“It strikes me,” said the Angel, “that what Freckles said would be to the point.”

“Freckles!” exclaimed McLean.  “What could he say?”

“He seemed to be able to say several things,” answered the Angel sweetly.  “I fancy the one that concerns you most at present was, that if my father should offer me to him he would not have me.”

“And no one knows why better than I do,” cried McLean.  “Every day he must astonish me with some new fineness.”

He turned to the surgeon.  “Save him!” he commanded.  “Save him!” he implored.  “He is too fine to be sacrificed.”

“His salvation lies here,” said the surgeon, stroking the Angel’s sunshiny hair, “and I can read in the face of her that she knows how she is going to work it out.  Don’t trouble for the boy.  She will save him!”

The Angel laughingly sped down the hall, and into the street, just as she was.

“I have come,” she said to the matron of the Home, “to ask if you will allow me to examine, or, better yet, to take with me, the little clothes that a boy you called Freckles, discharged last fall, wore the night he was left here.”

The woman looked at her in greater astonishment than the occasion demanded.

“Well, I’d be glad to let you see them,” she said at last, “but the fact is we haven’t them.  I do hope we haven’t made some mistake.  I was thoroughly convinced, and so was the superintendent.  We let his people take those things away yesterday.  Who are you, and what do you want with them?”

The Angel stood dazed and speechless, staring at the matron.

“There couldn’t have been a mistake,” continued the matron, seeing the Angel’s distress.  “Freckles was here when I took charge, ten years ago.  These people had it all proved that he belonged to them.  They had him traced to where he ran away in Illinois last fall, and there they completely lost track of him.  I’m sorry you seem so disappointed, but it is all right.  The man is his uncle, and as like the boy as he possibly could be.  He is almost killed to go back without him.  If you know where Freckles is, they’d give big money to find out.”

The Angel laid a hand along each cheek to steady her chattering teeth.

“Who are they?” she stammered.  “Where are they going?”

“They are Irish folks, miss,” said the matron.  “They have been in Chicago and over the country for the past three months, hunting him everywhere.  They have given up, and are starting home today.  They——­”

“Did they leave an address?  Where could I find them?” interrupted the Angel.

“They left a card, and I notice the morning paper has the man’s picture and is full of them.  They’ve advertised a great deal in the city papers.  It’s a wonder you haven’t seen something.”

“Trains don’t run right.  We never get Chicago papers,” said the Angel.  “Please give me that card quickly.  They may escape me.  I simply must catch them!”