"I know your uncle must feel dreadfully to lose you; but never mind—he'll see you soon," said Mr. Brooks.

"O, Uncle 'Gustus isn't there."

"Not there?" said Mrs. Brooks, turning round from the cracked looking-glass. "Where then?"

"O, he's gone off."

"Gone off? Why, pa, ain't that too bad? I'm right up and down disappointed. But, then, the colonel has a wife; I can go to see her, you know; and I'll tell her just how you're situ—"

"My Aunt Madge is gone off, too."

"You don't say so!"

"And my brother Hollis is gone."

"This is a funny piece of work if it's true," said Mr. Brooks, with another genuine laugh; "you'd better ask her a few more questions before you start out. Who else is gone? Have they shut the house up?"

"Yes, sir; shut it right up tight."

"Nobody in it, at all?"

"No, only the men and women. Prudy's gone, and Dotty Dimple's gone, and I'm gone."

"Only the men and women, she says. That must be the servants. So the house must be open, pa. At any rate, I shall take her. Say by-bye, my pretty, and we'll be starting."

Fly was very glad to go, but Maria clung to her fondly, and Bennie ran after her almost to Broadway, where Mrs. Brooks took a Fifth Avenue stage. She knew Colonel Allen's house very well, for she had seen it more than once, while it was in process of building. That was two or three years ago, when her husband was well, and the family lived very comfortably on Thirty-third Street. She sighed as she thought how different it was now. Mr. Brooks would never be able to work any more; they hardly had food enough to eat, and poor Maria had lost her eyesight.

"Here we are, little Katie," said she.

But the child did not wait to be helped out; she danced down the steps, and would have flown across the street, if Mrs. Brooks had not caught her.

"I see it—I see it; my auntie's house. But there isn't nobody to it."

The man who met them at the door was so surprised and delighted to see Fly, that he forgot his manners, and did not ask Mrs. Brooks in.

"Bless us, the baby's found!" cried he, and ran to spread the news.

Aunt Madge was walking the parlor floor, and Horace sitting on the sofa, as rigid as the marble elf Puck, just over his head. Prudy and Dotty had joined hands, and were crying softly on the rug. As the police had been notified of Fly's loss, all the family had to do was to wait. A servant was at the nearest telegraph office, with a horse and carriage, and at the first tidings would drive home and report.

The words "The baby's found" rang through the house like a peal of bells. In an instant Flyaway Runaway was clasped in everybody's arms, and wet with everybody's tears.

"Thought I'd come back," said the little truant, peeping up at her agitated friends' with some surprise; "thought I'd come back and get my skipt!"

Then they exclaimed, in chorus,—

"Topknot shall have her skipt! The blessed baby! The darling old Fly!"

And Dotty wound up by saying,—

"Why, you see, we thought you's dead!"

Flyaway, who had at first been very much astonished at the fuss made over her, now looked deeply offended.

"Who said I's dead? What—a—drefful—lie!"

"O, nobody said so, Fly; only we thought p'rhaps you was; and what would we do without you, you know?"

"Why, if I's dead," said Fly, untying her bonnet strings, "then the funy-yal would come round and take me; that's all."

"We are most grateful to you," said Aunt Madge, turning to Mrs. Brooks, "for bringing home this lost child; but do tell us where you found her."

Then Mrs. Brooks related all she knew of Fly's wanderings, the little one putting in her own explanations.

"I didn' be lost," said she sharply. "I feel jus' like frettin', when you say I's lost. 'Tis the truly truth; I's walking on the streets, and a naughty woman, she's got my hangerfiss—had ashes roses on it."

"Yes, I put some otto of rose on it this morning," said Prudy. "What a shame!"

"And I gave my flowers to the sick man. He was on the bed, with a blue bed-kilt. A girl name o' Maria, tookened me home. The seeingness is all gone out of her eyes, so she can't see."

"How long has your husband been sick?" asked Mrs. Allen of the woman, while she was taking lunch in the dining-room. "Did you tell me he knew Colonel Allen?"

Mrs. Brooks dropped her knife and fork; but her lips trembled so she could not speak. Flyaway, who sat in Horace's lap, eating ginger-snaps, exclaimed, "She wants some perjerves, auntie. She don't get no perjerves, nor nuffin nice to her house."

"'Sh!" whispered Horace. The woman looked so respectable and well bred, that it seemed a great rudeness to allude to her poverty.

But Mrs. Brooks drank some water, and then answered Aunt Madge, calmly,—

"I'm not ashamed of being poor, Mrs. Allen; it's no disgrace, for there never was an honester man than my husband, nor none that worked harder, till a beam fell on him from the roof of a house, two years ago, and he lost the use of his limbs.—Yes, ma'am; he did use to know your husband. He was one of the workmen that helped build this house. I came and looked on when he was setting these very doors."

"What is his name?" asked Aunt Madge, looking very much interested, and taking out her note-book and pencil. "What street and number?"

"Cyrus Brooks, Number Blank, Blank Street, ma'am. Before the accident, we lived on Thirty-third Street, in very good shape; but, little by little, we were obliged to sell off, and finally had to move into pretty snug quarters. But we've always got enough to eat, such as it was," added the good woman, trying not to show much she enjoyed her lunch.

"I am very glad Providence has sent you here, Mrs. Brooks," said Aunt Madge, warmly. "I know Colonel Allen will seek you out when he comes home next week; but I shall not wait for that; I shall write him this very night."

Mrs. Brooks' heart was so full that she had to cry into a coarse purple handkerchief of Bennie's, which happened to be in her pocket, and felt very much ashamed because she could not find her voice again, or any words in which to tell her gratitude. It was just as well, though. Mrs. Allen knew words were not everything. It gave her pleasure to fill a huge basket with nice things—wine and jelly for the sick man, plain food for the family, and a pretty woolen dress for Maria, which had been intended for Mrs. Fixfax, the housekeeper.

The children looked on delighted, while the basket was filled with these articles, then passed over to Nathaniel, who was going home with Mrs. Brooks. It was amusing to watch Nathaniel, with the monstrous burden in his hands trying to help Mrs. Brooks down the front steps; for Aunt Madge was not enough of a fine lady to send the pair around by the servants' door.

It was pleasant, too, to watch Mrs. Brooks's happy face, half hidden in the hood of her water-proof cloak, which kept puffing out, in the high wind, like a sail. She was going home to tell her husband the Lord had heard her prayers, and she had found a friend.

"And you may depend I never talked so easy to anybody in my life, pa;" this was what she thought she should say. "I didn't have to beg. Mrs. Allen is one of the Lord's own; I saw it the minute I clapped my eyes on her face."

"I am going to see that woman to-morrow, and ask some questions about her blind daughter," said Aunt Madge, turning away from the window.

"Ask 'bout her nose, too."

"Whose nose, Fly?"

"The woman's. It keeps a-moving when she talks."

"There, who else noticed that?" exclaimed Horace, tossing his young sister aloft. "It takes Fly, with her little eye, to see things."

"But I didn't ask her nuffin 'bout it, though, Horace Clifford. God made her so, with a wire in."

Everybody smiled at the notion of Mrs. Brooks being a wax doll.

"What a queer day it has been!" said Prudy. "Nothing but hide and seek. We'll all keep together next time, and lock hands tight."

"Of course," said Dotty, quickly; "but look here; don't you think 'twould be safer not to let Fly go with us? She was the one that made all the fuss."

"Want to know if she was," said Horace, slyly. "Guess there are two sides to that story."

"At any rate," struck in Aunt Madge, "Fly was the one that did the most business. You went round doing good—didn't you, dear?"

"Little city missionary," said Horace.

Whereupon Miss Fly modestly dropped her head on her brother's shoulder. She concluded she had done something wonderful in running after a dog.

"On the whole," continued auntie, "we've all had a very hard time. It's only three o'clock; but seems to me the day has been forty hours long. Let us rest, now, and have a quiet little evening, and go to bed early."