"Surely this cannot be?" said Mr. Dinneford.

"Surely it is," was replied. "I know of what I speak. There is hardly a viler wretch in all our city than this man, who draws hundreds—I might say, without exaggeration, thousands—of dollars from weak and tender-hearted people every year to be spent as I have said; and he is not the only one. Out of this district go hundreds of thieves and beggars every day, spreading themselves over the city and gathering in their harvests from our people. I see them at the street corners, coming out of yards and alley-gates, skulking near unguarded premises and studying shop-windows. They are all impostors or thieves. Not one of them is deserving of charity. He who gives to them wastes his money and encourages thieving and vagrancy. One half of the successful burglaries committed on dwelling-houses are in consequence of information gained by beggars. Servant-girls are lured away by old women who come in the guise of alms-seekers, and by well-feigned poverty and a seeming spirit of humble thankfulness—often of pious trust in God—win upon their sympathy and confidence. Many a poor weak girl has thus been led to visit one of these poor women in the hope of doing her some good, and many a one has thus been drawn into evil ways. If the people only understood this matter as I understand it, they would shut hearts and hands against all beggars. I add beggary as a vice to drinking and policy-buying as the next most active agency in the work of making paupers and criminals."

"But there are deserving poor," said Dinneford. "We cannot shut our hearts against all who seek for help."

"The deserving poor," replied Mr. Paulding, "are never common beggars—never those who solicit in the street or importune from house to house. They try always to help themselves, and ask for aid only when in great extremity. They rarely force themselves on your attention; they suffer and die often in dumb despair. We find them in these dreary and desolate cellars and garrets, sick and starving and silent, often dying, and minister to them as best we can. If the money given daily to idle and vicious beggars could be gathered into a fund and dispensed with a wise Christian charity, it would do a vast amount of good; now it does only evil."

"You are doubtless right in this," returned Mr. Dinneford. "Some one has said that to help the evil is to hurt the good, and I guess his saying is near the truth."

"If you help the vicious and the idle," was answered, "you simply encourage vice and idleness, and these never exist without doing a hurt to society. Withhold aid, and they will be forced to work, and so not only do something for the common good, but be kept out of the evil ways into which idleness always leads.

"So you see, sir, how wrong it is to give alms to the vast crew of beggars that infest our cities, and especially to the children who are sent out daily to beg or steal as opportunity offers.

"But there is another view of the case," continued Mr. Paulding, "that few consider, and which would, I am sure, arouse the people to immediate action if they understood it as I do. We compare the nation to a great man. We call it a 'body politic.' We speak of its head, its brain, its hands, its feet, its arteries and vital forces. We know that no part of the nation can be hurt without all the other parts feeling in some degree the shock and sharing the loss or suffering. What is true of the great man of the nation is true of our smaller communities, our States and cities and towns. Each is an aggregate man, and the health and well-being of this man depend on the individual men and the groups and societies of men by which it is constituted. There cannot be an unhealthy organ in the human system without a communication of disease to the whole body. A diseased liver or heart or lung, a useless hand or foot, an ulcer or local obstruction, cannot exist without injury and impediment to the whole. In the case of a malignant ulcer, how soon the blood gets poisoned!

"Now, here is a malignant ulcer in the body politic of our city. Is it possible, do you think, for it to exist, and in the virulent condition we find it, and not poison the blood of our whole community? Moral and spiritual laws are as unvarying in their action, out of natural sight though they be, as physical laws. Evil and good are as positive entities as fire, and destroy or consume as surely. As certainly as an ulcer poisons with its malignant ichor this blood that visits every part of the body, so surely is this ulcer poisoning every part of our community. Any one who reflects for a moment will see that it cannot be otherwise. From this moral ulcer there flows out daily and nightly an ichor as destructive as that from a cancer. Here theft and robbery and murder have birth, nurture and growth until full formed and organized, and then go forth to plunder and destroy. The life and property of no citizen is safe so long as this community exists. It has its schools of instruction for thieves and housebreakers, where even little children are educated to the business of stealing and robbery. Out from it go daily hundreds of men and women, boys and girls, on their business of beggary, theft and the enticement of the weak and unwary into crime. In it congregate human vultures and harpies who absorb most of the plunder that is gained outside, and render more brutal and desperate the wretches they rob in comparative safety.

"Let me show you how this is done. A man or a woman thirsting for liquor will steal anything to get money for whisky. The article stolen may be a coat, a pair of boots or a dress—something worth from five to twenty dollars. It is taken to one of these harpies, and sold for fifty cents or a dollar—anything to get enough for a drunken spree. I am speaking only of what I know. Then, again, a man or a woman gets stupidly drunk in one of the whisky-shops. Before he or she is thrown out upon the street, the thrifty liquor-seller 'goes through' the pockets of the insensible wretch, and confiscates all he finds. Again, a vile woman has robbed one of her visitors, and with the money in her pocket goes to a dram-shop. The sum may be ten dollars or it may be two hundred. A glass or so unlooses her tongue; she boasts of her exploit, and perhaps shows her booty. Not once in a dozen times will she take this booty away. If there are only a few women in the shop, the liquor-seller will most likely pounce on her at once and get the money by force. There is no redress. To inform the police is to give information against herself. He may give her back a little to keep her quiet or he may not, just as he feels about it. If he does not resort to direct force, he will manage in some other way to get the money. I could take you to the dram-shop of a man scarcely a stone's throw from this place who came out of the State's prison less than four years ago and set up his vile trap where it now stands. He is known to be worth fifty thousand dollars to-day. How did he make this large sum? By the profits of his bar? No one believes this. It has been by robbing his drunken and criminal customers whenever he could get them in his power."

"I am oppressed by all this," said Mr. Dinneford. "I never dreamed of such a state of things."

"Nor does one in a hundred of our good citizens, who live in quiet unconcern with this pest-house of crime and disease in their midst. And speaking of disease, let me give you another fact that should be widely known. Every obnoxious epidemic with which our city has been visited in the last twenty years has originated here—ship fever, relapsing fever and small-pox—and so, getting a lodgment in the body politic, have poured their malignant poisons into the blood and diseased the whole. Death has found his way into the homes of hundreds of our best citizens through the door opened for him here."

"Can this be so?" exclaimed Mr. Dinneford.

"It is just as I have said," was replied. "And how could it be otherwise? Whether men take heed or not, the evil they permit to lie at their doors will surely do them harm. Ignorance of a statute, a moral or a physical law gives no immunity from consequence if the law be transgressed—a fact that thousands learn every year to their sorrow. There are those who would call this spread of disease, originating here, all over our city, a judgment from God, to punish the people for that neglect and indifference which has left such a hell as this in their midst. I do not so read it. God has no pleasure in punishments and retributions. The evil comes not from him. It enters through the door we have left open, just as a thief enters our dwellings, invited through our neglect to make the fastenings sure. It comes under the operations of a law as unvarying as any law in physics. And so long as we have this epidemic-breeding district in the very heart of our city, we must expect to reap our periodical harvests of disease and death. What it is to be next year, or the next, none can tell."

"Does not your perpetual contact with all this give your mind an unhealthy tone—a disposition to magnify its disastrous consequences?" said Mr. Dinneford.

The missionary dropped his eyes. The flush and animation went out of his face.

"I leave you to judge for yourself," he answered, after a brief silence, and in a voice that betrayed a feeling of disappointment. "You have the fact before you in the board of health, prison, almshouse, police, house of refuge, mission and other reports that are made every year to the people. If they hear not these, neither will they believe, though one rose from the dead."

"All is too dreadfully palpable for unbelief," returned Mr. Dinneford. "I only expressed a passing thought."

"My mind may take an unhealthy tone—does often, without doubt," said Mr. Paulding. "I wonder, sometimes, that I can keep my head clear and my purposes steady amid all this moral and physical disorder and suffering. But exaggeration of either this evil or its consequences is impossible. The half can never be told."

Mr. Dinneford rose to go. As he did so, two little Italian children, a boy and a girl, not over eight years of age, tired, hungry, pinched and starved-looking little creatures, the boy with a harp slung over his shoulder, and the girl carrying a violin, went past on the other side.

"Where in the world do all of these little wretches come from?" asked Mr. Dinneford. "They are swarming our streets of late. Yesterday I saw a child who could not be over two years of age tinkling her triangle, while an older boy and girl were playing on a harp and violin. She seemed so cold and tired that it made me sad to look at her. There is something wrong about this."

"Something very wrong," answered the missionary. "Doubtless you think these children are brought here by their parents or near relatives. No such thing. Most of them are slaves. I speak advisedly. The slave-trade is not yet dead. Its abolition on the coast of Africa did not abolish the cupidity that gave it birth. And the 'coolie' trade, one of its new forms, is not confined to the East."

"I am at a loss for your meaning," said Mr. Dinneford.

"I am not surprised. The new slave-trade, which has been carried on with a secresy that is only now beginning to attract attention, has its source of supply in Southern Italy, from which large numbers of children are drawn every year and brought to this country.

"The headquarters of this trade—cruel enough in some of its features to bear comparison with the African slave-trade itself—are in New York. From this city agents are sent out to Southern Italy every year, where little intelligence and great poverty exist. These agents tell grand stories of the brilliant prospects offered to the young in America. Let me now read to you from the published testimony of one who has made a thorough investigation of this nefarious business, so that you may get a clear comprehension of its extent and iniquity.

"He says: 'One of these agents will approach the father of a family, and after commenting upon the beauty of his children, will tell him that his boys "should be sent at once to America, where they must in time become rich." "There are no poor in America." "The children should go when young, so that they may grow up with the people and the better acquire the language." "None are too young or too old to go to America." The father, of course, has not the means to go himself or to send his children to this delightful country. The agent then offers to take the children to America, and to pay forty or fifty dollars to the father upon his signing an indenture abandoning all claims upon them. He often, also, promises to pay a hundred or more at the end of a year, but, of course, never does it.

"'After the agent has collected a sufficient number of children, they are all supplied with musical instruments, and the trip on foot through Switzerland and France begins. They are generally shipped to Genoa, and often to Marseilles, and accomplish the remainder of the journey to Havre or Calais by easy stages from village to village. Thus they become a paying investment from the beginning. This journey occupies the greater portion of the summer months; and after a long trip in the steerage of a sailing-vessel, the unfortunate children land at Castle Garden. As the parents never hear from them again, they do not know whether they are doing well or not.

"'They are too young and ignorant to know how to get themselves delivered from oppression; they do not speak our language, and find little or no sympathy among the people whom they annoy. They are thus left to the mercy of their masters, who treat them brutally, and apparently without fear of the law or any of its officers. They are crowded into small, ill-ventilated, uncarpeted rooms, eighteen or twenty in each, and pass the night on the floor, with only a blanket to protect them from the severity of the weather. In the mornings they are fed by their temporary guardian with maccaroni, served in the filthiest manner in a large open dish in the centre of the room, after which they are turned out into the streets to beg or steal until late at night.

"'More than all this, when the miserable little outcasts return to their cheerless quarters, they are required to deliver every cent which they have gathered during the day; and if the same be deemed insufficient, the children are carefully searched and soundly beaten.

"'The children are put through a kind of training in the arts of producing discords on their instruments, and of begging, in the whole of which the cruelty of the masters and the stolid submission of the pupils are the predominant features. The worst part of all is that the children become utterly unfitted for any occupation except vagrancy and theft.'

"You have the answer to your question, 'Where do all these little wretches come from?'" said the missionary as he laid aside the paper from which he had been reading. "Poor little slaves!"



CHAPTER XXII.



EDITH'S life, as we have seen, became lost, so to speak, in charities. Her work lay chiefly with children, She was active in mission-schools and in two or three homes for friendless little ones, and did much to extend their sphere of usefulness. Her garments were plain and sombre, her fair young face almost colorless, and her aspect so nun-like as often to occasion remark.

Her patience and tender ways with poor little children, especially with the youngest, were noticed by all who were associated with her. Sometimes she would show unusual interest in a child just brought to one of the homes, particularly if it were a boy, and only two or three years old. She would hover about it and ask it questions, and betray an eager concern that caused a moment's surprise to those who noticed her. Often, at such times, the pale face would grow warm with the flush of blood sent out by her quicker heartbeats, and her eyes would have a depth of expression and a brightness that made her beauty seem the reflection of some divine beatitude. Now and then it was observed that her manner with these little waifs and cast-adrifts that were gathered in from the street had in it an expression of pain, that her eyes looked at them sadly, sometimes tearfully. Often she came with light feet and a manner almost cheery, to go away with eyes cast down and lips set and curved and steps that were slow and heavy.

Time had not yet solved the mystery of her baby's life or death; and until it was solved, time had no power to abate the yearning at her heart, to dull the edge of anxious suspense or to reconcile her to a Providence that seemed only cruel. In her daily prayers this thought of cruelty in God often came in to hide his face from her, and she rose from her knees more frequently in a passion of despairing tears than comforted. How often she pleaded with God, weeping bitter tears, that he would give her certainty in place of terrible doubts! Again, she would implore his loving care over her poor baby, wherever it might be.

So the days wore on, until nearly three years had elapsed since Edith's child was born.

It was Christmas eve, but there were no busy hands at work, made light by loving hearts, in the home of Mr. Dinneford. All its chambers were silent. And yet the coming anniversary was not to go uncelebrated. Edith's heart was full of interest for the children of the poor, the lowly, the neglected and the suffering, whom Christ came to save and to bless. Her anniversary was to be spent with them, and she was looking forward to its advent with real pleasure.

"We have made provision for four hundred children, said her father. "The dinner is to be at twelve o'clock, and we must be there by nine or ten. We shall be busy enough getting everything ready. There are forty turkeys to cut up and four hundred plates to fill."

"And many willing hands to do it," remarked Edith, with a quiet smile; "ours among the rest."

"You'd better keep away from there," spoke up Mrs. Dinneford, with a jar in her voice. "I don't see what possesses you. You can find poor little wretches anywhere, if you're so fond of them, without going to Briar street. You'll bring home the small-pox or something worse."

Neither Edith nor her father made any reply, and there fell a silence on the group that was burdensome to all. Mrs. Dinneford felt it most heavily, and after the lapse of a few minutes withdrew from the room.

"A good dinner to four hundred hungry children, some of them half starved," said Edith as her mother shut the door. "I shall enjoy the sight as much as they will enjoy the feast."

A little after ten o'clock on the next morning, Mr. Dinneford and Edith took their way to the mission-school in Briar street. They found from fifteen to twenty ladies and gentlemen already there, and at work helping to arrange the tables, which were set in the two long upper rooms. There were places for nearly four hundred children, and in front of each was an apple, a cake and a biscuit, and between every four a large mince pie. The forty turkeys were at the baker's, to be ready at a little before twelve o'clock, the dinner-hour, and in time for the carvers, who were to fill the four hundred plates for the expected guests.

At eleven o'clock Edith and her father went down to the chapel on the first floor, where the children had assembled for the morning exercises, that were to continue for an hour.

Edith had a place near the reading-desk where she could see the countenances of all those children who were sitting side by side in row after row and filling every seat in the room, a restless, eager, expectant crowd, half disciplined and only held quiet by the order and authority they had learned to respect. Such faces as she looked into! In scarcely a single one could she find anything of true childhood, and they were so marred by suffering and evil! In vain she turned from one to another, searching for a sweet, happy look or a face unmarked by pain or vice or passion. It made her heart ache. Some were so hard and brutal in their expression, and so mature in their aspect, that they seemed like the faces of debased men on which a score of years, passed in sensuality and crime, had cut their deep deforming lines, while others were pale and wasted, with half-scared yet defiant eyes, and thin, sharp, enduring lips, making one tearful to look at them. Some were restless as caged animals, not still for a single instant, hands moving nervously and bodies swaying to and fro, while others sat stolid and almost as immovable as stone, staring at the little group of men and women in front who were to lead them in the exercises of the morning.

At length one face of the many before her fixed the eyes of Edith. It was the face of a little boy scarcely more than three years old. He was only a few benches from her, and had been hidden from view by a larger boy just in front of him. When Edith first noticed this child, he was looking at her intently from a pair of large, clear brown eyes that had in them a wistful, hungry expression. His hair, thick and wavy, had been smoothly brushed by some careful hand, and fell back from a large forehead, the whiteness and smoothness of which was noticeable in contrast with those around him. His clothes were clean and good.

As Edith turned again and again to the face of this child, the youngest perhaps in the room, her heart began to move toward him. Always she found him with his great earnest eyes upon her. There seemed at last to be a mutual fascination. His eyes seemed never to move from her face; and when she tried to look away and get interested in other faces, almost unconsciously to herself her eyes would wander back, and she would find herself gazing at the child.

At eleven o'clock Mr. Paulding announced that the exercises for the morning would begin, when silence fell on the restless company of undisciplined children. A hymn was read, and then, as the leader struck the tune, out leaped the voices of these four hundred children, each singing with a strange wild abandon, many of them swaying their heads and bodies in time to the measure. As the first lines of the hymn,

"Jesus, gentle Shepherd, lead us, Much we need thy tender care,"

swelled up from the lips of those poor neglected children, the eyes of Edith grew blind with tears.

After a prayer was offered up, familiar addresses, full of kindness and encouragement, were made to the children, interspersed with singing and other appropriate exercises. These were continued for an hour. At their close the children were taken up stairs to the two long school-rooms, in which their dinner was to be served. Here were Christmas trees loaded with presents, wreaths of evergreen on the walls and ceilings, and illuminated texts hung here and there, and everything was provided to make the day's influence as beautiful and pleasant as possible to the poor little ones gathered in from cheerless and miserable homes.

Meantime, the carvers had been very busy at work on the forty turkeys—large, tender fellows, full of dressing and cooked as nicely as if they had been intended for a dinner of aldermen—cutting them up and filling the plates. There was no stinting of the supply. Each plate was loaded with turkey, dressing, potatoes that had been baked with the fowls, and a heaping spoonful of cranberry sauce, and as fast as filled conveyed to the tables by the lady attendants, who had come, many of them, from elegant homes, to assist the good missionary's wife and the devoted teachers of the mission-school in this labor of love. And so, when the four hundred hungry children came streaming into the rooms, they found tables spread with such bounty as the eyes of many of them had never looked upon, and kind gentlemen and beautiful ladies already there to place them at these tables and serve them while eating.

It was curious and touching, and ludicrous sometimes, to see the many ways in which the children accepted this bountiful supply of food. A few pounced upon it like hungry dogs, devouring whole platefuls in a few minutes, but most of them kept a decent restraint upon themselves in the presence of the ladies and gentlemen, for whom they could not but feel an instinctive respect. Very few of them could use at fork except in the most awkward manner. Some tried to cut their meat, but failing in the task, would seize it with their hands and eagerly convey it to their hungry mouths. Here and there would be seen a mite of a boy sitting in a kind of maze before a heaped-up dinner-plate, his hands, strangers, no doubt, to knife or fork, lying in his lap, and his face wearing a kind of helpless look. But he did not have to wait long. Eyes that were on the alert soon saw him; ready hands cut his food, and a cheery voice encouraged him to eat. If these children had been the sons and daughters of princes, they could not have been ministered to with a more gracious devotion to their wants and comfort than was shown by their volunteer attendants.

Edith, entering into the spirit of the scene, gave herself to the work in hand with an interest that made her heart glow with pleasure. She had lost sight of the little boy in whom she had felt so sudden and strong an interest, and had been searching about for him ever since the children came up from the chapel. At last she saw him, shut in and hidden between two larger boys, who were eating with a hungry eagerness and forgetfulness of everything around them almost painful to see. He was sitting in front of his heaped-up plate, looking at the tempting food, with his knife and fork lying untouched on the table. There was a dreamy, half-sad, half-bewildered look about him.

"Poor little fellow!" exclaimed Edith as soon as she saw him, and in a moment she was behind his chair.

"Shall I cut it up for you?" she asked as she lifted his knife and fork from the table.

The child turned almost with a start, and looked up at her with a quick flash of feeling on his face. She saw that he remembered her.

"Let me fix it all nicely," she said as she stooped over him and commenced cutting up his piece of turkey. The child did not look at his plate while she cut the food, but with his head turned kept his large eyes on her countenance.

"Now it's all right," said Edith, encouragingly, as she laid the knife and fork on his plate, taking a deep breath at the same time, for her heart beat so rapidly that her lungs was oppressed with the inflowing of blood. She felt, at the same time, an almost irresistible desire to catch him up into her arms and draw him lovingly to her bosom. The child made no attempt to eat, and still kept looking at her.

"Now, my little man," she said, taking his fork and lifting a piece of the turkey to his mouth. It touched his palate, and appetite asserted its power over him; his eyes went down to his plate with a hungry eagerness. Then Edith put the fork into his hand, but he did not know how to use it, and made but awkward attempts to take up the food.

Mrs. Paulding, the missionary's wife, came by at the moment, and seeing the child, put her hand on him, and said, kindly,

"Oh, it's little Andy," and passed on.

"So your name's Andy?"

"Yes, ma'am." It was the first time Edith had heard his voice. It fell sweet and tender on her ears, and stirred her heart strangely.

"Where do you live?"

He gave the name of a street she had never heard of before.

"But you're not eating your dinner. Come, take your fork just so. There! that's the way;" and Edith took his hand, in which he was still holding the fork, and lifted two or three mouthfuls, which he ate with increasing relish. After that he needed no help, and seemed to forget in the relish of a good dinner the presence of Edith, who soon found others who needed her service.

The plentiful meal was at last over, and the children, made happy for one day at least, were slowly dispersing to their dreary homes, drifting away from the better influences good men and women had been trying to gather about them even for a little while. The children were beginning to leave the tables when Edith, who had been busy among them, remembered the little boy who had so interested her, and made her way to the place where he had been sitting. But he was not there. She looked into the crowd of boys and girls who were pressing toward the door, but could not see the child. A shadow of disappointment came over her feelings, and a strange heaviness weighed over her heart.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said to herself. "I wanted to see him again."

She pressed through the crowd of children, and made her way down among them to the landing below and out upon the street, looking this way and that, but could not see the child. Then she returned to the upper rooms, but her search was in vain. Remembering that Mrs. Paulding had called him by name, she sought for the missionary's wife and made inquiry about him.

"Do you mean the little fellow I called Andy?" said Mrs. Paulding.

"Yes, that's the one," returned Edith.

"A beautiful boy, isn't he?"

"Indeed he is. I never saw such eyes in a child. Who is he, Mrs. Paulding, and what is he doing here? He cannot be the child of depraved or vicious parents."

"I do not think he is. But from whence he came no one knows. He drifted in from some unknown land of sorrow to find shelter on our inhospitable coast. I am sure that God, in his wise providence, sent him here, for his coming was the means of saving a poor debased man who is well worth the saving."

Then she told in a few words the story of Andy's appearance at Mr. Hall's wretched hovel and the wonderful changes that followed—how a degraded drunkard, seemingly beyond the reach of hope and help, had been led back to sobriety and a life of honest industry by the hand of a little child cast somehow adrift in the world, yet guarded and guided by Him who does not lose sight in his good providence of even a single sparrow.

"Who is this man, and where does he live?" asked Mr. Dinneford, who had been listening to Mrs. Paulding's brief recital.

"His name is Andrew Hall," was replied.

"Andrew Hall!" exclaimed Mr. Dinneford, with a start and a look of surprise.

"Yes, sir. That is his name, and he is now living alone with the child of whom we have been speaking, not very far from here, but in a much better neighborhood. He brought Andy around this morning to let him enjoy the day, and has come for him, no doubt, and taken him home."

"Give me the street and number, if you please, Mr. Paulding," said Mr. Dinneford, with much repressed excitement. "We will go there at once," he added, turning to his daughter.

Edith's face had become pale, and her father felt her hand tremble as she laid it on his arm.

At this moment a man came up hurriedly to Mrs. Paulding, and said, with manifest concern,

"Have you seen Andy, ma'am? I've been looking all over, but can't find him."

"He was here a little while ago," answered the missionary's wife. "We were just speaking of him. I thought you'd taken him home."

"Mr. Hall!" said Edith's father, in a tone of glad recognition, extending his hand at the same time.

"Mr. Dinneford!" The two men stood looking at each other, with shut lips and faces marked by intense feeling, each grasping tightly the other's hand.

"It is going to be well with you once more, my dear old friend!" said Mr. Dinneford.

"God being my helper, yes!" was the firm reply. "He has taken my feet out of the miry clay and set them on firm ground, and I have promised him that they shall not go down into the pit again. But Andy! I must look for him."

And he was turning away.

"I saw Andy a little while ago," now spoke up a woman who had come in from the street and heard the last remark.

"Where?" asked Mr. Hall.

"A girl had him, and she was going up Briar street on the run, fairly dragging Andy after her. She looked like Pinky Swett, and I do believe it was her. She's been in prison, you know but I guess her time's up."

Mr. Hall stopped to hear no more, but ran down stairs and up the street, going in the direction said to have been taken by the woman. Edith sat down, white and faint.

"Pinky Swett!" exclaimed Mrs. Paulding. "Why, that's the girl who had the child you were looking after a long time ago, Mr. Dinneford."

"Yes; I remember the name, and no doubt this is the very child she had in her possession at that time. Are you sure she has been in prison for the last two years?" and Mr. Dinneford turned to the woman who had mentioned her name.

"Oh yes, Sir; I remember all about it," answered the woman. "She stole a man's pocket-book, and got two years for it."

"You know her?"

"Oh yes, indeed! And she's a bad one, I can tell you. She had somebody's baby round in Grubb's court, and it was 'most starved to death. I heard it said it belonged to some of the big people up town, and that she was getting hush-money for it, but I don't know as it was true. People will talk."

"Do you know what became of that baby?" asked Edith, with ill-repressed excitement. Her face was still very pale, and her forehead contracted as by pain.

"No, ma'am. The police came round asking questions, and the baby wasn't seen in Grubb's court after that."

"You think it was Pinky Swett whom you saw just now?"

"I'm dead sure of it, sir," turning to Mr. Dinneford, who had asked the question.

"And you are certain it was the little boy named Andy that she had with her?"

"I'm as sure as death, sir."

"Did he look frightened?"

"Oh dear, yes, sir—scared as could be. He pulled back all his might, but she whisked him along as if he'd been only a chicken. I saw them go round the corner of Clayton street like the wind."

Mr. Paulding now joined them, and became advised of what had happened. He looked very grave.

"We shall find the little boy," he said. "He cannot be concealed by this wretched woman as the baby was; he is too old for that. The police will ferret him out. But I am greatly concerned for Mr. Hall. That child is the bond which holds him at safe anchorage. Break this bond, and he may drift to sea again. I must go after him."

And the missionary hurried away.

For over an hour Edith and her father remained at the mission waiting for some news of little Andy. At the end of this time Mr. Paulding came back with word that nothing could be learned beyond the fact that a woman with a child answering to the description of Andy had been seen getting into an up-town car on Clayton street about one o'clock. She came, it was said by two or three who professed to have seen her, from the direction of Briar street. The chief of police had been seen, and he had already telegraphed to all the stations. Mr. Hall was at the central station awaiting the result.

After getting a promise from Mr. Paulding to send a messenger the moment news of Andy was received, Mr. Dinneford and Edith returned home.



CHAPTER XXIII.



AS Edith glanced up, on arriving before their residence, she saw for a moment her mother's face at the window. It vanished like the face of a ghost, but not quick enough to prevent Edith from seeing that it was almost colorless and had a scared look. They did not find Mrs. Dinneford in the parlor when they came in, nor did she make her appearance until an hour afterward, when dinner was announced. Then it was plain to both her husband and daughter that something had occurred since morning to trouble her profoundly. The paleness noticed by Edith at the window and the scared look remained. Whenever she turned her eyes suddenly upon her mother, she found her looking at her with a strange, searching intentness. It was plain that Mrs. Dinneford saw in Edith's face as great a change and mystery as Edith saw in hers, and the riddle of her husband's countenance, so altered since morning, was harder even than Edith's to solve.

A drearier Christmas dinner, and one in which less food was taken by those who ate it, could hardly have been found in the city. The Briar-street feast was one of joy and gladness in comparison. The courses came and went with unwonted quickness, plates bearing off the almost untasted viands which they had received. Scarcely a word was spoken during the meal. Mrs. Dinneford asked no question about the dinner in Briar street, and no remark was made about it by either Edith or her father. In half the usual time this meal was ended. Mrs. Dinneford left the table first, and retired to her own room. As she did so, in taking her handkerchief from her pocket, she drew out a letter, which fell unnoticed by her upon the floor. Mr. Dinneford was about calling her attention to it when Edith, who saw his purpose and was near enough to touch his hand, gave a quick signal to forbear. The instant her mother was out of the room she sprang from her seat, and had just secured the letter when the dining-room door was pushed open, and Mrs. Dinneford came in, white and frightened. She saw the letter in Edith's hand, and with a cry like some animal in pain leaped upon her and tried to wrest it from her grasp. But Edith held it in her closed hand with a desperate grip, defying all her mother's efforts to get possession of it. In her wild fear and anger Mrs. Dinneford exclaimed,

"I'll kill you if you don't give me that letter!" and actually, in her blind rage, reached toward the table as if to get a knife. Mr. Dinneford, who had been for a moment stupefied, now started forward, and throwing his arms about his wife, held her tightly until Edith could escape with the letter, not releasing her until the sound of his daughter's retiring feet were no longer heard. By this time she had ceased to struggle; and when he released her, she stood still in a passive, dull sort of way, her arms falling heavily to her sides. He looked into her face, and saw that the eyes were staring wildly and the muscles in a convulsive quiver. Then starting and reaching out helplessly, she fell forward. Catching her in his arms, Mr. Dinneford drew her toward a sofa, but she was dead before he could raise her from the floor.

When Edith reached her room, she shut and locked the door. Then all her excitement died away. She sat down, and opening the letter with hands that gave no sign of inward agitation or suspense, read it through. It was dated at Havana, and was as follows:

"MRS. HELEN DINNEFORD: MADAM—My physician tells me that I cannot live a week—may die at any moment; and I am afraid to die with one unconfessed and unatoned sin upon my conscience—a sin into which I was led by you, the sharer of my guilt. I need not go into particulars. You know to what I refer—the ruin of an innocent, confiding young man, your daughter's husband. I do not wonder that he lost his reason! But I have information that his insanity has taken on the mildest form, and that his friends are only keeping him at the hospital until they can get a pardon from the governor. It is in your power and mine to establish his innocence at once. I leave you a single mouth in which to do this, and at the same time screen yourself, if that be possible. If, at the end of a month, it is not done, then a copy of this letter, with a circumstantial statement of the whole iniquitous affair, will be placed in the hands of your husband, and another in the hands of your daughter. I have so provided for this that no failure can take place. So be warned and make the innocence of George Granger as clear as noonday.

"LLOYD FREELING."

Twice Edith read this letter through before a sign of emotion was visible. She looked about the room, down at herself, and again at the letter.

"Am I really awake?" she said, beginning to tremble. Then the glad but terrible truth grappled with her convictions, and through the wild struggle and antagonism, of feeling that shook her soul there shone into her face a joy so great that the pale features grew almost radiant.

"Innocent! innocent!" fell from her lips, over which crept a smile of ineffable love. But it faded out quickly, and left in its place a shadow of ineffable pain.

"Innocent! innocent!" she repeated, now clasping her hands and lifting her eyes heavenward. "Dear Lord and Saviour! My heart is full of thankfulness! Innocent! Oh, let it be made as clear as noonday! And my baby, Lord—oh, my baby, my baby! Give him back to me!"

She fell forward upon her bed, kneeling, her face hidden among the pillows, trembling and sobbing.

"Edith! Edith!" came the agitated voice of her father from without. She rose quickly, and opening the door, saw his pale, convulsed countenance.

"Quick! quick! Your mother!" and Mr. Dinneford turned and ran down stairs, she following. On reaching the dining-room, Edith found her mother lying on a sofa, with the servants about her in great excitement. Better than any one did she comprehend what she saw.

"Dead," fell almost coldly from her lips.

"I have sent for Dr. Radcliffe. It may only be a fainting fit," answered Mr. Dinneford.

Edith stood a little way off from her mother, as if held from personal contact by an invisible barrier, and looked upon her ashen face without any sign of emotion.

"Dead, and better so," she said, in an undertone heard only by her father.

"My child! don't, don't!" exclaimed Mr. Dinneford in a deprecating whisper.

"Dead, and better so," she repeated, firmly.

While the servants chafed the hands and feet of Mrs. Dinneford, and did what they could in their confused way to bring her back to life, Edith stood a little way off, apparently undisturbed by what she saw, and not once touching her mother's body or offering a suggestion to the bewildered attendants.

When Dr. Radcliffe came and looked at Mrs. Dinneford, all saw by his countenance that he believed her dead. A careful examination proved the truth of his first impression. She was done with life in this world.

As to the cause of her death, the doctor, gathering what he could from her husband, pronounced it heart disease. The story told outside was this—so the doctor gave it, and so it was understood: Mrs. Dinneford was sitting at the table when her head was seen to sink forward, and before any one could get to her she was dead. It was not so stated to him by either Mr. Dinneford or Edith, but he was a prudent man, and careful of the good fame of his patients. Family affairs he held as sacred trusts. We'll he knew that there had been a tragedy in this home—a tragedy for which he was in part, he feared, responsible; and he did not care to look into it too closely. But of all that was involved in this tragedy he really knew little. Social gossip had its guesses at the truth, often not very remote, and he was familiar with these, believing little or much as it suited him.

It is not surprising that Edith's father, on seeing the letter of Lloyd Freeling, echoed his daughter's words, "Better so!"

Not a tear was shed on the grave of Mrs. Dinneford. Husband and daughter saw her body carried forth and buried out of sight with a feeling of rejection and a sense of relief. Death had no power to soften their hearts toward her. Charity had no mantle broad enough to cover her wickedness; filial love was dead, and the good heart of her husband turned away at remembrance with a shudder of horror.

Yes, it was "better so!" They had no grief, but thankfulness, that she was dead.

On the morning after the funeral there came a letter from Havana addressed to Mr. Dinneford. It was from the man Freeling. In it he related circumstantially all the reader knows about the conspiracy to destroy Granger. The letter enclosed an affidavit made by Freeling, and duly attested by the American consul, in which he stated explicitly that all the forgeries were made by himself, and that George Granger was entirely ignorant of the character of the paper he had endorsed with the name of the firm.

Since the revelation made to Edith by Freeling's letter to her mother, all the repressed love of years, never dead nor diminished, but only chained, held down, covered over, shook itself free from bonds and the wrecks and debris of crushed hopes. It filled her heart with an agony of fullness. Her first passionate impulse was to go to him and throw herself into his arms. But a chilling thought came with the impulse, and sent all the outgoing heart-beats back. She was no longer the wife of George Granger. In a weak hour she had yielded to the importunities of her father, and consented to an application for divorce. No, she was no longer the wife of George Granger. She had no right to go to him. If it were true that reason had been in part or wholly restored, would he not reject her with scorn? The very thought made her heart stand still. It would be more than she could bear.



CHAPTER XXIV.



NO other result than the one that followed could have been hoped for. The strain upon Edith was too great. After the funeral of her mother mind and body gave way, and she passed several weeks in a half-unconscious state.

Two women, leading actors in this tragedy of life, met for the first time in over two years—Mrs. Hoyt, alias Bray, and Pinky Swett. It had not gone very well with either of them during that period. Pinky, as the reader knows, had spent the time in prison, and Mrs. Bray, who had also gone a step too far in her evil ways, was now hiding from the police under a different name from any heretofore assumed. They met, by what seemed an accident, on the street.

"Pinky!"

"Fan!"

Dropped from their lips in mutual surprise and pleasure. A little while they held each other's hands, and looked into each other's faces with keenly-searching, sinister eyes, one thought coming uppermost in the minds of both—the thought of that long-time-lost capital in trade, the cast-adrift baby.

From the street they went to Mrs. Bray's hiding-place a small ill-furnished room in one of the suburbs of the city—and there took counsel together.

"What became of that baby?" was one of Mrs. Bray's first questions.

"It's all right," answered Pinky.

"Do you know where it is?"

"Yes."

"And can you put your hand on it?"

"At any moment."

"Not worth the trouble of looking after now," said Mrs. Bray, assuming an indifferent manner.

"Why?" Pinky turned on her quickly.

"Oh, because the old lady is dead."

"What old lady?"

"The grandmother."

"When did she die?"

"Three or four weeks ago."

"What was her name?" asked Pinky.

Mrs. Bray closed her lips tightly and shook her head.

"Can't betray thatt secret," she replied.

"Oh, just as you like;" and Pinky gave her head an impatient toss. "High sense of honor! Respect for the memory of a departed friend! But it won't go down with me, Fan. We know each other too well. As for the baby—a pretty big one now, by the way, and as handsome a boy as you'll find in all this city—he's worth something to somebody, and I'm on that somebody's track. There's mother as well as a grandmother in the case, Fan."

Mrs. Bray's eyes flashed, and her face grew red with an excitement she could not hold back. Pinky watched her keenly.

"There's somebody in this town to-day who would give thousands to get him," she added, still keeping her eyes on her companion. "And as I was saying, I'm on that somebody's track. You thought no one but you and Sal Long knew anything, and that when she died you had the secret all to yourself. But Sal didn't keep mum about it."

"Did she tell you anything?" demanded Mrs. Bray, thrown off her guard by Pinky's last assertion.

"Enough for me to put this and that together and make it nearly all out," answered Pinky, with great coolness. "I was close after the game when I got caught myself. But I'm on the track once more, and don't mean to be thrown off. A link or two in the chain of evidence touching the parentage of this child, and I am all right. You have these missing links, and can furnish them if you will. If not, I am bound to find them. You know me, Fan. If I once set my heart on doing a thing, heaven and earth can't stop me."

"You're devil enough for anything, I know, and can lie as fast as you can talk," returned Mrs. Bray, in considerable irritation. "If I could believe a word you said! But I can't."

"No necessity for it," retorted Pinky, with a careless toss of her head. "If you don't wish to hunt in company, all right. I'll take the game myself."

"You forget," said Mrs. Bray, "I can spoil your game."

"Indeed! how?"

"By blowing the whole thing to Mr.—"

"Mr. who?" asked Pinky, leaning forward eagerly as her companion paused without uttering the name that was on her lips.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Mrs. Bray gave a low tantalizing laugh.

"I'm not sure that I would, from you. I'm bound to know somehow, and it will be cheapest to find out for myself," replied Pinky, hiding her real desire, which was to get the clue she sought from Mrs. Bray, and which she alone could give. "As for blowing on me, I wouldn't like anything better. I wish you'd call on Mr. Somebody at once, and tell him I've got the heir of his house and fortune, or on Mrs. Somebody, and tell her I've got her lost baby. Do it, Fan; that's a deary."

"Suppose I were to do so?" asked Mrs. Bray, repressing the anger that was in her heart, and speaking with some degree of calmness.

"What then?"

"The police would be down on you in less than an hour."

"And what then?"

"Your game would be up."

Pinky laughed derisively:

"The police are down on me now, and have been coming down on me for nearly a month past. But I'm too much for them. I know how to cover my tracks."

"Down on you! For what?"

"They're after the boy."

"What do they know about him? Who set them after him?"

"I grabbed him up last Christmas down in Briar street after being on his track for a week, and them that had him are after him sharp."

"Who had him?"

"I'm a little puzzled at the rumpus it has kicked up," said Pinky, in reply. "It's stirred things amazingly."

"How?"

"Oh, as I said, the police are after me sharp. They've had me before the mayor twice, and got two or three to swear they saw me pick up the child in Briar street and run off with him. But I denied it all."

"And I can swear that you confessed it all to me," said Mrs. Bray, with ill-concealed triumph.

"It won't do, Fan," laughed Pinky. "They'll not be able to find him any more then than now. But I wish you would. I'd like to know this Mr. Somebody of whom you spoke. I'll sell out to him. He'll bid high, I'm thinking."

Baffled by her sharper accomplice, and afraid to trust her with the secret of the child's parentage lest she should rob her of the last gain possible to receive out of this great iniquity, Mrs. Bray became wrought up to a state of ungovernable passion, and in a blind rage pushed Pinky from her room. The assault was sudden and unexpected—-so sudden that Pinky, who was the stronger, had no time to recover herself and take the offensive before she was on the outside and the door shut and locked against her. A few impotent threats and curses were interchanged between the two infuriated women, and then Pinky went away.

On the day following, as Mr. Dinneford was preparing to go out, he was informed that a lady had called and was waiting down stairs to see him. She did not send her card nor give her name. On going into the room where the visitor had been shown, he saw a little woman with a dark, sallow complexion. She arose and came forward a step or two in evident embarrassment.

"Mr. Dinneford?" she said.

"That is my name, madam," was replied.

"You do not know me?"

Mr. Dinneford looked at her closely, and then answered,

"I have not that pleasure, madam."

The woman stood for a moment or two, hesitating.

"Be seated, madam," said Mr. Dinneford.

She sat down, seeming very ill at ease. He took a chair in front of her.

"You wish to see me?"

"Yes, sir, and on a matter that deeply concerns you. I was your daughter's nurse when her baby was born."

She paused at this. Mr. Dinneford had caught his breath. She saw the almost wild interest that flushed his face.

After waiting a moment for some response, she added, in a low, steady voice,

"That baby is still alive, and I am the only person who can clearly identify him."

Mr. Dinneford did not reply immediately. He saw by the woman's face that she was not to be trusted, and that in coming to him she had only sinister ends in view. Her story might be true or false. He thought hurriedly, and tried to regain exterior calmness. As soon as he felt that he could speak without betraying too much eagerness, he said, with an appearance of having recognized her,

"You are Mrs.——?"

He paused, but she did not supply the name.

"Mrs.——? Mrs.——? what is it?"

"No matter, Mr. Dinneford," answered Mrs. Bray, with the coolness and self-possession she had now regained. "What I have just told you is true. If you wish to follow up the matter—wish to get possession of your daughter's child—you have the opportunity; if not, our interview ends, of course;" and she made a feint, as if going to rise.

"Is it the child a woman named Pinky Swett stole away from Briar street on Christmas day?" asked Mr. Dinneford, speaking from a thought that flashed into his mind, and so without premeditation. He fixed his eyes intently on Mrs. Bray's face, and saw by its quick changes and blank surprise that he had put the right question. Before she could recover herself and reply, he added,

"And you are, doubtless, this same Pinky Swett."

The half smile, half sneer, that curved the woman's lips, told Mr. Dinneford that he was mistaken.

"No, sir," was returned, with regained coolness. "I am not 'this same Pinky Swett.' You are out there."

"But you know her?"

"I don't know anything just now, sir," answered the woman, with a chill in her tones. She closed her lips tightly, and shrunk back in her chair.

"What, then, are your here for?" asked Mr. Dinneford, showing considerable sternness of manner.

"I thought you understood," returned the woman. "I was explicit in my statement."

"Oh, I begin to see. There is a price on your information," said Mr. Dinneford.

"Yes, sir. You might have known that from the first. I will be frank with you."

"But why have you kept this secret for three years? Why did you not come before?" asked Mr. Dinneford.

"Because I was paid to keep the secret. Do you understand?"

Too well did Mr. Dinneford understand, and it was with difficulty he could suppress a groan as his head drooped forward and his eyes fell to the floor.

"It does not pay to keep it any longer," added the woman.

Mr. Dinneford made no response.

"Gain lies on the other side. The secret is yours, if you will have it."

"At what price?" asked Mr. Dinneford, without lifting his eyes.

"One thousand dollars, cash in hand."

"On production of the child and proof of its identity?"

Mrs. Bray took time to answer. "I do not mean to have any slip in this matter," she said. "It was a bad business at the start, as I told Mrs. Dinneford, and has given me more trouble than I've been paid for, ten times over. I shall not be sorry to wash my hands clean of it; but whenever I do so, there must be compensation and security. I haven't the child, and you may hunt me to cover with all the police hounds in the city, and yet not find him."

"If I agree to pay your demand," replied Mr. Dinneford, "it can only be on production and identification of the child."

"After which your humble servant will be quickly handed over to the police," a low, derisive laugh gurgling in the woman's throat.

"The guilty are ever in dread, and the false always in fear of betrayal," said Mr. Dinneford. "I can make no terms with you for any antecedent reward. The child must be in my possession and his parentage clearly proved before I give you a dollar. As to what may follow to yourself, your safety will lie in your own silence. You hold, and will still hold, a family secret that we shall not care to have betrayed. If you should ever betray it, or seek, because of its possession, to annoy or prey upon us, I shall consider all honorable contract we may have at an end, and act accordingly."

"Will you put in writing, an obligation to pay me one thousand dollars in case I bring the child and prove its identity?"

"No; but I will give you my word of honor that this sum shall be placed in your hands whenever you produce the child."

Mrs. Bray remained silent for a considerable time, then, as if satisfied, arose, saying,

"You will hear from me by to-morrow or the day after, at farthest. Good-morning."

As she was moving toward the door Mr. Dinneford said,

"Let me have your name and residence, madam."

The woman quickened her steps, partly turning her head as she did so, and said, with a sinister curl of the lip,

"No, I thank you, sir."

In the next moment she was gone.



CHAPTER XXV.



NOTHING of all this was communicated to Edith. After a few weeks of prostration strength came slowly back to mind and body, and with returning strength her interest in her old work revived. Her feet went down again into lowly ways, and her hands took hold of suffering.

Immediately on receipt of Freeling's letter and affidavit, Mr. Dinneford had taken steps to procure a pardon for George Granger. It came within a few days after the application was made, and the young man was taken from the asylum where he had been for three years.

Mr. Dinneford went to him with Freeling's affidavit and the pardon, and placing them in his hands, watched him closely to see the effect they would produce. He found him greatly changed in appearance, looking older by many years. His manner was quiet, as that of one who had learned submission after long suffering. But his eyes were clear and steady, and without sign of mental aberration. He read Freeling's affidavit first, folded it in an absent kind of way, as if he were dreaming, reopened and read it through again. Then Mr. Dinneford saw a strong shiver pass over him; he became pale and slightly convulsed. His face sunk in his hands, and he sat for a while struggling with emotions that he found it almost impossible to hold back.

When he looked up, the wild struggle was over.

"It is too late," he said.

"No, George, it is never too late," replied Mr. Dinneford. "You have suffered a cruel wrong, but in the future there are for you, I doubt not, many compensations."

He shook his head in a dreary way, murmuring,

"I have lost too much."

"Nothing that may not be restored. And in all you have not lost a good conscience."

"No, thank God!" answered the young man, with a sudden flush in his face. "But for that anchor to my soul, I should have long ago drifted out to sea a helpless wreck. No thank God! I have not lost a good conscience."

"You have not yet read the other paper," said Mr. Dinneford. "It is your pardon."

"Pardon!" An indignant flash came into Granger's eyes. "Oh, sir, that hurts too deeply. Pardon! I am not a criminal."

"Falsely so regarded in the eyes of the law, but now proved to be innocent, and so expressed by the governor. It is not a pardon in any sense of remission, but a declaration of innocence and sorrow for the undeserved wrongs you have suffered."

"It is well," he answered, gloomily—"the best that can be done; and I should be thankful."

"You cannot be more deeply thankful than I am, George." Mr. Dinneford spoke with much feeling. "Let us bury this dreadful past out of our sight, and trust in God for a better future. You are free again, and your innocence shall, so far as I have power to do it, be made as clear as noonday. You are at liberty to depart from here at once. Will you go with me now?"

Granger lifted a half-surprised look to Mr. Dinneford's face.

"Thank you," he replied, after a few moments' thought. "I shall never forget your kindness, but I prefer remaining here for a few days, until I can confer with my friends and make some decision as to the future."

Granger's manner grew reserved, almost embarrassed. Mr. Dinneford was not wrong in his impression of the cause. How could he help thinking of Edith, who, turning against him with the rest, had accepted the theory of guilt and pronounced her sentence upon him, hardest of all to bear? So it appeared to him, for he had nothing but the hard fact before him that she had applied for and obtained a divorce.

Yes, it was the thought of Edith that drew Granger back and covered him with reserve. What more could Mr. Dinneford say? He had not considered all the hearings of this unhappy case; but now that he remembered the divorce, he began to see, how full of embarrassment it was, and how delicate the relation he bore to this unhappy victim of his wife's dreadful crime.

What could he say for Edith? Nothing! He knew that her heart had never turned itself away from this man, though she had, under a pressure she was not strong enough to resist, turned her back upon him and cast aside his dishonored name, thus testifying to the world that she believed him base and criminal. If he should speak of her, would not the young man answer with indignant scorn?

"Give me the address of your friends, and I will call upon them immediately," said Mr. Dinneford, replying, after a long silence, to Granger's last remark. "I am here to repair, to any extent that in me lies the frightful wrongs you have suffered. I shall make your cause my own, and never rest until every false tarnish shall be wiped from your name. In honor and conscience I am bound to this."

Looking at the young man intently, he saw a grateful response in the warmer color that broke into his face and in the moisture that filled his eyes.

"I would be base if I were not thankful, Mr. Dinneford," Granger replied. "But you cannot put yourself in my place, cannot know what I have suffered, cannot comprehend the sense of wrong and cruel rejection that has filled my soul with the very gall of bitterness. To be cast out utterly, suddenly and without warning from heaven into hell, and for no evil thought or act! Ah, sir! you do not understand."

"It was a frightful ordeal, George," answered Mr. Dinneford, laying his hand on Granger with the tenderness of a father. "But, thank God! it is over. You have stood the terrible heat, and now, coming out of the furnace, I shall see to it that not even the smell of fire remain upon your garments."

Still the young man could not be moved from his purpose to remain at the asylum until he had seen and conferred with his friends, in whose hands Mr. Dinneford placed the governor's pardon and the affidavit of Lloyd Freeling setting forth his innocence.

Mrs. Bray did not call on Mr. Dinneford, as she had promised. She had quarreled with Pinky Swett, as the reader will remember, and in a fit of blind anger thrust her from the room. But in the next moment she remembered that she did not know where the girl lived, and if she lost sight of her now, might not again come across her for weeks or months. So putting on her hat and cloak hurriedly, she waited until she heard Pinky going down stairs, and then came out noiselessly, and followed her into the street. She had to be quick in her movements, for Pinky, hot with anger, was dashing off at a rapid speed. For three or four blocks Mrs. Bray kept her in view; but there being only a few persons in the street, she had to remain at a considerable distance behind, so as not to attract her attention. Suddenly, she lost sight of Pinky. She had looked back on hearing a noise in the street; turning again, she could see nothing of the girl. Hurrying forward to the corner which Pinky had in all probability turned, Mrs. Bray looked eagerly up and down, but to her disappointment Pinky was not in sight.

"Somewhere here. I thought it was farther off," said Mrs. Bray to herself. "It's too bad that I should have lost sight of her."

She stood irresolute for a little while, then walked down one of the blocks and back on the other side. Halfway down, a small street or alley divided the block.

"It's in there, no doubt," said Mrs. Bray, speaking to herself again. On the corner was a small shop in which notions and trimmings were sold. Going into this, she asked for some trifling articles, and while looking over them drew the woman who kept the shop into conversation.

"What kind of people live in this little street?" she inquired, in a half-careless tone.

The woman smiled as she answered, with a slight toss of the head,

"Oh, all kinds."

"Good, bad and indifferent?"

"Yes, white sheep and black."

"So I thought. The black sheep will get in. You can't keep 'em out."

"No, and 'tisn't much use trying," answered the shop-keeper, with a levity of manner not unmarked by Mrs. Bray, who said,

"The black sheep have to live as well as the white ones."

"Just so. You hit the nail there."

"And I suppose you find their money as good as that of the whitest?"

"Oh yes."

"And quite as freely spent?"

"As to that," answered the woman, who was inclined to be talkative and gossipy, "we make more out of the black sheep than out of the white ones. They don't higgle so about prices. Not that we have two prices, but you see they don't try to beat us down, and never stop to worry about the cost of a thing if they happen to fancy it. They look and buy, and there's the end of it."

"I understand," remarked Mrs. Bray, with a familiar nod. "It may be wicked to say so; but if I kept a store like this, I'd rather have the sinners for customers than the saints."

She had taken a seat at the counter; and now, leaning forward upon her arms and looking at the shop-woman in a pleasant, half-confidential way, said,

"You know everybody about here?"

"Pretty much."

"The black sheep as well as the white?"

"As customers."

"Of course; that's all I mean," was returned. "I'd be sorry if you knew them in any other way—some of them, at least." Then, after a pause, "Do you know a girl they call Pinky?"

"I may know her, but not by that name. What kind of a looking person is she?"

"A tall, bold-faced, dashing, dare-devil sort of a girl, with a snaky look in her eyes. She wears a pink hat with a white feather."

"Yes, I think I have seen some one like that, but she's not been around here long."

"When did you see her last?"

"If it's the same one you mean, I saw her go by here not ten minutes ago. She lives somewhere down the alley."

"Do you know the house?"

"I do not; but it can be found, no doubt. You called her Pinky."

"Yes. Her name is Pinky Swett."

"O-h! o-h!" ejaculated the shop-woman, lifting her eyebrows in a surprised way. "Why, that's the girl the police were after. They said she'd run off with somebody's child."

"Did they arrest her?" asked Mrs. Bray, repressing, as far as possible, all excitement.

"They took her off once or twice, I believe, but didn't make anything out of her. At any rate, the child was not found. It belonged, they said, to a rich up-town family that the girl was trying to black-mail. But I don't see how that could be."

"The child isn't about here?"

"Oh dear, no! If it was, it would have been found long before this, for the police are hunting around sharp. If it's all as they say, she's got it hid somewhere else."

While Mrs. Bray talked with the shop-woman, Pinky, who had made a hurried call at her room, only a hundred yards away, was going as fast as a street-car could take her to a distant part of the city. On leaving the car at the corner of a narrow, half-deserted street, in which the only sign of life was a child or two at play in the snow and a couple of goats lying on a cellar-door, she walked for half the distance of a block, and then turned into a court lined on both sides with small, ill-conditioned houses, not half of them tenanted. Snow and ice blocked the little road-way, except where a narrow path had been cut along close to the houses.

Without knocking, Pinky entered one of these poor tenements. As she pushed open the door, a woman who was crouching down before a small stove, on which something was cooking, started up with a look of surprise that changed to one of anxiety and fear the moment she recognized her visitor.

"Is Andy all right?" cried Pinky, alarm in her face.

The woman tried to stammer out something, but did not make herself understood. At this, Pinky, into whose eyes flashed a fierce light, caught her by the wrists in a grip that almost crushed the bones.

"Out with it! where is Andy?"

Still the frightened woman could not speak.

"If that child isn't here, I'll murder you!" said Pinky, now white with anger, tightening her grasp.

At this, with a desperate effort, the woman flung her off, and catching up a long wooden bench, raised it over her head.

"If there's to be any murder going on," she said, recovering her powers of speech, "I'll take the first hand! As for the troublesome brat, he's gone. Got out of the window and climbed down the spout. Wonder he wasn't killed. Did fall—I don't know how far—and must have hurt himself, for I heard a noise as if something heavy had dropped in the yard, but thought it was next door. Half an hour afterward, in going up stairs and opening the door of the room where I kept him locked in, I found it empty and the window open. That's the whole story. I ran out and looked everywhere, but he was off. And now, if the murder is to come, I'm going to be in first."

And she still kept the long wooden bench poised above her head.

Pinky saw a dangerous look in the woman's eyes.

"Put that thing down," she cried, "and don't be a fool. Let me see;" and she darted past the woman and ran up stairs. She found the window of Andy's prison open and the print of his little fingers on the snow-covered sill outside, where he had held on before dropping to the ground, a distance of many feet. There was no doubt now in her mind as to the truth of the woman's story. The child had made his escape.

"Have you been into all the neighbors' houses?" asked Pinky as she came down hastily.

"Into some, but not all," she replied.

"How long is it since he got away?"

"More than two hours."

"And you've been sticking down here, instead of ransacking every hole and corner in the neighborhood. I can hardly keep my hands off of you."

The woman was on the alert. Pinky saw this, and did not attempt to put her threat into execution. After pouring out her wrath in a flood of angry invectives, she went out and began a thorough search of the neighborhood, going into every house for a distance of three or four blocks in all directions. But she could neither find the child nor get the smallest trace of him. He had dropped out of sight, so far as she was concerned, as completely as if he had fallen into the sea.



CHAPTER XXVI.



DAY after day Mr. Dinneford waited for the woman who was to restore the child of Edith, but she did not come. Over a week elapsed, but she neither called nor sent him a sign or a word. He dared not speak about this to Edith. She was too weak in body and mind for any further suspense or strain.

Drew Hall had been nearly thrown down again by the events of that Christmas day. The hand of a little child was holding him fast to a better life; but when that hand was torn suddenly away from his grasp, he felt the pull of evil habits, the downward drift of old currents. His steps grew weak, his knees trembled. But God did not mean that he should be left alone. He had reached down to him through the hand of a little child, had lifted him up and led him into a way of safety; and now that this small hand, the soft, touch of which had gone to his heart and stirred him with old memories, sad and sweet and holy, had dropped away from him, and he seemed to be losing his hold of heaven, God sent him, in Mr. Dinneford, an angel with a stronger hand. There were old associations that held these men together. They had been early and attached friends, and this meeting, after many years of separation, under such strange circumstances, and with a common fear and anxiety at heart, could not but have the effect of arousing in the mind of Mr. Dinneford the deepest concern for the unhappy man. He saw the new peril into which he was thrown by the loss of Andy, and made it his first business to surround him with all possible good and strengthening influences. So the old memories awakened by the coming of Andy did not fade out and lose their power over the man. He had taken hold of the good past again, and still held to it with the tight grasp of one conscious of danger.

"We shall find the child—no fear of that," Mr. Dinneford would say to him over and over again, trying to comfort his own heart as well, as the days went by and no little Andy could be found. "The police have the girl under the sharpest surveillance, and she cannot baffle them much longer."

George Granger left the asylum with his friends, and dropped out of sight. He did not show himself in the old places nor renew old associations. He was too deeply hurt. The disaster had been too great for any attempt on his part at repairing the old dwelling-places of his life. His was not what we call a strong nature, but he was susceptible of very deep impressions. He was fine and sensitive, rather than strong. Rejected by his wife and family without a single interview with her or even an opportunity to assert his innocence, he felt the wrong so deeply that he could not get over it. His love for his wife had been profound and tender, and when it became known to him that she had accepted the appearances of guilt as conclusive, and broken with her own hands the tie that bound them, it was more than he had strength to bear, and a long time passed before he rallied from this hardest blow of all.

Edith knew that her father had seen Granger after securing his pardon, and she had learned from him only, particulars of the interview. Beyond this nothing came to her. She stilled her heart, aching with the old love that crowded all its chambers, and tried to be patient and submissive. It was very hard. But she was helpless. Sometimes, in the anguish and wild agitation of soul that seized her, she would resolve to put in a letter all she thought and felt, and have it conveyed to Granger; but fear and womanly delicacy drove her back from this. What hope had she that he would not reject her with hatred and scorn? It was a venture she dared not make, for she felt that such a rejection would kill her. But for her work among the destitute and the neglected, Edith would have shut herself up at home. Christian charity drew her forth daily, and in offices of kindness and mercy she found a peace and rest to which she would otherwise have been stranger.

She was on her way home one afternoon from a visit to the mission-school where she had first heard of the poor baby in Grubb's court. All that day thoughts of little Andy kept crowding into her mind. She could not push aside his image as she saw it on Christmas, when he sat among the children, his large eyes resting in such a wistful look upon her face. Her eyes often grew dim and her heart full as she looked upon that tender face, pictured for her as distinctly as if photographed to natural sight.

"Oh my baby, my baby!" came almost audibly from her lips, in a burst of irrepressible feeling, for ever since she had seen this child, the thought of him linked itself with that of her lost baby.

Up to this time her father had carefully concealed his interview with Mrs. Bray. He was in so much doubt as to the effect that woman's communication might produce while yet the child was missing that he deemed it best to maintain the strictest silence until it could be found.

Walking along with heart and thought where they dwelt for so large a part of her time, Edith, in turning a corner, came upon a woman who stopped at sight of her as if suddenly fastened to the ground—stopped only for an instant, like one surprised by an unexpected and unwelcome encounter, and then made a motion to pass on. But Edith, partly from memory and partly from intuition, recognized her nurse, and catching fast hold of her, said in a low imperative voice, while a look of wild excitement spread over her face,

"Where is my baby?"

The woman tried to shake her off, but Edith held her with a grasp that could not be broken.

"For Heaven's sake," exclaimed the woman "let go of me! This is the public street, and you'll have a crowd about us in a moment, and the police with them."

But Edith kept fast hold of her.

"First tell me where I can find my baby," she answered.

"Come along," said the woman, moving as she spoke in the direction Edith was going when they met. "If you want a row with the police, I don't."

Edith was close to her side, with her hand yet upon her and her voice in her ears.

"My baby! Quick! Say! Where can I find my baby?"

"What do I know of your baby? You are a fool, or mad!" answered the woman, trying to throw her off. "I don't know you."

"But I know you, Mrs. Bray," said Edith, speaking the name at a venture as the one she remembered hearing the servant give to her mother.

At this the woman's whole manner changed, and Edith saw that she was right—that this was, indeed, the accomplice of her mother.

"And now," she added, in voice grown calm and resolute, "I do not mean to let you escape until I get sure knowledge of my child. If you fly from me, I will follow and call for the police. If you have any of the instincts of a woman left, you will know that I am desperately in earnest. What is a street excitement or a temporary arrest by the police, or even a station-house exposure, to me, in comparison with the recovery of my child? Where is he?"

"I do not know," replied Mrs. Bray. "After seeing your father—"

"My father! When did you see him?" exclaimed Edith, betraying in her surprised voice the fact that Mr. Dinneford had kept so far, even from her, the secret of that brief interview to which she now referred.

"Oh, he hasn't told you! But it's no matter—he will do that in good time. After seeing your father, I made an effort to get possession of your child and restore him as I promised to do. But the woman who had him hidden somewhere managed to keep out of my way until this morning. And now she says he got off from her, climbed out of a second-story window and disappeared, no one knows where."

"This woman's name is Pinky Swett?" said Edith.

"Yes."

Mrs. Bray felt the hand that was still upon her arm shake as if from a violent chill.

"Do you believe what she says?—that the child has really escaped from her?"

"Yes."

"Where does she live?"

Mrs. Bray gave the true directions, and without hesitation.

"Is this child the one she stole from the Briar-street mission on Christmas day?" asked Edith.

"He is," answered Mrs. Bray.

"How shall I know he is mine? What proof is there that little Andy, as he is called, and my baby are the same?"

"I know him to be your child, for I have never lost sight of him," replied the woman, emphatically. "You may know him by his eyes and mouth and chin, for they are yours. Nobody can mistake the likeness. But there is another proof. When I nursed you, I saw on your arm, just above the elbow, a small raised mark of a red color, and noticed a similar one on the baby's arm. You will see it there whenever you find the child that Pinky Swett stole from the mission-house on Christmas day. Good-bye!"

And the woman, seeing that her companion was off of her guard, sprang away, and was out of sight in the crowd before Edith could rally herself and make an attempt to follow. How she got home she could hardly tell.



CHAPTER XXVII.



FOR weeks the search for Andy was kept up with unremitting vigilance, but no word of him came to the anxious searchers. A few days after the meeting with Mrs. Bray, the police report mentioned the arrest of both Pinky Swett and Mrs. Bray, alias Hoyt, alias Jewett, charged with stealing a diamond ring of considerable value from a jewelry store. They were sent to prison, in default of bail, to await trial. Mr. Dinneford immediately went to the prison and had an interview with the two women, who could give him no information about Andy beyond what Mrs. Bray had already communicated in her hurried talk with Edith. Pinky could get no trace of him after he had escaped. Mr. Dinneford did not leave the two women until he had drawn from them a minute and circumstantial account of all they knew of Edith's child from the time it was cast adrift. When he left them, he had no doubt as to its identity with Andy. There was no missing link in the chain of evidence.

The new life that had opened to little Andy since the dreary night on which, like a stray kitten, he had crept into Andrew Hall's miserable hovel, had been very pleasant. To be loved and caressed was a strange and sweet experience. Poor little heart! It fluttered in wild terror, like a tiny bird in the talons of a hawk, when Pinky Swett swooped down and struck her foul talons into the frightened child and bore him off.

"If you scream, I'll choke you to death!" she said, stooping to his ear, as she hurried him from the mission-house. Scared into silence, Andy did not cry out, and the arm that grasped and dragged him away was so strong that he felt resistance to be hopeless. Passing from Briar street, Pinky hurried on for a distance of a block, when she signaled a street-car. As she lifted Andy upon the platform, she gave him another whispered threat:

"Mind! if you cry, I'll kill you!"

There were but few persons in the car, and Pinky carried the child to the upper end and sat him down with his face turned forward to the window, so as to keep it as much out of observation as possible. He sat motionless, stunned with surprise and fear. Pinky kept her eyes upon him. His hands were laid across his breast and held against it tightly. They had not gone far before Pinky saw great tear-drops falling upon the little hands.

"Stop crying!" she whispered, close to his ear; "I won't have it! You're not going to be killed."

Andy tried to keep back the tears, but in spite of all he could do they kept blinding his eyes and falling over his hands.

"What's the matter with your little boy?" asked a sympathetic, motherly woman who had noticed the child's distress.

"Cross, that's all." Pinky threw out the sentence in at snappish, mind-your-own-business tone.

The motherly woman, who had leaned forward, a look of kindly interest on her face, drew back, chilled by this repulse, but kept her eyes upon the child, greatly to Pinky's annoyance. After riding for half a mile, Pinky got out and took another car. Andy was passive. He had ceased crying, and was endeavoring to get back some of the old spirit of brave endurance. He was beginning to feel like one who had awakened from a beautiful dream in which dear ideals had almost reached fruition, to the painful facts of a hard and suffering life, and was gathering up his patience and strength to meet them. He sat motionless by the side of Pinky, with his eyes cast down, his chin on his breast and his lips shut closely together.

Another ride of nearly half a mile, when Pinky left the car and struck away from the common thoroughfare into a narrow alley, down which she walked for a short distance, and then disappeared in one of the small houses. No one happened to observe her entrance. Through a narrow passage and stairway she reached a second-story room. Taking a key from her pocket, she unlocked the door and went in. There was a fire in a small stove, and the room was comfortable. Locking the door on the inside she said to Andy, in a voice changed and kinder,

"My! your hands are as red as beets. Go up to the stove and warm yourself."

Andy obeyed, spreading out his little hands, and catching the grateful warmth, every now and then looking up into Pinky's face, and trying with a shrewder insight than is usually given to a child of his age to read the character and purposes it half concealed and half made known.

"Now, Andy," said Pinky, in a mild but very decided way—"your name's Andy?"

"Yes, ma'am," answered the child, fixing his large, intelligent eyes on her face.

"Well, Andy, if you'll be a good and quiet boy, you needn't be afraid of anything—you won't get hurt. But if you make a fuss, I'll throw you at once right out of the window."

Pinky frowned and looked so wicked as she uttered the last sentence that Andy was frightened. It seemed as if a devouring beast glared at him out of her eyes. She saw the effect of her threat, and was satisfied.

The short afternoon soon passed away. The girl did not leave the room, nor talk with the child except in very low tones, so as not to attract the attention of any one in the house. As the day waned snow began to fall, and by the time night set in it was coming down thick and fast. As soon as it was fairly dark, Pinky wrapped a shawl about Andy, pinning it closely, so as to protect him from the cold, and quietly left the house. He made no resistance. A car was taken, in which they rode for a long distance, until they were on the outskirts of the city. The snow had already fallen to a depth of two or three inches, and the storm was increasing. When she left the car in that remote neighborhood, not a person was to be seen on the street. Catching Andy into her arms, Pinky ran with him for the distance of half a block, and then turned into a close alley with small houses on each side. At the lower end she stopped before one of these houses, and without knocking pushed open the door.

"Who's that?" cried a voice from an upper room, the stairway to which led up from the room below.

"It's me. Come down, and be quiet," answered Pinky, in a warning voice.

A woman, old and gray, with all the signs of a bad life on her wrinkled face, came hastily down stairs and confronted Pinky.

"What now? What's brought you here?" she demanded, in no friendly tones.

"There, there, Mother Peter! smooth down your feathers. I've got something for you to do, and it will pay," answered Pinky, who had shut the outside door and slipped the bolt.

At this, the manner of Mother Peter, as Pinky had called her, softened, and she said,

"What's up? What deviltry are you after now, you huzzy?"

Without replying to this, Pinky began shaking the snow from Andy and unwinding the shawl with which she had bound him up. After he was free from his outside wrappings, she said, looking toward the woman,