"Now, isn't he a nice little chap? Did you ever see such eyes?"

The worn face of the woman softened as she turned toward the beautiful child, but not with pity. To that feeling she had long been a stranger.

"I want you to keep him for a few days," said Pinky, speaking in the woman's ears. "I'll tell you more about it after he's in bed and asleep."

"He's to be kept shut up out of sight, mind," was Pinky's injunction, in the conference that followed. "Not a living soul in the neighborhood must know he's in the house, for the police will be sharp after him. I'll pay you five dollars a week, and put it down in advance. Give him plenty to eat, and be as good to him as you can, for you see it's a fat job, and I'll make it fatter for you if all comes out right."

The woman was not slow to promise all that Pinky demanded. The house in which she lived had three rooms, one below and two smaller ones above. From the room below a stove-pipe went up through the floor into a sheet-iron drum in the small back chamber, and kept it partially heated. It was arranged that Andy should be made a close prisoner in this room, and kept quiet by fear. It had only one window, looking out upon the yard, and there was no shed or porch over the door leading into the yard below upon which he could climb out and make his escape. In order to have things wholly secure the two women, after Andy was asleep, pasted paper over the panes of glass in the lower sash, so that no one could see his face at the window, and fastened the sash down by putting a nail into a gimlet-hole at the top.

"I guess thatt will fix him," said Pinky, in a tone of satisfaction. "All you've got to do now is to see that he doesn't make a noise."

On the next morning Andy was awake by day-dawn. At first he did not know where he was, but he kept very still, looking around the small room and trying to make out what it all meant. Soon it came to him, and a vague terror filled his heart. By his side lay the woman into whose hands Pinky had given him. She was fast asleep, and her face, as he gazed in fear upon it, was even more repulsive than it had looked on the night before. His first impulse, after comprehending his situation, was to escape if possible. Softly and silently he crept out of bed, and made his way to the door. It was fastened. He drew the bolt back, when it struck the guard with a sharp click. In an instant the old woman was sitting up in bed and glaring at him.

"You imp of Satan!" she cried, springing after him with a singular agility for one of her age, and catching him by the arm with a vice-like grip that bruised the tender flesh and left it marked for weeks, drew him back from the door and flung him upon the bed.

"Stay there till I tell you to get up," she added, with a cruel threat in her voice. "And mind you, there's to be no fooling with me."

The frightened child crept under the bed-clothes, and hid his face beneath them. Mother Peter did not lie down again, but commenced dressing herself, muttering and grumbling as she did so.

"Keep where you are till I come back," she said to Andy, with the same cruel threat in her voice. Going out, she bolted the door on the other side. It was nearly half an hour before the woman returned, bringing a plate containing two or three slices of bread and butter and a cup of milk.

"Now get up and dress yourself," was her sharply-spoken salutation to Andy as she came into the room. "And you're to be just as still as a mouse, mind. There's your breakfast." She set the plate on a table and went out, bolting, as before, the door on the other side. Andy did not see her again for over an hour. Left entirely alone in his prison, his restless spirit chafed for freedom. He moved about the apartment, examining everything it contained with the closest scrutiny, yet without making any noise, for the woman's threat, accompanied as it had been with such a wicked look, was not forgotten. He had seen in that look a cruel spirit of which he was afraid. Two or three times he thought he heard a step and a movement in the adjoining chamber, and waited, almost holding his breath, with his eyes upon the door, expecting every moment to see the scowling face of his jailer. But no hand touched the door.

Tired at last with everything in the room, he went to the window and sought to look out, as he had already done many times. He could not understand why this window, was so different from any he had ever seen, and puzzled over it in his weak, childish way. As he moved from pane to pane, trying to see through, he caught a glimpse of something outside, but it was gone in a moment. He stepped back, then came up quickly to the glass, all the dull quietude of manner leaving him. As he did so a glimpse of the outside world came again, and now he saw a little hole in the paper not larger than a pin's head. To scrape at this was a simple instinct. In a moment he saw it enlarging, as the paper peeled off from the glass. Scraping away with his finger-nail, the glass was soon cleared of paper for the space of an inch in diameter, and through this opening he stood gazing out upon the yards, below, and the houses that came up to them from a neighboring street. There was a woman in one of these yards, and she looked up toward the window where Andy stood, curiously.

"You imp of Satan!" were the terrible words that fell upon his ears at this juncture, and he felt himself caught up as by a vulture. He knew the cruel voice and the grip of the cruel hands that had already left their marks in his tender flesh. Mother Peter, her face red with passion and her eyes slowing like coals of fire, held him high in the air, and shook him with savage violence. She did not strike, but continued shaking him until the sudden heat of her passion had a little cooled.

"Didn't I tell you not to meddle with anything in this room?" and with another bruising grip of Andy's arms, she threw him roughly upon the floor.

The little hole in the paper was then repaired by pasting another piece of paper over it, after which Andy was left alone, but with a threat from Mother Peter that if he touched the window again she would beat the life out of him. She had no more trouble with him that day. Every half hour or so she would come up stairs noiselessly, and listen at the door, or break in upon the child suddenly and without warning. But she did not find him again at the window. The restlessness at first exhibited had died out, and he sat or lay upon the floor in a kind of dull, despairing stupor. So that day passed.

On the second day of Andy's imprisonment he distinctly heard the old woman go out at the street door and lock it after her. He listened for a long time, but could hear no sound in the house. A feeling of relief and a sense of safety came over him. He had not been so long in his prison alone without the minutest examination of every part, and it had not escaped his notice that the panes of glass in the upper sash of the window were not covered with paper, as were those below. But for the fear of one of Mother Peter's noiseless pouncings in upon him, he would long since have climbed upon the sill and taken a look through the upper sash. He waited now for full half an hour to be sure that his jailer had left the house, and then, climbing to the window-sill with the agility of a squirrel, held on to the edge of the lower sash and looked out through the clear glass above. Dreary and unsightly as was all that lay under his gaze, it was beautiful in the eyes of the child. His little heart swelled and glowed; he longed, as a prisoner, for freedom. As he stood there he saw that a nail held down the lower sash, which he had so often tried, but in vain, to lift. Putting his finger on this nail, he felt it move. It had been placed loosely in a gimlet-hole, and could be drawn out easily. For a little while he stood there, taking out and putting in the nail. While doing this he thought he heard a sound below, and instantly dropped noiselessly from the window. He had scarcely done so when the door of his room opened and Mother Peter came in. She looked at him sharply, and then retired without speaking.

All the next day Andy listened after Mother Peter, waiting to hear her go out. But she did not leave the house until after he was asleep in the evening.

On the next day, after waiting until almost noon, the child's impatience of confinement grew so strong that he could no longer defer his meditated escape from the window, for ever since he had looked over the sash and discovered how it was fastened down, his mind had been running on this thing. He had noticed that Mother Peter's visits to his room were made after about equal intervals of time, and that after she gave him his dinner she did not come up stairs again for at least an hour. This had been brought, and he was again alone.

For nearly five minutes after the woman went out, he sat by the untasted food, his head bent toward the door, listening. Then he got up quietly, climbed upon the window-sill and pulled the nail out. Dropping back upon the floor noiselessly, he pushed his hands upward against the sash, and it rose easily. Like an animal held in unwilling confinement, he did not stop to think of any danger that might lie in the way of escape when opportunity for escape offered. The fear behind was worse than any imagined fear that could lie beyond. Pushing up the sash, Andy, without looking down from the window, threw himself across the sill and dropped his body over, supporting himself with his hands on the snow-encrusted ledge for a moment, and then letting himself fall to the ground, a distance of nearly ten feet. He felt his breath go as he swept through the air, and lost his senses for an instant or two.

Stunned by the fall, he did not rise for several minutes. Then he got up with a slow, heavy motion and looked about him anxiously. He was in a yard from which there was no egress except by way of the house. It was bitter cold, and he had on nothing but the clothing worn in the room from which he had just escaped. His head was bare.

The dread of being found here by Mother Peter soon lifted him above physical impediment or suffering. Through a hole in the fence he saw an alley-way; and by the aid of an old barrel that stood in the yard, he climbed to the top of the fence and let himself down on the other side, falling a few feet. A sharp pain was felt in one of his ankles as his feet touched the ground. He had sprained it in his leap from the window, and now felt the first pangs attendant on the injury.

Limping along, he followed the narrow alley-way, and in a little while came out upon a street some distance from the one in which Mother Peter lived. There were very few people abroad, and no one noticed or spoke to him as he went creeping along, every step sending a pain from the hurt ankle to his heart. Faint with suffering and chilled to numbness, Andy stumbled and fell as he tried, in crossing a street, to escape from a sleigh that turned a corner suddenly. It was too late for the driver to rein up his horse. One foot struck the child, throwing him out of the track of the sleigh. He was insensible when taken up, bleeding and apparently dead. A few people came out of the small houses in the neighborhood, attracted by the accident, but no one knew the child or offered to take him in.

There were two ladies in the sleigh, and both were greatly pained and troubled. After a hurried consultation, one of them reached out her hands for the child, and as she received and covered him with the buffalo-robe said something to the driver, who turned his horse's head and drove off at a rapid speed.



CHAPTER XXVIII.



EVERY home for friendless children, every sin or poverty-blighted ward and almost every hovel, garret and cellar where evil and squalor shrunk from observation were searched for the missing child, but in vain. No trace of him could be found. The agony of suspense into which Edith's mind was brought was beginning to threaten her reason. It was only by the strongest effort at self-compulsion that she could keep herself to duty among the poor and suffering, and well for her it was that she did not fail here; it was all that held her to safe mooring.

One day, as she was on her way home from some visit of mercy, a lady who was passing in a carriage called to her from the window, at the same time ordering her driver to stop. The carriage drew up to the sidewalk.

"Come, get in," said the lady as she pushed open the carriage door. "I was thinking of you this very moment, and want to have some talk about our children's hospital. We must have you on our ladies' visiting committee."

Edith shook her head, saying, "It won't be possible, Mrs. Morton. I am overtaxed now, and must lessen, instead of increasing, my work."

"Never mind, about that now. Get in. I want to have some talk with you."

Edith, who knew the lady intimately, stepped into the carriage and took a seat by her side.

"I don't believe you have ever been to our hospital," said the lady as the carriage rolled on. "I'm going there now, and want to show you how admirably everything is conducted, and what a blessing it is to poor suffering children."

"It hurts me so to witness suffering in little children," returned Edith, "that it seems as if I couldn't bear it much longer. I see so much of it."

"The pain is not felt as deeply when we are trying to relieve that suffering," answered her friend. "I have come away from the hospital many times after spending an hour or two among the beds, reading and talking to the children, with an inward peace in my soul too deep for expression. I think that Christ draws very near to us while we are trying to do the work that he did when he took upon himself our nature in, the world and stood face to face visibly with men—nearer to us, it may be, than at any other time; and in his presence there is peace—peace that passeth understanding."

They were silent for a little while, Edith not replying. "We have now," resumed the lady, "nearly forty children under treatment—poor little things who, but for this charity, would have no tender care or intelligent ministration. Most of them would be lying in garrets or miserable little rooms, dirty and neglected, disease eating out their lives, and pain that medical skill now relieves, racking their poor worn bodies. I sat by the bed of a little girl yesterday who has been in the hospital over six months. She has hip disease. When she was brought here from one of the vilest places in the city, taken away from a drunken mother, she was the saddest-looking child I ever saw. Dirty, emaciated, covered with vermin and pitiable to behold, I could hardly help crying when I saw her brought in. Now, though still unable to leave her bed, she has as bright and happy a face as you ever saw. The care and tenderness received since she came to us have awakened a new life in her soul, and she exhibits a sweetness of temper beautiful to see. After I had read a little story for her yesterday, she put her arms about my neck and kissed me, saying, in her frank, impulsive way, 'Oh, Mrs. Morton, I do love you so!' I had a great reward. Never do I spend an hour among these children without thanking God that he put it into the hearts of a few men and women who could be touched with the sufferings of children to establish and sustain so good an institution."

The carriage stopped, and the driver swung open the door. They were at the children's hospital. Entering a spacious hall, the two ladies ascended to the second story, where the wards were located. There were two of these on opposite sides of the hall, one for boys and one for girls. Edith felt a heavy pressure on her bosom as they passed into the girls' ward. She was coming into the presence of disease and pain, of suffering and weariness, in the persons of little children.

There were twenty beds in the room. Everything was faultlessly clean, and the air fresh and pure. On most of these beds lay, or sat up, supported by pillows, sick or crippled children from two years of age up to fifteen or sixteen, while a few were playing about the room. Edith caught her breath and choked back a sob that came swiftly to her throat as she stood a few steps within the door and read in a few quick glances that passed from face to face the sorrowful records that pain had written upon them.

"Oh, there's Mrs. Morton!" cried a glad voice, and Edith saw a girl who was sitting up in one of the beds clap her hands joyfully.

"That's the little one I was telling you about," said the lady, and she crossed to the bed, Edith following. The child reached up her arms and put them about Mrs. Morton's neck, kissing her as she did so.

It took Edith some time to adjust herself to the scene before her. Mrs. Morton knew all the children, and had a word of cheer or sympathy for most of them as she passed from bed to bed through the ward. Gradually the first painful impressions wore off, and Edith felt herself drawn to the little patients, and before five minutes had passed her heart was full of a strong desire to do whatever lay in her power to help and comfort them. After spending half an hour with the girls, during which time Edith talked and read to a number of them, Mrs. Morton said,

"Now let us go into the boys' ward."

They crossed the hall together, and entered the room on the other side. Here, as in the opposite ward, Mrs. Morton was recognized as welcome visitor. Every face that happened to be turned to the door brightened at her entrance.

"There's a dear child in this ward," said Mrs. Morton as they stood for a moment in the door looking about the room. "He was picked up in the street about a week ago, hurt by a passing vehicle, and brought here. We have not been able to learn anything about him."

Edith's heart gave a sudden leap, but she held it down with all the self-control she could assume, trying to be calm.

"Where is he?" she asked, in a voice so altered from its natural tone that Mrs. Morton turned and looked at her in surprise.

"Over in that corner," she answered, pointing down the room.

Edith started forward, Mrs. Morton at her side.

"Here he is," said the latter, pausing at a bed on which child with fair face, blue eyes and golden hair was lying. A single glance sent the blood back to Edith's heart. A faintness came over her; everything grew dark. She sat down to keep from falling.

As quickly as possible and by another strong effort of will she rallied herself.

"Yes," she said, in a faint undertone in which was no apparent interest, "he is a dear little fellow."

As she spoke she laid her hand softly on the child's head, but not in a way to bring any response. He looked at her curiously, and seemed half afraid.

Meanwhile, a child occupying a bed only a few feet off had started up quickly on seeing Edith, and now sat with his large brown eyes fixed eagerly upon her, his lips apart and his hands extended. But Edith did not notice him. Presently she got up from beside the bed and was turning away when the other child, with a kind of despairing look in his face, cried out,

"Lady, lady! oh, lady!"

The voice reached Edith's ears. She turned, and saw the face of Andy. Swift as a flash she was upon him, gathering him in her arms and crying out, in a wild passion of joy that could not be repressed,

"Oh, my baby! my baby! my boy! my boy! Bless God! thank God! oh, my baby!"

Startled by this sudden outcry, the resident physician and two nurses who were in the ward hurried down the room to see what it meant. Edith had the child hugged tightly to her bosom, and resisted all their efforts to remove him.

"My dear madam," said the doctor, "you will do him some harm if you don't take care."

"Hurt my baby? Oh no, no!" she answered, relaxing her hold and gazing down upon Andy as she let him fall away from her bosom. Then lifting her eyes to the physician, her face so flooded with love and inexpressible joy that it seemed like some heavenly transfiguration, she murmured, in a low voice full of the deepest tenderness,

"Oh no. I will not do my baby any harm."

"My dear, dear friend," said Mrs. Morton, recovering from the shock of her first surprise and fearing that Edith had suddenly lost her mind, "you cannot mean what you say;" and she reached down for the child and made a movement as if she were going to lift him away from her arms.

A look of angry resistance swept across Edith's pale face. There was a flash of defiance in her eyes.

"No, no! You must not touch him," she exclaimed; "I will die before giving him up. My baby!"

And now, breaking down from her intense excitement, she bent over the child again, weeping and sobbing. Waiting until this paroxysm had expended itself, Mrs. Morton, who had not failed to notice that Andy never turned his eyes for an instant away from Edith, nor resisted her strained clasp or wild caresses, but lay passive against her with a look of rest and peace in his face, said,

"How shall we know that he is your baby?"

At this Edith drew herself up, the light on her countenance fading out. Then catching at the child's arm, she pulled the loose sleeve that covered it above the elbow with hands that shook like aspens. Another cry of joy broke from her as she saw a small red mark standing out clear from the snowy skin. She kissed it over and over again, sobbing,

"My baby! Yes, thank God! my own long-lost baby!"

And still the child showed no excitement, but lay very quiet, looking at Edith whenever he could see her countenance, the peace and rest on his face as unchanging as if it were not really a living and mobile face, but one cut into this expression by the hands of an artist.

"How shall you know?" asked Edith, now remembering the question of Mrs. Morton. And she drew up her own sleeve and showed on one of her arms a mark as clearly defined and bright as that on the child's arm.

No one sought to hinder Edith as she rose to her feet holding Andy, after she had wrapped the bed-clothes about him.

"Come!" she spoke to her friend, and moved away with her precious burden.

"You must go with us," said Mrs. Morton to the physician.

They followed as Edith hurried down stairs, and entering the carriage after her, were driven away from the hospital.



CHAPTER XXIX.



ABOUT the same hour that Edith entered the boys' ward of the children's hospital, Mr. Dinneford met Granger face to face in the street. The latter tried to pass him, but Mr. Dinneford stopped, and taking his almost reluctant hand, said, as he grasped it tightly,

"George Granger!" in a voice that had in it a kind of helpless cry.

The young man did not answer, but stood looking at him in a surprised, uncertain way.

"George," said Mr. Dinneford, his utterance broken, "we want you!"

"For what?" asked Granger, whose hand still lay in that of Mr. Dinneford. He had tried to withdraw it at first, but now let it remain.

"To help us find your child."

"My child! What of my child?"

"Your child and Edith's," said Mr. Dinneford. "Come!" and he drew his arm within that of Granger, the two men moving away together. "It has been lost since the day of its birth—cast adrift through the same malign influence that cursed your life and Edith's. We are on its track, but baffled day by day. Oh, George, we want you, frightfully wronged as you have been at our hands—not Edith's. Oh no, George! Edith's heart has never turned from you for an instant, never doubted you, though in her weakness and despair she was driven to sign that fatal application for a divorce. If it were not for the fear of a scornful rejection, she would be reaching out her hands to you now and begging for the old sweet love, but such a rejection would kill her, and she dare not brave the risk."

Mr. Dinneford felt the young man's arm begin to tremble violently.

"We want you, George," he pursued. "Edith's heart is calling out for you, that she may lean it upon your heart, so that it break not in this great trial and suspense. Your lost baby is calling for you out of some garret or cellar or hovel where it lies concealed. Come, my son. The gulf that lies between the dreadful past and the blessed future can be leaped at a single bound if you choose to make it. We want you—Edith and I and your baby want you."

Mr. Dinneford, in his great excitement, was hurrying the young man along at a rapid speed, holding on to his arm at the same time, as if afraid he would pull it away and escape.

Granger made no response, but moved along passively, taking in every word that was said. A great light seemed to break upon his soul, a great mountain to be lifted off. He did not pause at the door from which, when he last stood there, he had been so cruelly rejected, but went in, almost holding his breath, bewildered, uncertain, but half realizing the truth of what was transpiring, like one in a dream.

"Wait here," said Mr. Dinneford, and he left him in the parlor and ran up stairs to find Edith.

George Granger had scarcely time to recognize the objects around him, when a carriage stopped at the door, and in a moment afterward the bell rang violently.

The image that next met his eyes was that of Edith standing in the parlor door with a child all bundled up in bed-clothing held closely in her arms. Her face was trembling with excitement. He started forward on seeing her with an impulse of love and joy that he could not restrain. She saw him, and reading his soul in his eyes, moved to meet him.

"Oh, George, and you too!" she exclaimed. "My baby and my husband, all at once! It is too much. I cannot bear if all!"

Granger caught her in his arms as she threw herself upon him and laid the child against his breast.

"Yours and mine," she sobbed. "Yours and mine, George!" and she put up her face to his. Could he do less than cover it with kisses?

A few hours later, and a small group of very near friends witnessed a different scene from this. Not another tragedy as might well be feared, under the swift reactions that came upon Edith. No, no! She did not die from a excess of joy, but was filled with new life and strength. Two hands broken asunder so violently a few years ago were now clasped again, and the minister of God as he laid them together pronounced in trembling tones the marriage benediction.

This was the scene, and here we drop the curtain.

THE END