“Lose me!” A wild thought, gone in a moment; but meanwhile she was already lost.

“I hope auntie won’t give Hollis nuffin to eat, ’cause he’s took away my skipt; nuffin to eat but meat and vertato, athout any pie.”

Flyaway shook her head so hard, that the “war-plume” under her bonnet would have nodded, if the air could have got at it.  “Why, where’s Hollis?” said she, looking back, and finding, to her surprise, he was not to be seen.  “I spected he’d come.  I thought I heard him walking ahind me.”

Flyaway’s anger had died out by this time.  It never lasted longer than a Fourth of July torpedo.

“He didn’t know I runned off.  Guess I’ll go back, and he’ll give me the skipt; and then I’ll forgive him all goody.”

A very nice plan; only, instead of going back, she turned a corner, and tripped along towards University Place.  She had twisted her head so much in looking for Horace, that it was completely turned round.  And, besides, a little farther on was a man playing a harp, and a small boy a violin.  Fly paused and listened, till she no longer remembered Horace or the “skipt.”  She forgot this was New York, and dreamed she had come to fairy-land.  Her soul was full of music.  Happy thoughts about nothing in particular made her smile and clap her hands.  Birds, flowers, Santa Clauses, Flipperties, and “pepnits” seemed to hover near.  Something beautiful was just going to happen, she didn’t know what.

After the man had played for some time without attracting attention from any body but Flyaway and a poor old beggar woman, he put his harp in a green bag, slung it over his shoulder, and walked off.  Flyaway followed without knowing it.  Down Sixth Avenue went the music-man, and close at his heels went she.  By and by she saw a little girl, no larger than herself, with a great bundle on her shoulders.

“You don’t s’pose she’s got a music on her back?—­No, not a music; it’s too soft all swelled out in a bunch.”

Fly went nearer the little girl, to see what she was carrying; and as she did so, some gray coals, mixed with ashes, fell out of the bundle upon her nice cloak.

“Why, she’s been and carried off her mother’s fireplace,” thought Fly, shaking her cloak in disgust; “what you s’pose she wanted to do that for?”

But far from carrying off her mother’s fireplace, the ragged little girl had only been picking up old coal out of barrels, and was taking it home to burn.  It had already been burned once, and picked over and burned again, and thrown away; but perhaps this poor child’s mother could coax it into a faint glow, warm enough to fry a few potatoes.

While Flyaway was shaking her cloak, and staring at some old silk dresses and bed-quilts, which were hung before a shop-door, the man with the harp on his back, and the boy with a violin under his arm, had turned a corner, and passed out of sight.  Flyaway rubbed her eyes, and looked again.  They must have gone down through the brick pavement, but she couldn’t see any hole.  Far away in the distance she heard their music again, and it did not come from under ground.  She ran to overtake it, and turned into Bleecker Street.  No music-man there, but a good supply of oranges and apples.