"I'm a good girl."
"I never heard of a good girl's stealing," said Rose.
"If you say that again, I'll strike you," said Fanny, who was rather sensitive about the charge, particularly as it happened to be true.
Rose was not fond of disputing, and made no reply, but waited for Fanny to show her the way home. But this Fanny was unable to do. She had followed the organ-grinder round so many corners that she had quite lost her reckoning, and had no idea where she was. She stood undecided and looked helplessly around her.
"I don't know where to go," she said.
"Don't you know the way home?" asked Rose.
"No," answered Fanny, almost ready to cry.
Rose hardly knew whether to be glad or to be sorry. If she should be lost, and not find her way back to the boarding-house, there would be this comfort at least, that she would be separated from Mr. Martin. Still she was not quite prepared to live in the streets, and didn't know how to go to work to find her brother. Besides, Mr. Martin had threatened to harm him in case she ran away. So, on the whole, she was rather in hopes that Fanny would remember the way.
"We'd better go straight along," suggested Rose, "and perhaps we shall find your house."
As Fanny had no better plan to propose, they determined to adopt this plan. Neither had taken any particular notice of the way by which they had come, and were therefore unable to recognize any land marks. So, instead of nearing home, they were actually getting farther and farther away from it, and there is no knowing where they would finally have brought up, if in turning a corner they had not found themselves all at once face to face with Mrs. Waters herself. It may be explained that the latter, after an hour, not hearing the voices of the children outside, had become alarmed, and started in pursuit. She had already had a long and weary walk, and it was only by the merest chance that she caught sight of them. This long walk, with the anxiety which she had felt, had not improved her temper, but made her angry, so that she was eager to vent her indignation upon the two children.