"Selling papers, or what?" aunt Dorcas asked, with a perplexed expression on her face.
"Shinin'; that's blackin' boots, you know. Here's Joe, he scraped together seven dollars an' eighty-three cents, an' said to hisself that he'd be a howlin' swell, so what does he do but start a fruit-stand down on West Street, hire a clerk, an' go into the business in style. It didn't take him more'n two months to bust up, an' now he ain't got enough even to start in on sellin' papers, 'cause he spent it all on the princess."
"Who is the princess?" aunt Dorcas asked, with animation.
"She's a kid what he picked up on the street."
"Oh!" and the little woman looked relieved. "I thought, last night, when he spoke of the princess, that it was a child he meant."
"Why, didn't I tell you it was?"
"You said she was a kid."
"So she is, an' ain't that a child, or the next thing to it,—a girl?"
"Joseph, what does he mean? Who is the princess?"
"She's a little girl, aunt Dorcas, who's lost her folks, an' I found her in the street. She hadn't anywhere to go, so I had to take care of her, 'cause a bit of a thing like her couldn't stay outdoors all night, same's a boy."