"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."
"Go on, go on!" urged Matty; and Lizzie went on, and read: "'At six o'clock this morning one of the most disastrous fires that we have had for years broke out in the rear of the Cove Street tenement-houses, and, owing to the high wind and the dryness of the season, it had gained such headway by the time the engines arrived, that it looked as if not only the whole block but the adjoining buildings were doomed; but after hours of untiring effort on the part of the firemen, it was finally brought under control. Several of the tenements were completely gutted, and the wildest excitement prevailed as the panic-stricken tenants, with cries and shrieks of terror, jumped from the windows, or in other ways sought to save themselves. It is not yet ascertained how many lost their lives in these attempts, but it is feared that the number is by no means small.'"
"I'm going down there! I'm going down there!" Lizzie cried out here, breaking off her reading, and starting forward at a rapid pace.
"But, Lizzie—"