it can stay till the ambulance gets here.” 

 “Oh, don’t,” begged Miss Durant. “He shouldn’t be moved until—” 

 “Like as not it’ll take ten minutes to get it here, and we can’t let the street stay blocked like this.” 

 “Ten minutes!” exclaimed the girl. “Isn’t it possible—We must get help sooner, or he—” She broke in upon her own words, “Lift him into my carriage, and I’ll take him to the hospital.” 

 “Can’t let you, miss,” spoke up a police sergeant, who meantime had forced his way through the crowd. “Your coachman’s got to stay and answer for this.” 

 “He shall, but not now,” protested Miss Durant. “I will be responsible for him. Wallace, give them one of my cards from the case in the carriage.” 

“Miss Durant sprang out and lifted the head gently”

 The officer took the bit of pasteboard and looked at it. “That’s all right, miss,” he said. “Here, Casey, together now and easy.” 

 The two big men in uniform lifted the urchin as if he were without weight, and laid him as gently as might be on the seat of the brougham. This done, the roundsman dropped the small front seat, helped Miss Durant in, and once she was seated upon it, took his place beside her. The sergeant closed the door, gave an order to the coachman, and, wheeling about, the carriage turned up the avenue, followed by the eyes of the crowd and by a trail of the more curious. 

 “Better give it another swig, mum,” counselled her companion; and the girl, going on her knees, raised the head, and administered a second swallow of the brandy. She did not resume her seat, but kept her arm about the boy, in an attempt to render his position easier. It was a wizened, pinched little face she gazed down at, and now the mouth was drawn as if there was physical suffering, even in the unconsciousness. Neither head nor hands had apparently ever known soap, but the dirt only gave picturesqueness, and, indeed, to Miss Durant an added pathos; and the tears came into her eyes as she noted that under the ragged coat was only a flimsy cotton shirt, so bereft of buttons that the whole chest was exposed to the cold which but a little while before the girl, clad in furs and sheltered by the carriage, had yet found so nipping. She raised her free hand and laid it gently on the exposed breast, and slightly shivered as she felt how little warmth there was. 

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