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 her lucky day. The kind, but sallow, lady had passed along the other side of the road as she was talking to Lady Grizel; and the sight of the two children recalled painfully to her mind the fits of palpitation of the heart which she had suffered after her brief interview with Pollyooly the day before. She called the attention of a leisured policeman to the impropriety of allowing two young children to beg in that select and fashionable quarter.

Finding that she resided in it, the policeman thought it wise to act on her suggestion. He crossed the road to meet Pollyooly as, her task performed, she came briskly along to Knightsbridge Barracks.

She was passing him, indeed she was hardly seeing him, when he pulled her up short with the startling words:

"You've no business to be beggin' 'ere, young 'un. You come along o' me to the station."

Pollyooly was startled, but not afraid. She had not the Alsatian child's fear of the police; the obese constable of Muttle-Deeping had been rather an official decoration of the village than a terror; the kindly joviality of Mr. Brown had caused her to