Elsie, barrow, and all, with myself on top.  There was a frightened scream from Elsie, followed by a steady downpour of tears as Phil picked her up.  She had struck her forehead on a cobblestone, and a big blue bump was rapidly swelling above one eye.  Her nose was bleeding a little, too.  Phil was so occupied in trying to comfort her, and in wiping away the blood, that it was several minutes before he thought of the music-box.  When he picked it up he found it was so badly broken that it would no longer play.

“Oh, what will papa say!” cried Elsie.  The little fellow made no answer, but could scarcely keep from crying himself, as he lifted it on the barrow, to start back home.

“When will we be there, brother?” asked Elsie, when they had trudged along for some time.  She was holding on to the tail of his jacket, sniffling dismally.  Phil stopped, for they had reached a street corner, and looked around.  It was growing dusk.  Then he turned to her with a dazed, scared fate.

“Oh, Sis,” he cried, “I don’t know what to do.  This isn’t the street that I thought it was.  I’m afraid we’re lost!”

They had reached the edge of the town by this time.  Only one more block of pretty suburban homes stood between them and the outskirting fields.

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said Phil, after a moment’s pause, bravely choking back his own fears at sight of his little sister’s frightened face.  “See that house over there with the firelight shining through the windows, so bright and warm?  It looks as if kind people lived there.  We’ll go and ask them to show us the way home.”

“I wish I was home now,” mourned Elsie.  “I wish I was all clean and warm, sitting at the supper-table with my good clothes on, beside my papa.  Maybe we’ll never find our way back, any more!  Maybe he’ll never kiss me and say, ‘Papa’s dear little daughter,’ again!  He’ll think I’m dead.  Maybe we’ll have to go and live with beggars, and be somebody’s poor children all our life to punish us for running away; and, oh, maybe we’ll never have any ‘home, sweet home’ any more!”

At the picture she made for herself, of the cheerful room with the dear home faces gathered around the table, which she might never see again, she began to sob wildly.  The tears were falling so fast now that she could hardly see, but stumbled blindly along, stumping her tired toes at every step, and clinging fast to Phil’s old jacket.

They had almost reached the house with the friendly windows, when a great iron gate just ahead of them swung open, and an elegantly dressed old lady walked out to step into a carriage, drawn up at the curbstone.  Behind her came another old lady, tall and stately, and with something so familiar in appearance that both the children stood still in astonishment.  She was looking about her with sharp, eagle-like eyes.  Her skirts swished softly as she walked, and the little bunches of gray curls on each side of her face bobbed gently under her imposing black bonnet.