Sue, A Little Heroine

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Sue, A Little Heroine, by L. T. Meade This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Sue, A Little Heroine Author: L. T. Meade Release Date: December 9, 2006 [eBook #20071] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUE, A LITTLE HEROINE*** E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) SUE A LITTLE HEROINE BY L. T. MEADE Author of "A Girl from America," "The Princess of the Revels," "Polly, a New-Fashioned Girl," "A Sweet Girl Graduate," etc. NEW YORK THE NEW YORK BOOK COMPANY 1910 BIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY L. T. Meade (Mrs. Elizabeth Thomasina Smith), English novelist, was born at Bandon, County Cork, Ireland, 1854, the daughter of Rev. R. T. Meade, Rector of Novohal, County Cork, and married Toulmin Smith in 1879. She wrote her first book, Lettie's Last Home, at the age of seventeen and since then has been an unusually prolific writer, her stories attaining wide popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. She worked in the British Museum, living in Bishopsgate Without, making special studies of East London life which she incorporated in her stories. She edited Atlanta for six years. Her pictures of girls, especially in the influence they exert on their elders, are drawn with intuitive fidelity; pathos, love, and humor, as in Daddy's Girl, flowing easily from her pen. She has traveled extensively, being devoted to motoring and other outdoor sports. Among more than fifty novels she has written, dealing largely with questions of home life, are: David's Little Lad; Great St. Benedict's; A Knight of To-day (1877); Miss Toosey's Mission; Bel-Marjory (1878); Laddie; Outcast Robbin, or, Your Brother and Mine; A Cry from the Great City ; White Lillie and Other Tales; Scamp and I; The Floating Light of Ringfinnan ; Dot and Her Treasures; The Children's Kingdom: the Story of Great Endeavor; The Water Gipsies; A Dweller in Tents ; Andrew Harvey's Wife ; Mou-setse: A Negro Hero (1880); Mother Herring's Chickens (1881); A London Baby: the Story of King Roy (1883); Hermie's Rose-Buds and Other Stories; How it all Came Round ; Two Sisters (1884); Autocrat of the Nursery; Tip Cat; Scarlet Anemones; The Band of Three ; A Little Silver Trumpet ; Our Little Ann ; The Angel of Love (1885); A World of Girls (1886); Beforehand; Daddy's Boy; The O'Donnells of Inchfawn ; The Palace Beautiful; Sweet Nancy (1887); Deb and the Duchess (1888); Nobody's Neighbors; Pen (1888); A Girl from America (1907). Contents I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV. XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII. XXIX. XXX. XXXI. XXXII. XXXIII. XXXIV. XXXV. XXXVI. XXXVII. BIG BEN'S VOICE. A SERVANT OF GOD. GOOD SECURITY . SOLITARY HOURS. EAGER WORDS. DIFFERENT SORT OF WORK. SHOPPING. COMPARISONS. A TRIP INTO THE COUNTRY . THE RETURN TO LONDON. A NEW DEPARTURE. LEFT ALONE. PETER HARRIS. THE SEARCH. CONCENTRATION OF PURPOSE. PICKLES. CINDERELLA. THE METROPOLITAN FIRE BRIGADE. A SAINTLY LADY . CAUGHT AGAIN. SAFE HOME AT LAST. NEWS OF SUE. AMATEUR DETECTIVE. MOTHER AND SON. ABOUT RONALD. TWO CUPS OF COFFEE. DELAYED TRIAL. CINDERELLA WOULD SHIELD THE REAL THIEF. A LITTLE HEROINE. WHAT WAS HARRIS TO HER? A STERN RESOLVE. AN UNEXPECTED ACCIDENT. A POINTED QUESTION. PICKLES TO THE FORE AGAIN. THE WINGS ARE GROWING. A CRISIS. THE HAPPY GATHERING. 1 3 7 9 10 12 21 26 31 35 44 48 60 66 69 74 78 79 83 87 94 105 109 112 113 124 127 130 132 134 136 137 138 141 142 143 151 SUE: A LITTLE HEROINE. 1 CHAPTER I. BIG BEN'S VOICE. Sue made a great effort to push her way to the front of the crowd. The street preacher was talking, and she did not wish to lose a word. She was a small, badly made girl, with a freckled face and hair inclined to red, but her eyes were wonderfully blue and intelligent. She pushed and pressed forward into the thick of the crowd. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and looking up, saw a very rough man gazing at her. "Be that you, Peter Harris?" said Sue. "An' why didn't yer bring Connie along?" "Hush!" said some people in the crowd. The preacher raised his voice a little higher: "'Tell His disciples and Peter that He goeth before you into Galilee.'" Peter Harris, the rough man, trembled slightly. Sue found herself leaning against him. She knew quite well that his breath was coming fast. "His disciples and Peter," she said to herself. The street preacher had a magnificent voice. It seemed to roll above the heads of the listening crowd, or to sink to a penetrating whisper which found its echo in their hearts. The deep, wonderful eyes of the man had a power of making people look at him. Sue gazed with all her might and main. "Father John be a good un," she said to herself. "He be the best man in all the world." After the discourse—which was very brief and full of stories, and just the sort which those rough people could not help listening to—a hymn was sung, and then the crowd dispersed. Sue was amongst them. She was in a great hurry. She forgot all about John Atkins, the little street preacher to whom she had been listening. She soon found herself in a street which was gaily lighted; there was a ginpalace at one end, another in the middle, and another at the farther end. This was Saturday night: Father John was fond of holding vigorous discourses on Saturday nights. Sue stopped to make her purchases. She was well-known in the neighborhood, and as she stepped in and out of one shop and then of another, she was the subject of a rough jest or a pleasant laugh, just as the mood of the person she addressed prompted one or other. She spent a few pence out of her meager purse, her purchases were put into a little basket, and she found her way home. The season was winter. She turned into a street back of Westminster; it went by the name of Adam Street. It was very long and rambling, with broken pavements, uneven roadways, and very tall, narrow, and dirty houses. In a certain room on the fourth floor of one of the poorest of these houses lay a boy of between ten and