her hands as she ran to the fugitive.

"Indeed it is, worse luck. I'm in sad straits, Hannah. I wouldn't have
come here--I know what mother is--but I couldn't think what to do."

"But good lord--the school--mercy on us child, they haven't turned you
out, have they?"

"No, but they will if I go back. I dursn't do that. I couldn't get in.
I've been robbed of the key. It was inside my reticule that a rogue
snatched from my wrist on London Bridge."

"London Bridge! Gracious! What mischief took 'ee there and at this time
o' the mornin'?"

"I don't know," sighed the girl, half wearily, half pettishly. "I can't
tell you. Don't bother me any more. I'm tired to death. Take me inside
Hannah, or I'll drop. I suppose mother'll be in a fury when she sees me,
but it can't be helped. I don't think I care. It's nothing to do with
her."

Hannah forebore pestering the girl with more questions and led her to
the open door. The waitress had been with Mrs. Fenton in the squalid
days of six months before at the Bedfordbury coffee shop and she well
knew how Lavinia was constantly getting into a scrape, not from
viciousness, but from pure recklessness and love of excitement. Her
mother's treatment of her "to cure her of her ways," as the lady put it,
was simply brutal.

Hannah was not a little afraid of what would happen when Mrs. Fenton set