"That's what I'm trying to think, Rose," said her brother, not a little perplexed².

To tell the truth, Rough and Ready had acted from impulse, and without any well-defined plan in his mind. He had resolved to take Rose from her old home, if it deserved the name, and for reasons which the reader will no doubt pronounce sufficient; but he had not yet had time to consider where they should live in future.

This was a puzzling question.

If the newsboy had been a capitalist, or in receipt of a handsome income, the question would have been a very simple one. He would only need to have bought a "Morning Herald," and, from the long list of boarding and lodging³ houses, have selected one which he judged suitable. But his income was small, and he had himself and his sister to provide for. He knew that it must be lonely for Rose to pass the greater part of the day without him; yet it seemed to be necessary. If only there was some suitable person for her to be with. The loss of her mother was a great one to Rose, for it left her almost without a companion.

So Rough and Ready knit his brows in perplexing thought.

"I can't tell where we'd better go, Rose, yet," he said at last. "We'll have to look round a little, and perhaps we'll come across some good place."

"I hope it'll be some place where father won't find us," said Rose.

"Don't call him father," said the newsboy, hastily. "He isn't our father."

"No," said Rose, "I know that,—that is not our own father."

"Do you remember our own father, Rose? But of course you don't, for you were only a year old when he died."

"How old were you, Rufus?"

"I was nine."

"Tell me about father. Mother used to tell me about him sometimes."

"He was always kind and good. I remember his pleasant smile whenever he came home. Once he was pretty well off; but he failed in business, and had to give up his store, and, soon after, he died, so that mother was left destitute⁴. Then she married Mr. Martin."

"What made her?"

"It was for our sake, Rose. She thought he would give us a good home. But you know how it turned out. Sometimes I think mother might have been alive now, if she hadn't married him."

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