“It isn’t time for the evenin’ papers yet, so I shall go ’round to the piers and see if I can’t get a job at smashin’ baggage.”
“But I shouldn’t think any one would want to do that,” said Florence, puzzled.
“It’s what we boys call it. It’s just carryin’ valises and bundles. Sometimes I show strangers the way to Broadway. Last week an old man paid me a dollar to show him the way to the Cooper Institute. He was a gentleman, he was. I’d like to meet him ag’in. Good-by, Miss Florence; I’ll be back some time this afternoon.”
“And I must be goin’, too,” said Mrs. O’Keefe. “I can’t depend on that Kitty; she’s a wild slip of a girl, and just as like as not I’ll find a dozen apples stole when I get back. I hope you won’t feel lonely, my dear.”
“I think I will lie down a while,” said Florence. “I have a headache.”
She threw herself on the bed, and a feeling of loneliness and desolation came over her.
Her new friends were kind, but they could not make up to her for her uncle’s love, so strangely lost, and the home she had left behind.
Chapter X.
The Arch Conspirator.
In the house on Madison Avenue, Curtis Waring was left in possession of the field. Through his machinations Florence had been driven from home and disinherited.
He was left sole heir to his uncle’s large property with the prospect of soon succeeding, for though only fifty-four, John Linden looked at least ten years older, and was as feeble as many men past seventy.