out!” Whereupon someone shrieked, and proceeding to the spot they found Mattie lying upon the ground.  She had walked in the sun and had started to run and had fallen over some stumps.  Instantly they saw that she had been prostrated by the heat, and having recently studied “First aid to the injured” they proceeded to remove her blouse and open her corset, when lo! there upon a silver chain around her neck was not only Ethel Hollister’s ring but another belonging to Honora Casey.  She had missed it a few days after Ethel had lost hers, but she wisely refrained from speaking of it to anyone but Patty Sands, adding, “Shure, it would only be afther worryin’ Miss Kate, and it might turn up.  I’ll bide me time.”

Mattie, upon recovering consciousness and seeing that her secret had been discovered handed the rings to Ethel saying that she should kill herself.  The girls, seeing that she was desperate, replied that as one of their “seven laws” was to “render service,” if she would confess why she had taken the rings they would shield her.  Overjoyed, the girl did so.  She told everything.  She had done it for her young sister who had dislocation of the spine, whereby she might be converting them into money have the child placed in the Cripples Hospital and treated.  A physician had assured her that the case was not incurable, and for two hundred dollars the child could be watched and nursed, and eventually her spine might be straightened.  She said that since the accident that had made the child as she was, her mother had become a drug fiend.  One evening her cousin—­a young man who was a chauffeur—­invited her mother to join a party and they took a joy ride.  On their way home, being under the influence of wine, they knocked down and ran over a child near Mrs. Hasting’s house.  Letting her out, they sped quickly on for fear of arrest.  Upon discovering that it was her own child, and what was worse, that from that night she was to be a hopeless cripple, the mother nearly went insane.  Still she kept her secret and no one suspected that she had been one of the parties in the car.  Her remorse drove her to take the drug.  Under its influence she told Mattie.  At that time the girl was earning six dollars a week, three of which she was paying to her mother, supposing her to be buying food for the invalid.  When she discovered the truth she threatened her with exposure and tried to buy little Mollie nourishing delicacies herself, but three dollars would barely pay for the necessities of life, and she became discouraged and desperate.  In the store she saw a customer drop her purse.  She placed her foot upon it and when the lady had gone she picked it up.  The purse contained forty dollars and some cards, etc.  After depositing thirty-five dollars in the bank she took five and bought the child fruit, books, and ice cream.  It seemed to put new life into Mollie.  She took small articles from time to time, and pretending that they had been given her she sold them.  Her