The afternoon was busier than the morning, and once more Becky was forgotten.  It was not until the closing hour—­five o’clock—­that Lizzie thought of her again, and then she burst out to Matty and Josie Kelly, as they were leaving the store together,—­

“Where do you suppose Becky Hawkins is?  She hasn’t been here to-day, and she’s always here, and so punctual.”

“Mebbe she’s taken it into her head to leave,” answered Matty. “’T would be just like her; she’s that independent.”

“Catch her leaving when she’d have anything to lose.  She’d lose a week’s pay to leave without warning, and she knows it.  She’s too sharp to do that,” put in Josie, laughing,

“I hope she ain’t sick,” said Lizzie.

“Sick! her kind don’t get sick easy.  Those Cove streeters are tough.  Lizzie, how much did she get out of you for showing you how to make that basket?”

“Why, what I agreed to give,—­enough to make a basket for herself; and last night, when she was going home, I gave her some of my Mayflowers,—­I had plenty.”

“Well, I’m sure you are real generous.”

“No, I’m not; it was a bargain.”

“Yes, Becky’s bargain, and she’d like to have made a bargain with the rest of us.  The idea of taking you off into that fitting-room, so’t the rest of us wouldn’t profit by her showing you, and then her talking about private lessons!”

“Oh, that was only her fun.”

“Fun! and when one of the girls said, ’And private lessons must be paid for, mustn’t they, Becky?’ and she answered, ‘Yes, every time,’ do you think that was only fun?”

“Yes; and if it wasn’t, I don’t care.  She’s a right to make a little something if she can.  They’re awful poor folks down there on Cove Street.”

“Make a little something!  Yes, but I guess you wouldn’t catch any of the other girls here making a little something like that out of the friends she was working alongside of.”

“Friends!” exclaimed Lizzie.

“And say, Lizzie,” went on Josie, paying no attention to Lizzie’s exclamation, “I’ll bet you anything she sold her basket, and very likely to that prize-fighter,—­that Tim.”

“I don’t care if she did.  But don’t let’s talk any more about her.  I hate to talk about folks, and it doesn’t do any good to think bad things of ’em.  But, hark, what’s that the newsboys are crying?  ’Awful disaster down—­’ Where?  Stop a minute, I’m going to buy a paper.”

“Yes, here it is, awful disaster down in one of the Cove Street tenement-houses,” read Lizzie; and then, bringing up suddenly, she cried, “Why, girls, girls, that’s where Becky lives,—­in one of those tenements.”