Putting her muff up to shield her face from the cutting blast, Helen
set out bravely up the street. She was not a timid or timorous girl.
In fact, the words of warning uttered by her sister-in-law had made no
lasting impression on her mind, so far as her own personal safety was
concerned. She scarcely thought of looking out for danger from any
human agency as she left the house.

As the storm was beating into her face, she did not attempt to look
ahead much farther than each step as it was taken. It was necessary
for her to lean forward slightly and push her head, as it were, right
into the storm, and before she had reached the nearest corner it
became evident that she must undergo no little inconvenience, if not
actual suffering, before her evening's mission were completed.

"Well, maybe this exercise will give me just the life I need to talk
real business to Dave when he comes," she mused, punctuating her
conjecture with a gasp or two as she fought against a gust of wind
that forced her almost to a standstill. Winning this skirmish with the
storm, she pressed forward again, when suddenly another gasp was
forced from her by an entirely different cause. She almost stumbled
over an object directly in her way, and as she recovered her
equilibrium she recognized before her the form of a small girl
scantily clad in a short-sleeved coat much too small for her and a
hood that came down scarcely far enough to cover her ears. Her hands
were bare and she held them up pitifully before the comfortably--to
her richly--clad maiden so out of her element in this poverty-stricken
district.

"Please, Miss," the girl pleaded; "won't you come and help me? Ma's
sick--she fainted--and pa's gone away. I'm all alone with her. Ma's