baby still slept, he thought again and again of the discovery he had made, that he did not really belong to the Fowleys.

"I have tried to please them and be brave and do my duty because they've given me a home," he reasoned to himself, "but perhaps if they had money when father died, I'm not beholden after all, as they always say I am. And oh, I would like to find a real relation! And isn't it good of Paddy to get that dear little Pat for me? I must wait till he is big enough to go too, and then I can have him for my very, very own."

Dick was thirteen, and small for his age, but his mental powers were keen, and he knew that if he stayed with the Fowleys he would have no chance to get on in life.

And looking up into the blue summer sky, he prayed to his heavenly Father to help him to get away.

CHAPTER II.

FIGHTING FIRE.

A sudden scream of terror from the cottage roused Dick from his thinking, and laying the baby down he rushed in.

On the doorstep he met little Susy, with her lilac pinafore in flames. She had been trying to reach something from the mantelpiece, and had climbed up on the unsteady old fender. There was no guard in front of the open fire, and the draught had drawn her pinafore towards the bars and set it on fire, and the flames were mounting around her, and already her hair was singed.

But Lionheart knew what to do. With a spring and a cry he caught her just as she was rushing out-of-doors, and flinging her down he fell on her, and tore and clutched at the burning rags with his bare hands.

She screamed with fright rather than with pain, but Dick did not let go till the danger was past; and his clothes, being woollen, did not catch.

There was a scuffle of footsteps as Mrs. Fowley and two other women came in with a great outcry. And the sobbing child was wrapped in a big shawl, and the doctor sent for.

And her mother, to relieve her own fears, began as usual to upbraid Dick.

"It's all your fault, you good-for-nothing pauper! Why didn't you look after the child?"

"I thought you had her, she went out with you," he said, trembling with dread of more than a scolding, and scarcely able to bear the pain in his poor burned hands.

"Then you'd no business to think," she screamed. "What you've got to do is to mind the children, and anything else I've a mind to order you to do. Three years and better we've kep' you out of charity, and you don't earn shoe leather yet. Where's the baby?"

"Asleep in the garden, I put her down under the tree when I heard Susy cry out."

"Then go and fetch her this minute. And a fine hiding you'll get when Fowley comes home. Susy's his favourite out of 'em all."

Dick looked appealingly at the neighbours and muttered, "I—I can't carry her—my hands——"

"Bless me, there's work for the doctor here," said one of the women in consternation, as she looked at his poor scorched fingers.

"Depend upon 't, Mrs. Fowley, he's saved your Susy's life. Best not talk about hidings."

"What's the matter here?" cried a brisk voice at the door, as the old doctor entered. He had been visiting in the next