With a shock Jessie started to her feet, staring about her with wide, dazed, sleep-filled eyes.  “Wake up, can’t you?  I can’t stay here all night while you has your sleep out!”

No one else ever spoke to her in that tone and manner.  In a moment poor Jessie’s eyes and brain were as wide awake and alert as fear could force them.  That dreaded voice would rouse her from the sleep of death almost, she thought.  Shaking with cold and dread, she followed him along the lighted platform, and out into the gloom and squalor of the streets.

A heavy rain was coming down in sheets, driven in their faces by a cold, gusty wind.  It hit the pavement and splashed up against her cold little legs and ankles until they were soaked through; it beat on her face until she was nearly blinded; and, bewildered by the bright lights, and the deep shadows, and the glitter of the wet streets in the light of the lamps, she would soon have been lost indeed, had her father not caught her by the hand.

On they went, and on and on, an endless distance it seemed to Jessie.  Her father never once spoke to her, and she was afraid to speak to him.  At last, though, she summoned up courage.  “Where are we going, father?”

“Home.”

“Are we nearly there?”

“You’ll know in time, so hold your noise.”

She “held her noise.”  At least she did not venture to speak again, and “in time” she did know, but it was a long time first.

Jessie had long been too tired to notice anything that was passing, and when at last they did stop before a house, and went up to the door of it, she was too exhausted to notice the place or the house, or anything about her.  She wanted only to be allowed to lie down somewhere, anywhere, and not have to move, or speak, or even think.

When the door was at last opened she saw before her what looked like a black pit, and that was all.  Her father must have been able to see more than she, for he swore at some one for keeping him waiting so long, and Jessie supposed it was at an unseen person who had opened the door to them, then he walked quickly ahead, telling Jessie to follow him.

Follow him!  How could she, when she could see nothing and did not know where her next step would land her?  She did not dare, though, do anything but obey, so, groping blindly, and sliding her feet carefully before her, one at a time, she crept with all the speed she could in direction in which she thought he had gone.

“Mind the stairs,” said some one behind her, and at the same moment Jessie’s foot went over the top one.

“Harry, you might have helped the child down,” said the voice behind her, more tartly, and Jessie guessed it was the door-opener who spoke, and who was following her.  Harry Lang muttered something surlily enough, but he did pick up a lamp from somewhere, and held it out for her to see the rest of her way by, and Jessie clambered down the remaining stairs in comparative comfort.