“My new uncle?” repeated Polly, looking puzzled.

The woman laughed.  “Did n’t you hear I’d got married again?” she asked.

“Why, no!” cried Polly.

“I was married three weeks ago to-day,” was the proud announcement.  “He’s got a good job at the Silver Plate, and I’m takin’ work from the button fact’ry; so we’re gittin’ on.  We’ve moved over on Chestnut Street—­got a flat now.  The kids think it’s fine.”

“I’m glad, Aunt Jane,” Polly managed to say, just as she reached the street which led out in the direction of Edgewood Avenue.  “I have to go this way.”  She stepped back to allow her aunt to pass on.

“Well, I guess not much!” and the child’s arm was gripped by a strong hand.  “You’re goin’ home with me—­that’s what!”

“Oh, not to-day!” cried Polly, in a sudden terror.  “I can’t, Aunt Jane!  I’ve promised to go up to Mrs. Jocelyn’s!”

“That don’t make any difference!  You can go up there some other time—­or you can stay away, just as I choose to have you!  Now, you need n’t go to cryin’ and makin’ a fuss!” for Polly’s lip was quivering.  “I guess you know me well enough to know that when I set out to do a thing I do it, and this afternoon I said I was goin’ to fetch you home, and I expect to keep my word.”

A wild thought of flight swept through Polly’s mind; but she at once realized how futile would be an attempt to run away.  Her arm was still held as in a vise, and she was being led along an unfamiliar street.  Aunt Jane nodded now and then to people they met, and could quickly call any number to her assistance.  Polly decided that this was no time for escape.

“Where’d you get that locket and chain?” her captor queried.

“They were a present from Mrs. Leonard.”

“What Mis’ Leonard?”

“I don’t know, Her little boy was sick at the hospital, and I sung—­”

“Oh, that one!  Mis’ Marvin Leonard it is.  Well, they’d ought to given you some money, too—­they’ve got enough.  I read in the paper about your singin’—­and faintin’ away.”

“In the newspaper?” Polly’s face showed her astonishment.

“Sure!  Did n’t you know it?  I should think some o’ them doctors or nurses might have let you see the piece.  And they’d ought to had your picture taken to go along with it.”

“Oh, no!” breathed Polly shrinkingly.

“Huh!  You’re a great kid!  Folks round here thought it was a pretty smart thing.  You hain’t no call to be ashamed of it.”

The little girl attempted no reply.  She felt that Aunt Jane would not understand.

Arrived on the fourth floor of the big tenement house, Polly was at once called upon to praise the new quarters.

“Ain’t this more swell than that old-fashioned rent on Brewery Street?”

“Yes, I guess it is,” was the rather doubtful response, for Poly, in her swift survey of the narrow, gaudy parlor, discerned little to admire.