serious trouble to little Billy Harding, when, after the best breakfast his poor mother could give him—and that isn't saying very much—he hurried downstairs from the attic which was his home, brush in hand, to find the pavements dry as a bone, and the roads almost clean!

"I made sure it were going to rain beautiful," he said to himself, dolefully, "it looked so uncommon like it, last night."

But the wind had veered round to the east while Billy was fast asleep, and as everybody knows, the east wind, which "is neither good for man nor beast," hasn't even the good quality of bringing profitably dirty streets for the poor crossing-sweepers.

There was nothing for it but to go to his post, however, and there it was I saw him that same cold, dry, clean Sunday morning, when I myself was on my way to church. Very likely I should never have noticed him, nor her either, if I had met them separately, but it was the seeing them standing together, talking earnestly, that caught my attention, and the anxious, rather troubled expression on the little old lady's face, and the bright eager look on the boy's, made me wonder what it was all about. A dreadful idea crossed my mind for an instant—could he be a naughty boy? had he possibly been trying to pick the old lady's pocket, and was she talking to him in hopes of making him repentant, as is sometimes the way with tender-hearted old ladies, instead of giving him in charge to a policeman? (Not that there was any policeman in view!) But another instant made me feel ashamed of the thought—a second glance at the boy's honest face was enough.

Now I will tell you what had happened; how I came to know it does not matter.