“Thank Heaven upon your knees, dear lady,” cried the girl, “that you had friends to care for and keep you in your childhood, and that you were never in the midst of cold and hunger, and riot and drunkenness, and⁠—and⁠—something worse than all⁠—as I have been from my cradle. I may use the word, for the alley and the gutter were mine, as they will be my deathbed.”

“I pity you!” said Rose, in a broken voice. “It wrings my heart to hear you!”

“Heaven bless you for your goodness!” rejoined the girl. “If you knew what I am sometimes, you would pity me, indeed. But I have stolen away from those who would surely murder me, if they knew I had been here, to tell you what I have overheard. Do you know a man named Monks?”

“No,” said Rose.

“He knows you,” replied the girl; “and knew you were here, for it was by hearing him tell the place that I found you out.”