Cassy By Hesba Stretton Author:Sarah Smith Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: the child began to cry loudly again, and started back up the flight of steps, to seek his mother. By a great effort Cassy raised herself to her feet to follow hi... more »m, calling ' Alfytilly ! Alfytilly!' as she climbed the long staircase up to the bridge above. She was just in time to catch a glimpse of him, in his holland pinafore, and with no cap on his fair, curly hair, running through the crowd across the bridge. The keen air from the river refreshed and strengthened her, as she pursued him, just keeping him in sight amid the shifting of the people on the busy causeway. V. CASSY'S FIRST PLACE. At the other end of the bridge Cassy overtook the runaway child, as he stood staring about him in perplexity, not knowing where to turn. Once more she asked him his name, and where he lived; but now he had forgotten everything, and could only cry and call for his mother. She took firm hold of his little hand, and the two started off together to seek for his house round the corner. They turned round many corners, and walked down many streets, until they came backagain to the neighbourhood of the bridge. Cassy almost forgot her own weariness and faintness ; and though she felt obliged to move slowly, her senses were all on the alert, as though she had been in the forest, with some small, unfledged bird in her hand, searching for the nest from which it had fallen. The little, hot hand lying in hers was something like the warm throbbing, frightened breast of a nestling; and she no longer felt alone in the bewildering streets of London. ; At length, as they entered a quiet street, where the houses had once been the dwellings of people of a richer class than those that now lived in them, she saw before her a narrow thin house of three storeys ; only one room in breadth, with a small-pan...« less