dress, and fur wraps and feather-decked bonnet that the lady had worn,
she would really resemble her. How would Mart look dressed up, he
wondered; even decently dressed, as the girls were whom he met on the
streets. He had never seen her in anything much more becoming than the
ragged quilt. He was studying her in a way that Mart did not in the
least understand. She broke the spell suddenly again:--

"Have you had any dinner?"

"Dinner? Why, no! of course not! Where would I find that sort of thing?
I looked all up and down the streets, and smelled plenty of it, but not
a bite did I get."

"Where have you been?"

"Oh, around in several places; not much of anywhere."

"I know where you've been,"--a severe light coming into her eyes; "you've
been down to the South End, and if I was you I'd be ashamed of
myself! I know how you fellows go on down there. Sallie Calkins goes,
and she told me all about it. She said that she was ashamed to live on
the same street with any of you, and that none of the folks in the
Mission knew what to do with you, and the next thing you knew you would
all be marched off to the lockup."

"Let them try it," muttered Dirk, his face growing darker; "we'd make
that street too hot to hold them in short order if they played at any
such game as that, and I guess they know it."

"Well, anyhow, I wouldn't be meaner and lower down than I had to be,