"No, mum," said Glory, in a low, strange tone; quite white now, except where the vindictive fingers had left their crimson streaks. And she went off out of the room without another word. Over the knife-board she revolved her wrongs, and sharpened at length the keen edge of desperate resolution. 66 Please, mum," said she, in the old form of address, but with quite a new manner, that, in the little dependant of less than fifteen, startled the hard mistress, as she recognized it, “I aint noways bound to you, am I?” She propounded her question, stopping short in her return toward the china-closet through the sitting-room, and confronting the enemy with both hands full of knives and forks that bristled out before her like a concentrated charge of bayonets. 66 Bound? What do you mean?" parried Mrs. Grubbling, dimly foreshadowing to herself what it would be if Glory should break loose, and go. "To stay, mum, and you to keep me, till I'm growed up," answered Glory, briefly. "There's no binding about it." replied the mistress. "Of course I would n't be held to anything of that sort. I shan't keep you any longer than you behave yourself." "Then if you please, mum, I think I'll go," said Glory. And she burst into a passion of tears, which she wiped first with the back of one hand, and then with the other,- the bright steel blades and tines flashing up and down dangerously about her head, like lightnings about a rain cloud. "Humph! Where?" asked Mrs. Grubbling, sarcastically. "I don't know, yet," said Glory, the sarcasm drying her tears, as she moved on to the closet and deposited her knives and forks in the tray. "I'spose I can go to a office." "And where 'll you get your meals and your lodgings till you find a place?" The cat thought she had her paw on the mouse, now, and could play with her as securely and cruelly as she pleased. "If you go away at all," continued Mrs. Grubbling, with what she deemed a finishing stroke of policy, "you go straight off. I'll have no dancing back and forth to offices from here." 66 'Do you mean right off, this minute?" asked Glory, aghast. 66 Yes, just that. Pack up and go, or else let me hear no more about it." The next thing in Glory's programme of duty was to lay the table for dinner. But she went out of the room, and slowly off, up stairs. Pretty soon she came down again, with her eyes very swelled and tearful, and her shabby shawl and bonnet on. "I'm going, mum," said she, as one resolved to face calmly whatever might befall. "I didn't mean it to be sudden, but it are. And I would n't never a gone, if I'd a thought anybody cared for me the leastest bit that ever was. I wouldn't mind bein' worked and put upon, and not havin' any good times; but when people hates me, and goes to say I does n't tell the truth," here Glory broke down, and the tears poured over her stained cheeks again, and she essayed once more instinctively to dry them, which reminded her that her hands again were full. she "It's some goodies - from the party, mum," struggled to say between short breaths and sobs, "that Katie Ryan give me, -an' I kept—to make a party. for the children, with-to-day, mum, was done, and I'll leave 'em — for 'em, when the chores Glory laid her coals of fire upon the table as she spoke. Master Herbert eyed them, as one utterly unconscious of a scorch. “I 'spose I might come back and get my bundle," said Glory, standing still in the hope of one last kindly or relenting word. "Oh, yes, if you get a place," said her mistress, dryly, affecting to treat the whole affair as a childish, though unwonted burst of petulance; and making sure that a few hours would see Glory back, subdued, discouraged, penitent, and ready to bear the double task of to-morrow that should make up for the rebellion and lost time of to-day. But Glory, not daring, unbidden, even to kiss the baby, went steadily and sorrowfully out into the street, and drew the door behind her, that shut with a catch-lock, and fastened her out into the wide world. Not stopping to think, she hurried on, up Budd and down Branch Street, and across the green common-path to the apple-stand and Bridget Foye. "I've done it! I've gone! And I don't know what to do, nor where to go to!" 66 Arrah, poor little rid hin! So, ye 've found yer schis sors, have ye, an' let yersel' loose out o' the bag? Well, it's I that is glad, though I would n't pit ye up till it," says Bridget Foye, washing her hands in innocency. Poor little red hen. 66 She had cut a hole, and jumped out of the bag, to be sure; but here she was, 'all alone by herself" once more, and the foxes - Want and Cruelty — ravening after her all through the great, dreary wood! This day, at least, passed comfortably enough, however, although with an undertone of sadness, in the sunshine, - by Bridget's apple-stand, watching the gay passers-by, and shaping some humble hopes and plans for the future. For dinner, she shared Mrs. Foye's plain bread and cheese, and made a dessert of an apple and a handful of peanuts. At night Bridget took her home and gave her shelter, and the next day she started her off with a "God-bless-ye and goodluck-till-ye," in the charge of an older girl who lodged in the same building, and who was also "out after a place." CHAPTER VI. AUNT HENDERSON'S GIRL-HUNT. "Black spirits and white, Red spirits and gray; MACBETH. It was a small, close, dark room, Mrs. Griggs's Intelligence Office, a little counter and show-case dividing off its farther end, making a sanctum for Mrs. Griggs, who combined a little of the tape-and-button business with her more lucrative occupation, and who sat here in immovable and rheumatic ponderosity, dependant for whatever involved locomotion on the rather alarming alacrity of an impishlooking granddaughter, who, just at the moment whereof I write, is tearing in at the street door, and elbowing her way through the throng of applicants for places and servants, quite regardless of the expression of horror and astonishment she has called forth on the face of a severe-looking, elderly lady, who, by her impetuous onset, has been rudely thrust back into the very arms of a fat, unsavory cook with whom she had a minute before been quite unwillingly set to confer by the high-priestess of the place, and who had almost equally relieved and exasperated her, by remarking, as she glanced over her respectable but somewhat unstylish |