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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cast Adrift, by T. S. Arthur
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Cast Adrift
+
+Author: T. S. Arthur
+
+Release Date: October, 2003  [Etext #4592]
+Posting Date: December 8, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAST ADRIFT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo
+
+
+
+
+
+CAST ADRIFT
+
+By T. S. Arthur
+
+Author Of "Three Years In A Man-Trap," "Orange Blossoms," Etc., Etc.
+
+
+     Philadelphia:
+     Cincinnati:
+     New York:
+     Boston:
+     Chicago, Ills.:
+     New Castle, Pa.:
+     San Francisco, Cal.:
+
+1873
+
+
+
+TO THE READER.
+
+IN this romance of real life, in which the truth is stranger than the
+fiction, I have lifted only in part the veil that hides the victims of
+intemperance and other terrible vices--after they have fallen to the
+lower deeps of degradation to be found in our large cities, where the
+vile and degraded herd together more like wild beasts than men and
+women--and told the story of sorrow, suffering, crime and debasement
+as they really exist in Christian America with all the earnestness and
+power that in me lies.
+
+Strange and sad and terrible as are some of the scenes from which I hare
+drawn this veil, I have not told the half of what exists. My book, apart
+from the thread of fiction that runs through its pages, is but a series
+of photographs from real life, and is less a work of the imagination
+than a record of facts.
+
+If it stirs the hearts of American readers profoundly, and so awakens
+the people to a sense of their duty; if it helps to inaugurate more
+earnest and radical modes of reform for a state of society of which a
+distinguished author has said, "There is not a country throughout the
+earth on which it would not bring a curse; there is no religion upon the
+earth that it would not deny; there is no people upon the earth it would
+not put to shame;"--then will not my work be in vain.
+
+Sitting in our comfortable homes with well-fed, well-clothed and
+happy-hearted children about us--children who have our tenderest care,
+whose cry of pain from a pin-prick or a fall on the carpeted floor hurts
+us like a blow---how few of us know or care anything about the homes
+in which some other children dwell, or of the hard and cruel battle for
+life they are doomed to fight from the very beginning!
+
+To get out from these comfortable homes and from the midst of tenderly
+cared-for little ones, and stand face to face with squalor and hunger,
+with suffering, debasement and crime, to look upon the starved faces
+of children and hear their helpless cries, is what scarcely one in a
+thousand will do. It is too much for our sensibilities. And so we stand
+aloof, and the sorrow, and suffering, the debasement, the wrong and
+the crime, go on, and because we heed it not we vainly imagine that no
+responsibility lies at our door; and yet there is no man or woman who is
+not, according to the measure of his or her influence, responsible for
+the human debasement and suffering I have portrayed.
+
+The task I set for myself has not been a pleasant one. It has hurt my
+sensibilities and sickened my heart many times as I stood face to face
+with the sad and awful degradation that exists in certain regions of
+our larger cities; and now that my work is done, I take a deep breath
+of relief. The result is in your hands, good citizen, Christian reader,
+earnest philanthropist! If it stirs your heart in the reading as it
+stirred mine in the writing, it will not die fruitless.
+
+THE AUTHOR.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I. The unwelcome babe--The defrauded young mother--The struggle
+between life and death--"Your baby is in heaven"--A brief retrospect--A
+marriage for social position--An ambitious wife and a disappointed
+husband--The young daughter--The matrimonial market--The Circassian
+slaves of modern society--The highest bidder--Disappearance--The old sad
+story--Secret marriage--The letters--Disappointed ambition--Interview
+between the parents--The mother's purpose--"Baffled, but not
+defeated"--The father's surprise--The returned daughter--Forgiven--"I am
+not going away again, father dear"--Insecurity and distrust
+
+CHAPTER II. The hatred of a bad woman--Mrs. Dinneford's plans for the
+destruction of Granger--Starting in business--Plots of Mrs. Dinneford
+and Freeling--The discounted notes--The trap--Granger's suspicions
+aroused--Forgery--Mrs. Dinneford relentless--The arrest--Fresh evidence
+of crime upon Granger's person--The shock to Edith--"That night her baby
+was born"
+
+CHAPTER III. "It is a splendid boy"--A convenient, non-interfering
+family doctor--Cast adrift--Into the world in a basket, unnamed
+and disowned--Edith's second struggle back to life--Her mind a
+blank--Granger convicted of forgery--Seeks to gain knowledge of his
+child--The doctor's evasion and ignorance--An insane asylum instead of
+State's prison--Edith's slow return to intelligence--"There's something
+I can't understand, mother"--"Where is my baby?"--"What of George?"--No
+longer a child, but a broken hearted woman--The divorce
+
+CHAPTER IV. Sympathy between father and daughter--Interest in public
+charities--A dreadful sight--A sick babe in the arms of a half-drunken
+woman--"Is there no law to meet such cases?"---"The poor baby has no
+vote!"--Edith seeks for the grave of her child, but cannot find
+it--She questions her mother, who baffles her curiosity--Mrs. Bray's
+visit--Interview between Mrs. Dinneford and Mrs. Bray--"The baby
+isn't living?"--"Yes; I saw it day before yesterday in the arms of a
+beggar-woman"--Edith's suspicions aroused--Determined to discover the
+fate of her child--Visits the doctor--"Your baby is in heaven"--"Would
+to God it were so, for I saw a baby in hell not long ago!"
+
+CHAPTER V. Mrs. Dinneford visits Mrs. Bray--"The woman to whom you
+gave that baby was here yesterday"--The woman must be put out of the
+way--Exit Mrs. Dinneford, enter Pinky Swett--"You know your fate--New
+Orleans and the yellow fever"--"All I want of you is to keep track of
+the baby"--Division of the spoils--Lucky dreams--Consultation of the
+dream-book for lucky figures--Sam McFaddon and his backer, who "drives
+in the Park and wears a two thousand dollar diamond pin"--The fate of a
+baby begged with--The baby must not die--The lottery-policies
+
+CHAPTER VI. Rottenness at the heart of a great city--Pinky Swett's
+attempted rescue of a child from cruel beating--The fight--Pinky's
+arrest--Appearance of the "queen"--Pinky's release at her command--The
+queen's home--The screams of children being beaten--The rescue of
+"Flanagan's Nell"--Death the great rescuer--"They don't look after
+things in here as they do outside--Everybody's got the screws on, and
+things must break sometimes, but it isn't called murder--The coroner
+understands it all"
+
+CHAPTER VII. Pinky Swett at the mercy of the crowd in the street--Taken
+to the nearest station-house--Mrs. Dinneford visits Mrs. Bray
+again--Fresh alarms--"She's got you in her power"---"Money is of no
+account"--The knock at the door--Mrs. Dinneford in hiding--The visitor
+gone--Mrs. Bray reports the woman insatiable in her demands--Must have
+two hundred dollars by sundown--No way of escape except through police
+interference--"People who deal with the devil generally have the devil
+to pay"--Suspicion--A mistake--Sound of feet upon the stairs--Mrs.
+Dinneford again in hiding--Enter Pinky Swett--Pinky disposed of--Mrs.
+Dinneford again released--Mrs. Bray's strategy--"Let us be friends
+still, Mrs. Bray"--Mrs. Dinneford's deprecation and humiliation--Mrs.
+Bray's triumph
+
+CHAPTER VIII. Mrs. Bray receives a package containing two hundred
+dollars--"Poor baby! I must see better to its comfort"--Pinky meets a
+young girl from the country--The "Ladies' Restaurant"--Fried oysters
+and sangaree--The "bindery" girl--"My head feels strangely"--Through
+the back alley--The ten-cent lodging house--Robbery--A second robbery--A
+veil drawn--A wild prolonged cry of a woman--The policeman listens only
+for a moment, and then passes on--Foul play--"In all our large
+cities are savages more cruel and brutal in their instincts than the
+Comanches"--Who is responsible?
+
+CHAPTER IX. Valuation of the spoils--The receiver--The "policy-shop" and
+its customers--A victim of the lottery mania
+
+CHAPTER X. "Policy-drunkards"--A newly-appointed policeman's
+blunder--The end of a "policy-drunkard"--Pinky and her friend in
+consultation over "a cast-off baby in Dirty alley"--"If you can't get
+hush-money out of its mother, you can bleed Fanny Bray"--The way to
+starve a baby--Pinky moves her quarters without the use of "a dozen
+furniture cars"--A baby's home--The baby's night nurse--The baby's
+supper--The baby's bed--How the baby's money is spent--Where the baby's
+nurse passes the night--The baby's disappearance
+
+CHAPTER XI. Reserve between mother and daughter--Mrs. Dinneford
+disapproves of Edith's charitable visits--Mrs. Dinneford meets Freeling
+by appointment at a hotel--"There's trouble brewing"--"A letter from
+George Granger"--Accused of conspiracy--Possibility of Granger's pardon
+by the governor--An ugly business--In great peril--Freeling's threats of
+exposure--A hint of an alternative
+
+CHAPTER XII. Mr. Freeling fails to appear at his place of
+business--Examination of his bank accounts--It is discovered that he has
+borrowed largely of his friends--Mrs. Dinneford has supplied him $20,000
+from her private purse--Mrs. Dinneford falls sick, and temporarily
+loses her reason--"I told you her name was Gray--Gray, not Bray"--Half
+disclosures--Recovery--Mother and daughter mutually suspicious--The
+visitor--Mrs. Dinneford equal to the emergency--Edith thrown off the
+track
+
+CHAPTER XIII. Edith is satisfied that her babe is alive--She has a
+desire to teach the children of the poor--"My baby may become like one
+of these"--She hears of a baby which has been stolen--Resolves to go
+and see it, and to apply to Mr. Paulding of the Briar street mission for
+assistance in her attempt--Mr. Paulding persuades her that it is best
+not to see the child, and promises that he himself will look after
+it--Returns home--Her father remonstrates with her, finally promises to
+help her
+
+CHAPTER XIV. Mr. Dinneford sets out for the mission-house--An incident
+on the way--Encounters Mr. Paulding--Mr. Paulding makes his report--"The
+vicious mark their offspring with unmistakable signs of moral depravity;
+this baby has signs of a better origin"--A profitable conversation--"I
+think you had better act promptly"
+
+CHAPTER XV. Mr. Dinneford with a policeman goes in quest of the
+baby--The baby is gone--Inquiries--Mr. Dinneford resolves to
+persevere--Cause of the baby's disappearance--Pinky Swett's
+curiosity--Change of baby's nurse--Baby's improved condition--Baby's
+first experience of motherly tenderness--Baby's first smile--"Such
+beautiful eyes"--Pinky Swett visits the St. John mission-school--Edith
+is not there
+
+CHAPTER XVI. Mr. Dinneford's return, and Edith's disappointment--"It
+is somebody's baby, and it may be mine"--An unsuspected listener--Mrs.
+Dinneford acts promptly--Conference between Mrs. Dinneford and Mrs.
+Hoyt, _alias_ Bray--The child must be got out of the way--"If it will
+not starve, it must drown"--Mrs. Dinneford sees an acquaintance as
+she leaves Mrs. Hoyt's, and endeavors to escape his observation--A new
+danger and disgrace awaiting her
+
+CHAPTER XVII. Mental conditions of mother and daughter--Mr. Dinneford
+aroused to a sense of his moral responsibilities--The heathen in
+our midst--The united evil of policy-lotteries and whisky-shops--The
+education of the policy-shops
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. News item: "A child drowned"--Another news item: Pinky
+Swett sentenced to prison for robbery--Baby's improved
+condition--Mrs. Burke's efforts to retain the baby after Pinky Swett's
+imprisonment--Baby Andy's rough life in the street--Mrs. Burke's
+death--Cast upon the world--Andy's adventures--He finds a home and a
+friend
+
+CHAPTER XIX. Mr. Dinneford visits the mission-school--A comparison of
+the present with the past--The first mission-school--Reminiscences of
+the school in its early days--The zealous scholar--Good effects of
+the mission--"Get the burning brands apart, or interpose incombustible
+things between them"--An illustration--"Let in light, and the darkness
+flees"
+
+CHAPTER XX. "The man awoke and felt the child against his bosom, soft
+and warm"--Led by a little child--"God being my helper, I will be a man
+again"--A new life--Meeting of an old friend--A friend in need--Food,
+clothes, work--A new home--God's strength our only safety
+
+CHAPTER XXI. Intimate relations of physical and moral purity--Blind
+Jake--The harvest of the thieves and beggars--Inconsiderate
+charity--Beggary a vice--"The deserving poor are never common
+beggars"--"To help the evil is to hurt the good" The malignant ulcer
+in the body politic of our city--The breeding-places of epidemics and
+malignant diseases--Little Italian street musicians--The existence of
+slavery in our midst--Facts in regard to it
+
+CHAPTER XXII. Edith's continued interest in the children of the
+poor--Christmas dinner at the mission-house--Edith perceives Andy,
+and feels a strange attraction toward him--Andy's disappearance after
+dinner--Pinky Swett has been seen dragging him away--Lost sight of
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. Christmas dinner at Mr. Dinneford's--The dropped
+letter--It is missed--A scene of wild excitement--Mrs. Dinneford's
+sudden death--Edith reads the letter--A revelation--"Innocent!"--Edith
+is called to her mother--"Dead, and better so!"--Granger's innocence
+established--An agony of affection--No longer Granger's wife
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. Edith's sickness--Meeting of Mrs. Bray and Pinky Swett--A
+trial of sharpness, in which neither gains the advantage--Mr. Dinneford
+receives a call from a lady--The lady, who is Mrs. Bray, offers
+information--Mr. Dinneford surprises her into admitting an important
+fact--Mrs. Bray offers to produce the child for a price--Mr. Dinneford
+consents to pay the price on certain stipulations--Mrs. Bray departs,
+promising to come again
+
+CHAPTER XXV. Granger's pardon procured--How he receives his pardon--Mrs.
+Bray tries to trace Pinky home--Loses sight of her in the street--Mrs.
+Bray interviews a shop-woman--Pinky's destination--The child is gone
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. Mrs. Bray does not call on Mr. Dinneford, as she
+promised--Peril to Andrew Hall through loss of the child--Help--Edith
+longs to see or write to Granger, but does not--Edith encounters Mrs.
+Bray in the street--"Where is my baby?"--Disappointment--How to identify
+the child if found
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. No trace of Andy--Account of Andy's abduction--Andy's
+prison--An outlook from prison--A loose nail--The escape--The sprained
+ankle--The accident
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. Edith's visit to the children's hospital--"Oh, my baby!
+thank God! my baby!"--The identification
+
+CHAPTER XXIX. Meeting of Mr. Dinneford and George Granger--"We want you
+to help us find your child"--"Edith's heart is calling out for you"--The
+meeting--The marriage benediction
+
+
+
+
+
+CAST ADRIFT.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+
+_A BABY_ had come, but he was not welcome. Could anything be sadder?
+
+The young mother lay with her white face to the wall, still as death. A
+woman opened the chamber door noiselessly and came in, the faint rustle
+of her garments disturbing the quiet air.
+
+A quick, eager turning of the head, a look half anxious, half fearful,
+and then the almost breathless question,
+
+"Where is my baby?"
+
+"Never mind about the baby," was answered, almost coldly; "he's well
+enough. I'm more concerned about you."
+
+"Have you sent word to George?"
+
+"George can't see you. I've said that before."
+
+"Oh, mother! I must see my husband."
+
+"Husband!" The tone of bitter contempt with which the word was uttered
+struck the daughter like a blow. She had partly risen in her excitement,
+but now fell back with a low moan, shutting her eyes and turning her
+face away. Even as she did so, a young man stepped back from the door of
+the elegant house in which she lay with a baffled, disappointed air. He
+looked pale and wretched.
+
+"Edith!" Two hours afterward the doctor stood over the young mother,
+and called her name. She did not move nor reply. He laid his hand on her
+cheek, and almost started, then bent down and looked at her intently for
+a moment or two. She had fever. A serious expression came into his face,
+and there was cause.
+
+The sweet rest and heavenly joy of maternity had been denied to his
+young patient. The new-born babe had not been suffered to lie even for
+one blissful moment on her bosom. Hard-hearted family pride and cruel
+worldliness had robbed her of the delight with which God ever seeks to
+dower young motherhood, and now the overtaxed body and brain had given
+way.
+
+For many weeks the frail young creature struggled with
+delirium--struggled and overcame.
+
+"Where is my baby?"
+
+The first thought of returning consciousness was of her baby.
+
+A woman who sat in a distant part of the chamber started up and crossed
+to the bed. She was past middle life, of medium stature, with small,
+clearly cut features and cold blue eyes. Her mouth was full, but very
+firm. Self-poise was visible even in her surprised movements. She bent
+over the bed and looked into Edith's wistful eyes.
+
+"Where is my baby, mother?" Mrs. Dinneford put her fingers lightly on
+Edith's lips.
+
+"You must be very quiet," she said, in a low, even voice. "The doctor
+forbids all excitement. You have been extremely ill."
+
+"Can't I see my baby, mother? It won't hurt me to see my baby."
+
+"Not now. The doctor--"
+
+Edith half arose in bed, a look of doubt and fear coming into her face.
+
+"I want my baby, mother," she said, interrupting her.
+
+A hard, resolute expression came into the cold blue eyes of Mrs.
+Dinneford. She put her hand firmly against Edith and pressed her back
+upon the pillow.
+
+"You have been very ill for nearly two months," she said, softening her
+voice. "No one thought you could live. Thank God! the crisis is over,
+but not the danger."
+
+"Two months! Oh, mother!"
+
+The slight flush that had come into Edith's wan face faded out, and the
+pallor it had hidden for a few moments became deeper. She shut her eyes
+and lay very still, but it was plain from the expression of her face
+that thought was busy.
+
+"Not two whole months, mother?" she said, at length, in doubtful tones.
+"Oh no! it cannot be."
+
+"It is just as I have said, Edith; and now, my dear child, as you value
+your life, keep quiet; all excitement is dangerous."
+
+But repression was impossible. To Edith's consciousness there was no
+lapse of time. It seemed scarcely an hour since the birth of her baby
+and its removal from her sight. The inflowing tide of mother-love, the
+pressure and yearning sweetness of which she had begun to feel when she
+first called for the baby they had not permitted to rest, even for an
+instant, on her bosom, was now flooding her heart. Two months! If that
+were so, what of the baby? To be submissive was impossible.
+
+Starting up half wildly, a vague terror in her face, she cried,
+piteously,
+
+"Oh, mother, bring me my baby. I shall die if you do not!"
+
+"Your baby is in heaven," said Mrs. Dinneford, softening her voice to a
+tone of tender regret.
+
+Edith caught her breath, grew very white, and then, with a low, wailing
+cry that sent a shiver through Mrs. Dinneford's heart, fell back, to all
+appearance dead.
+
+The mother did not call for help, but sat by the bedside of her
+daughter, and waited for the issue of this new struggle between life and
+death. There was no visible excitement, but her mouth was closely set
+and her cold blue eyes fixed in a kind of vacant stare.
+
+Edith was Mrs. Dinneford's only child, and she had loved her with
+the strong, selfish love of a worldly and ambitious woman. In her
+own marriage she had not consulted her heart. Mr. Dinneford's social
+position and wealth were to her far more than his personal endowments.
+She would have rejected him without a quicker pulse-beat if these had
+been all he had to offer. He was disappointed, she was not. Strong,
+self-asserting, yet politic, Mrs Dinneford managed her good husband
+about as she pleased in all external matters, and left him to the free
+enjoyment of his personal tastes, preferences and friendships. The
+house they lived in, the furniture it contained, the style and equipage
+assumed by the family, were all of her choice, Mr. Dinneford giving
+merely a half-constrained or half-indifferent consent. He had learned,
+by painful and sometimes humiliating experience, that any contest with
+Mrs. Helen Dinneford upon which he might enter was sure to end in his
+defeat.
+
+He was a man of fine moral and intellectual qualities. His wealth gave
+him leisure, and his tastes, feelings and habits of thought drew
+him into the society of some of the best men in the city where he
+lived--best in the true meaning of that word. In all enlightened social
+reform movements you would be sure of finding Mr. Howard Dinneford. He
+was an active and efficient member in many boards of public charity, and
+highly esteemed in them all for his enlightened philanthropy and sound
+judgment. Everywhere but at home he was strong and influential; there he
+was weak, submissive and of little account. He had long ago accepted
+the situation, making a virtue of necessity. A different man--one of
+stronger will and a more imperious spirit--would have held his own, even
+though it wrought bitterness and sorrow. But Mr. Dinneford's aversion
+to strife, and gentleness toward every one, held him away from conflict,
+and so his home was at least tranquil.
+
+Mrs. Dinneford had her own way, and so long as her husband made no
+strong opposition to that way all was peaceful.
+
+For Edith, their only child, who was more like her father than her
+mother, Mr. Dinneford had the tenderest regard. The well-springs of
+love, choked up so soon after his marriage, were opened freely toward
+his daughter, and he lived in her a new, sweet and satisfying life. The
+mother was often jealous of her husband's demonstrative tenderness for
+Edith. A yearning instinct of womanhood, long repressed by worldliness
+and a mean social ambition, made her crave at times the love she had
+cast away, and then her cup of life was very bitter. But fear of Mr.
+Dinneford's influence over Edith was stronger than any jealousy of his
+love. She had high views for her daughter. In her own marriage she had
+set aside all considerations but those of social rank. She had made it
+a stepping-stone to a higher place in society than the one to which she
+was born. Still, above them stood many millionaire families, living
+in palace-homes, and through her daughter she meant to rise into one
+of them. It mattered not for the personal quality of the scion of the
+house; he might be as coarse and common as his father before him, or
+weak, mean, selfish, and debased by sensual indulgence. This was of
+little account. To lift Edith to the higher social level was the all in
+all of Mrs. Dinneford's ambition.
+
+But Mr. Dinneford taught Edith a nobler life-lesson than this, gave her
+better views of wedlock, pictured for her loving heart the bliss of a
+true marriage, sighing often as he did so, but unconsciously, at the
+lost fruition of his own sweet hopes. He was careful to do this only
+when alone with Edith, guarding his speech when Mrs. Dinneford was
+present. He had faith in true principles, and with these he sought to
+guard her life. He knew that she would be pushed forward into society,
+and knew but too well that one so pure and lovely in mind as well as
+person would become a centre of attraction, and that he, standing on the
+outside as it were, would have no power to save her from the saddest of
+all fates if she were passive and her mother resolute. Her safety must
+lie in herself.
+
+Edith was brought out early. Mrs. Dinneford could not wait. At seventeen
+she was thrust into society, set up for sale to the highest bidder, her
+condition nearer that of a Circassian than a Christian maiden, with her
+mother as slave-dealer.
+
+So it was and so, it is. You may see the thing every day. But it did not
+come out according to Mrs. Dinneford's programme. There was a highest
+bidder; but when he came for his slave, she was not to be found.
+
+Well, the story is trite and brief--the old sad story. Among her suitors
+was a young man named Granger, and to him Edith gave her heart. But
+the mother rejected him with anger and scorn. He was not rich, though
+belonging to a family of high character, and so fell far below her
+requirements. Under a pressure that almost drove the girl to despair,
+she gave her consent to a marriage that looked more terrible than death.
+A month before the time fixed for, its consummation, she barred the
+contract by a secret union with Granger.
+
+Edith knew her mother's character too well to hope for any
+reconciliation, so far as Mr. Granger was concerned. Coming in as he had
+done between her and the consummation of her highest ambition, she could
+never feel toward him anything but the most bitter hatred; and so, after
+remaining at home for about a week after her secret marriage, she wrote
+this brief letter to her mother and went away:
+
+"My DEAR MOTHER: I do not love Spencer Wray, and would rather die than
+marry him, and so I have made the marriage to which my heart has never
+consented, an impossibility. You have left me no other alternative but
+this. I am the wife of George Granger, and go to cast my lot with his.
+
+"Your loving daughter,
+
+"EDITH."
+
+To her father she wrote:
+
+"My DEAR, DEAR FATHER: If I bring sorrow to your good and loving heart
+by what I have done, I know that it will be tempered with joy at my
+escape from a union with one from whom my soul has ever turned with
+irrepressible dislike. Oh, my father, you can understand, if mother
+cannot, into what a desperate strait I have been brought. I am a deer
+hunted to the edge of a dizzy chasm, and I leap for life over the dark
+abyss, praying for strength to reach the farther edge. If I fail in the
+wild effort, I can only meet destruction; and I would rather be bruised
+to death on the jagged rocks than trust myself to the hounds and
+hunters. I write passionately--you will hardly recognize your quiet
+child; but the repressed instincts of my nature are strong, and peril
+and despair have broken their bonds. I did not consult you about the
+step I have taken, because I dared not trust you with my secret. You
+would have tried to hold me back from the perilous leap, fondly hoping
+for some other way of escape. I had resolved on putting an impassable
+gulf between me and danger, if I died in the attempt. I have taken the
+leap, and may God care for me!
+
+"I have laid up in my heart of hearts, dearest of fathers, the precious
+life-truths that so often fell from your lips. Not a word that you ever
+said about the sacredness of marriage has been forgotten. I believe
+with you that it is a little less than crime to marry when no love
+exists--that she who does so, sells her heart's birthright for some
+mess of pottage, sinks down from the pure level of noble womanhood, and
+traffics away her person, is henceforth meaner in quality if not really
+vile.
+
+"And so, my father, to save myself from such a depth of degradation and
+misery, I take my destiny into my own hands. I have grown very strong in
+my convictions and purposes in the last four weeks. My sight has become
+suddenly clear. I am older by many years.
+
+"As for George Granger, all I can now say is that I love him, and
+believe him to be worthy of my love. I am willing to trust him, and am
+ready to share his lot, however humble.
+
+"Still hold me in your heart, my precious father, as I hold you in mine.
+
+"EDITH."
+
+Mr. Dinneford read this letter twice. It took him some time, his eyes
+were so full of tears. In view of her approaching marriage with Spencer
+Wray, his heart had felt very heavy. It was something lighter now. Young
+Granger was not the man he would have chosen for Edith, but he liked him
+far better than he did the other, and felt that his child was safe now.
+
+He went to his wife's room, and found her with Edith's letter crushed in
+her hand. She was sitting motionless, her face pale and rigid, her eyes
+fixed and stony and her lips tight against her teeth. She did not seem
+to notice his presence until he put his hand upon her, which he did
+without speaking. At this she started up and looked at him with a kind
+of fierce intentness.
+
+"Are you a party to this frightful things?" she demanded.
+
+Mr. Dinneford weakly handed her the letter he had received from Edith.
+She read it through in half the time it had taken his tear-dimmed eyes
+to make out the touching sentences. After she had done so, she stood for
+a few moments as if surprised or baffled. Then she sat down, dropping
+her head, and remained for a long time without speaking.
+
+"The bitter fruit, Mr. Dinneford," she said, at last, in a voice so
+strange and hard that it seemed to his ears as if another had spoken.
+All passion had died out of it.
+
+He waited, but she added nothing more. After a long silence she waved
+her hand slightly, and without looking at her husband, said,
+
+"I would rather be alone."
+
+Mr. Dinneford took Edith's letter from the floor, where it had dropped
+from his wife's hand, and withdrew from her presence. She arose quickly
+as he did so, crossed the room and silently turned the key, locking
+herself in. Then her manner changed; she moved about the room in a
+half-aimless, half-conscious way, as though some purpose was beginning
+to take shape in her mind. Her motions had an easy, cat-like grace, in
+contrast with their immobility a little while before. Gradually her step
+became quicker, while ripples of feeling began to pass over her face,
+which was fast losing its pallor. Gleams of light began shooting from
+her eyes, that were so dull and stony when her husband found her with
+Edith's letter crushed in her grasp. Her hands opened and shut upon
+themselves nervously. This went on, the excitement of her forming
+purpose, whatever it was, steadily increasing, until she swept about
+the room like a fury, talking to herself and gesticulating as one half
+insane from the impelling force of an evil passion.
+
+"Baffled, but not defeated." The excitement had died out. She spoke
+these words aloud, and with a bitter satisfaction in her voice, then sat
+down, resting her face in her hands, and remaining for a long time in
+deep thought.
+
+When she met her husband, an hour afterward, there was a veil over her
+face, and he tried in vain to look beneath it. She was greatly changed;
+her countenance had a new expression--something he had never seen there
+before. For years she had been growing away from him; now she seemed
+like one removed to a great distance--to have become almost stranger. He
+felt half afraid of her. She did not speak of Edith, but remained cold,
+silent and absorbed.
+
+Mrs. Dinneford gave no sign of what was in her heart for many weeks.
+The feeling of distance and strangeness perceived by her husband went on
+increasing, until a vague feeling of mystery and fear began to oppress
+him. Several times he had spoken of Edith, but his wife made no
+response, nor could he read in her veiled face the secret purposes she
+was hiding from him.
+
+No wonder that Mr. Dinneford was greatly surprised and overjoyed, on
+coming home one day, to meet his daughter, to feel her arms about his
+neck, and to hold her tearful face on his bosom.
+
+"And I'm not going away again, father dear," she said as she kissed him
+fondly. "Mother has sent for me, and George is to come. Oh, we shall be
+so happy, so happy!"
+
+And father and daughter cried together, like two happy children, in very
+excess of gladness. They had met alone, but Mrs. Dinneford came in, her
+presence falling on them like a cold shadow.
+
+"Two great babies," she said, a covert sneer in her chilling voice.
+
+The joy went slowly out of their faces, though not out of their
+hearts. There it nestled, and warmed the renewing blood. But a vague,
+questioning fear began to creep in, a sense of insecurity, a dread of
+hidden danger. The daughter did not fully trust her mother, nor the
+husband his wife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+
+_THE_ reception of young Granger was as cordial as Mrs. Dinneford
+chose to make it. She wanted to get near enough to study his character
+thoroughly, to discover its weaknesses and defects, not its better
+qualities, so that she might do for him the evil work that was in her
+heart. She hated him with a bitter hatred, and there is nothing so
+subtle and tireless and unrelenting as the hatred of a bad woman.
+
+She found him weak and unwary. His kindly nature, his high sense of
+honor, his upright purpose, his loving devotion to Edith, were nothing
+in her eyes. She spurned them in her thoughts, she trampled them under
+her feet with scorn. But she studied his defects, and soon knew every
+weak point in his character. She drew him out to speak of himself,
+of his aims and prospects, of his friends and associates, until she
+understood him altogether. Then she laid her plans for his destruction.
+
+Granger was holding a clerkship at the time of his marriage, but was
+anxious to get a start for himself. He had some acquaintance with a
+man named Lloyd Freeling, and often spoke of him in connection with
+business. Freeling had a store on one of the best streets, and, as
+represented by himself, a fine run of trade, but wanted more capital.
+One day he said to Granger,
+
+"If I could find the right man with ten thousand dollars, I would take
+him in. We could double this business in a year."
+
+Granger repeated the remark at home, Mrs. Dinneford listened, laid it up
+in her thought, and on the next day called at the store of Mr. Freeling
+to see what manner of man he was.
+
+Her first impression was favorable--she liked him. On a second visit she
+likes him better. She was not aware that Freeling knew her; in this he
+had something of the advantage. A third time she dropped in, asking to
+see certain goods and buying a small bill, as before. This time she drew
+Mr. Freeling into conversation about business, and put some questions
+the meaning of which he understood quite as well as she did.
+
+A woman like Mrs. Dinneford can read character almost as easily as she
+can read a printed page, particularly a weak or bad character. She knew
+perfectly, before the close of this brief interview, that Freeling was a
+man without principle, false and unscrupulous, and that if Granger were
+associated with him in business, he could, if he chose, not only involve
+him in transactions of a dishonest nature, but throw upon him the odium
+and the consequences.
+
+"Do you think," she said to Granger, not long afterward, "that your
+friend, Mr. Freeling, would like to have you for a partner in business?"
+
+The question surprised and excited him.
+
+"I know it," he returned; "he has said so more than once."
+
+"How much capital would he require?"
+
+"Ten thousand dollars."
+
+"A large sum to risk."
+
+"Yes; but I do not think there will be any risk. The business is well
+established."
+
+"What do you know about Mr. Freeling?"
+
+"Not a great deal; but if I am any judge of character, he is fair and
+honorable."
+
+Mrs. Dinneford turned her head that Granger might not see the expression
+of her face.
+
+"You had better talk with Mr. Dinneford," she said.
+
+But Mr. Dinneford did not favor it. He had seen too many young men go
+into business and fail.
+
+So the matter was dropped for a little while. But Mrs. Dinneford had
+set her heart on the young man's destruction, and no better way of
+accomplishing the work presented itself than this. He must be involved
+in some way to hurt his good name, to blast his reputation and drive him
+to ruin. Weak, trusting and pliable, a specious villain in whom he
+had confidence might easily get him involved in transactions that were
+criminal under the law. She would be willing to sacrifice twice ten
+thousand dollars to accomplish this result.
+
+Neither Mr. Dinneford nor Edith favored the business connection with
+Freeling, and said all they could against it. In weak natures we often
+find great pertinacity. Granger had this quality. He had set his mind on
+the copartnership, and saw in it a high road to fortune, and no argument
+of Mr. Dinneford, nor opposition of Edith, had power to change his
+views, or to hold him back from the arrangement favored by Mrs.
+Dinneford, and made possible by the capital she almost compelled her
+husband to supply.
+
+In due time the change from clerk to merchant was made, and the new
+connection announced, under the title of "FREELING & GRANGER."
+
+Clear seeing as evil may be in its schemes for hurting others, it
+is always blind to the consequent exactions upon itself; it strikes
+fiercely and desperately, not calculating the force of a rebound. So
+eager was Mrs. Dinneford to compass the ruin of Granger that she stepped
+beyond the limit of common prudence, and sought private interviews
+with Freeling, both before and after the completion of the partnership
+arrangement. These took place in the parlor of a fashionable hotel,
+where the gentleman and lady seemed to meet accidentally, and without
+attracting attention.
+
+Mrs. Dinneford was very confidential in these interviews not concealing
+her aversion to Granger. He had come into the family, she said, as an
+unwelcome intruder; but now that he was there, they had to make the best
+of him. Not in spoken words did Mrs. Dinneford convey to Freeling the
+bitter hatred that was in her heart, nor in spoken words let him know
+that she desired the young man's utter ruin, but he understood it
+all before the close of their first private interview. Freeling was
+exceedingly deferential in the beginning and guarded in his speech. He
+knew by the quick intuitions of his nature that Mrs. Dinneford cherished
+an evil purpose, and had chosen him as the agent for its accomplishment.
+She was rich, and occupied a high social position, and his ready
+conclusion was that, be the service what it might, he could make it pay.
+To get such a woman in his power was worth an effort.
+
+One morning--it was a few months after the date of the
+copartnership--Mrs. Dinneford received a note from Freeling. It said,
+briefly,
+
+"At the usual place, 12 M. to-day. Important." There was no signature.
+
+The sharp knitting of her brows and the nervous crumpling of the note
+in her hand showed that she was not pleased at the summons. She had come
+already to know her partner in evil too well. At 12 M. she was in
+the hotel parlor. Freeling was already there. They met in external
+cordiality, but it was very evident from the manner of Mrs. Dinneford,
+that she felt herself in the man's power, and had learned to be afraid
+of him.
+
+"It will be impossible to get through to-morrow," he said, in a kind of
+imperative voice, that was half a threat, "unless we have two thousand
+dollars."
+
+"I cannot ask Mr. Dinneford for anything more," Mrs. Dinneford replied;
+"we have already furnished ten thousand dollars beyond the original
+investment."
+
+"But it is all safe enough--that is, if we do not break down just here
+for lack of so small a sum."
+
+Mrs. Dinneford gave a start.
+
+"Break down!" She repeated the words in a husky, voice, with a paling
+face. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Only that in consequence of having in store a large stock of unsalable
+goods bought by your indiscreet son-in-law, who knows no more about
+business than a child, we are in a temporary strait."
+
+"Why did you trust him to buy?" asked Mrs. Dinneford.
+
+"I didn't trust him. He bought without consulting me," was replied,
+almost rudely.
+
+"Will two thousand be the end of this thing?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"You only think so?"
+
+"I am sure of it."
+
+"Very well; I will see what can be done. But all this must have an end,
+Mr. Freeling. We cannot supply any more money. You must look elsewhere
+if you have further need. Mr. Dinneford is getting very much annoyed and
+worried. You surely have other resources."
+
+"I have drawn to the utmost on all my resources," said the man, coldly.
+
+Mrs. Dinneford remained silent for a good while, her eyes upon the
+floor. Freeling watched her face intently, trying to read what was in
+her thoughts. At last she said, in a suggestive tone,
+
+"There are many ways of getting money known to business-men--a little
+risky some of them, perhaps, but desperate cases require desperate
+expedients. You understand me?"
+
+Freeling took a little time to consider before replying.
+
+"Yes," he said, at length, speaking slowly, as one careful of his words.
+"But all expedients are 'risky,' as you say--some of them very risky. It
+takes a long, cool head to manage them safely."
+
+"I don't know a longer or cooler head than yours," returned Mrs.
+Dinneford, a faint smile playing about her lips.
+
+"Thank you for the compliment," said Freeling, his lips reflecting the
+smile on hers.
+
+"You must think of some expedient." Mrs. Dinneford's manner grew
+impressive. She spoke with emphasis and deliberation. "Beyond the sum of
+two thousand dollars, which I will get for you by to-morrow, I shall not
+advance a single penny. You may set that down as sure. If you are not
+sharp enough and strong enough, with the advantage you possess, to hold
+your own, then you must go under; as for me, I have done all that I can
+or will."
+
+Freeling saw that she was wholly in earnest, and understood what she
+meant by "desperate expedients." Granger was to be ruined, and she was
+growing impatient of delay. He had no desire to hurt the young man--he
+rather liked him. Up to this time he had been content with what he could
+draw out of Mrs. Dinneford. There was no risk in this sort of business.
+Moreover, he enjoyed his interviews and confidences with the elegant
+lady, and of late the power he seemed to be gaining over her; this power
+he regarded as capital laid up for another use, and at another time.
+
+But it was plain that he had reached the end of his present financial
+policy, and must decide whether to adopt the new one suggested by Mrs.
+Dinneford or make a failure, and so get rid of his partner. The question
+he had to settle with himself was whether he could make more by a
+failure than by using Granger a while longer, and then throwing him
+overboard, disgraced and ruined. Selfish and unscrupulous as he was,
+Freeling hesitated to do this. And besides, the "desperate expedients"
+he would have to adopt in the new line of policy were fraught with
+peril to all who took part in them. He might fall into the snare set for
+another--might involve himself so deeply as not to find a way of escape.
+
+"To-morrow we will talk this matter over," he said in reply to Mrs.
+Dinneford's last remark; "in the mean time I will examine the ground
+thoroughly and see how it looks."
+
+"Don't hesitate to make any use you can of Granger," suggested the lady.
+"He has done his part toward getting things tangled, and must help to
+untangle them."
+
+"All right, ma'am."
+
+And they separated, Mrs. Dinneford reaching the street by one door of
+the hotel, and Freeling by another.
+
+On the following day they met again, Mrs. Dinneford bringing the two
+thousand dollars.
+
+"And now what next?" she asked, after handing over the money and taking
+the receipt of "Freeling & Granger." Her eyes had a hard glitter, and
+her face was almost stern in its expression. "How are you going to raise
+money and keep afloat?"
+
+"Only some desperate expedient is left me now," answered Freeling,
+though not in the tone of a man who felt himself at bay. It was said
+with a wicked kind of levity.
+
+Mrs. Dinneford looked at him keenly. She was beginning to mistrust the
+man. They gazed into each other's faces in silence for some moments,
+each trying to read what was in the other's thought. At length Freeling
+said,
+
+"There is one thing more that you will have to do, Mrs. Dinneford."
+
+"What?" she asked.
+
+"Get your husband to draw two or three notes in Mr. Granger's favor.
+They should not be for less than five hundred or a thousand dollars
+each. The dates must be short--not over thirty or sixty days."
+
+"It can't be done," was the emphatic answer.
+
+"It must be done," replied Freeling; "they need not be for the business.
+You can manage the matter if you will; your daughter wants an India
+shawl, or a set of diamonds, or a new carriage--anything you choose. Mr.
+Dinneford hasn't the ready cash, but we can throw his notes into bank
+and get the money; don't you see?"
+
+But Mrs. Dinneford didn't see.
+
+"I don't mean," said Freeling, "that we are to use the money. Let the
+shawl, or the diamond, or the what-not, be bought and paid for. We get
+the discounts for your use, not ours."
+
+"All very well," answered Mrs. Dinneford; "but how is that going to help
+you?"
+
+"Leave that to me. You get the notes," said Freeling.
+
+"Never walk blindfold, Mr. Freeling," replied the lady, drawing herself
+up, with a dignified air. "We ought to understand each other by this
+time. I must see beyond the mere use of these notes."
+
+Freeling shut his mouth tightly and knit his heavy brows. Mrs. Dinneford
+watched him, closely.
+
+"It's a desperate expedient," he said, at length.
+
+"All well as far as that is concerned; but if I am to have a hand in it,
+I must know all about it," she replied, firmly. "As I said just now, I
+never walk blindfold."
+
+Freeling leaned close to Mrs. Dinneford, and uttered a few sentences in
+a low tone, speaking rapidly. The color went and came in her face, but
+she sat motionless, and so continued for some time after he had ceased
+speaking.
+
+"You will get the notes?" Freeling put the question as one who has
+little doubt of the answer.
+
+"I will get them," replied Mrs. Dinneford.
+
+"When?"
+
+"It will take time."
+
+"We cannot wait long. If the thing is done at all, it must be done
+quickly. 'Strike while the iron is hot' is the best of all maxims."
+
+"There shall be no needless delay on my part. You may trust me for
+that," was answered.
+
+Within a week Mrs. Dinneford brought two notes, drawn by her husband
+in favor of George Granger--one for five hundred and the other for one
+thousand dollars. The time was short--thirty and sixty days. On this
+occasion she came to the store and asked for her son-in-law. The meeting
+between her and Freeling was reserved and formal. She expressed regret
+for the trouble she was giving the firm in procuring a discount for her
+use, and said that if she could reciprocate the favor in any way she
+would be happy to do so.
+
+"The notes are drawn to your order," remarked Freeling as soon as the
+lady had retired. Granger endorsed them, and was about handing them to
+his partner, when the latter said:
+
+"Put our name on them while you are about it." And the young man wrote
+also the endorsement of the firm.
+
+After this, Mr. Freeling put the bank business into Granger's hands.
+Nearly all checks were drawn and all business paper endorsed by the
+younger partner, who became the financier of the concern, and had the
+management of all negotiations for money in and out of bank.
+
+One morning, shortly after the first of Mr. Dinneford's notes was paid,
+Granger saw his mother-in-law come into the store. Freeling was at the
+counter. They talked together for some time, and then Mrs. Dinneford
+went out.
+
+On the next day Granger saw Mrs. Dinneford in the store again. After
+she had gone away, Freeling came back, and laying a note-of-hand on his
+partner's desk, said, in a pleased, confidential way.
+
+"Look at that, my friend."
+
+Granger read the face of the note with a start of surprise. It was drawn
+to his order, for three thousand dollars, and bore the signature of
+Howard Dinneford.
+
+"A thing that is worth having is worth asking for," said Freeling.
+"We obliged your mother-in-law, and now she has returned the favor. It
+didn't come very easily, she said, and your father-in-law isn't feeling
+rather comfortable about it; so she doesn't care about your speaking of
+it at home."
+
+Granger was confounded.
+
+"I can't understand it," he said.
+
+"You can understand that we have the note, and that it has come in the
+nick of time," returned Freeling.
+
+"Yes, I can see all that."
+
+"Well, don't look a gift-horse in the mouth, but spring into the saddle
+and take a ride. Your mother-in-law is a trump. If she will, she will,
+you may depend on't."
+
+Freeling was unusually excited. Granger looked the note over and over
+in a way that seemed to annoy his partner, who said, presently, with a
+shade of ill-nature in his voice,
+
+"What's the matter? Isn't the signature all right?"
+
+"That's right enough," returned the young man, after looking at it
+closely. "But I can't understand it."
+
+"You will when you see the proceeds passed to our accounted in bank--ha!
+ha!"
+
+Granger looked up at his partner quickly, the laugh had so strange a
+sound, but saw nothing new in his face.
+
+In about a month Freeling had in his possession another note, signed by
+Mr. Dinneford and drawn to the order of George Granger. This one was for
+five thousand dollars. He handed it to his partner soon after the latter
+had observed Mrs. Dinneford in the store.
+
+A little over six weeks from this time Mrs. Dinneford was in the store
+again. After she had gone away, Freeling handed Granger three more
+notes drawn by Mr. Dinneford to his order, amounting in all to fifteen
+thousand dollars. They were at short dates.
+
+Granger took these notes without any remark, and was about putting them
+in his desk, when Freeling said,
+
+"I think you had better offer one in the People's Bank and another in
+the Fourth National. They discount to-morrow."
+
+"Our line is full in both of these banks," replied Granger.
+
+"That may or may not be. Paper like this is not often thrown out. Call
+on the president of the Fourth National and the cashier of the People's
+Bank. Say that we particularly want the money, and would like them to
+see that the notes go through. Star & Giltedge can easily place the
+other."
+
+Granger's manner did not altogether please his partner. The notes lay
+before him on his desk, and he looked at them in a kind of dazed way.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Freeling, rather sharply.
+
+"Nothing," was the quiet answer.
+
+"You saw Mrs. Dinneford in the store just now. I told her last week that
+I should claim another favor at her hands. She tried to beg off, but I
+pushed the matter hard. It must end here, she says. Mr. Dinneford won't
+go any farther."
+
+"I should think not," replied Granger. "I wouldn't if I were he. The
+wonder to me is that he has gone so far. What about the renewal of these
+notes?"
+
+"Oh, that is all arranged," returned Freeling, a little hurriedly.
+Granger looked at him for some moments. He was not satisfied.
+
+"See that they go in bank," said Freeling, in a positive way.
+
+Granger took up his pen in an abstracted manner and endorsed the notes,
+after which he laid them in his bank-book. An important customer coming
+in at the moment, Freeling went forward to see him. After Granger was
+left alone, he took the notes from his bank-book and examined them
+with great care. Suspicion was aroused. He felt sure that something
+was wrong. A good many things in Freeling's conduct of late had seemed
+strange. After thinking for a while, he determined to take the notes at
+once to Mr. Dinneford and ask him if all was right. As soon as his mind
+had reached this conclusion he hurried through the work he had on hand,
+and then putting his bank-book in his pocket, left the store.
+
+On that very morning Mr. Dinneford received notice that he had a note
+for three thousand dollars falling due at one of the banks. He went
+immediately and asked to see the note. When it was shown to him, he was
+observed to become very pale, but he left the desk of the note-clerk
+without any remark, and returned home. He met his wife at the door, just
+coming in.
+
+"What's the matter?" she asked, seeing how pale he was. "Not sick, I
+hope?"
+
+"Worse than sick," he replied as they passed into the house together.
+"George has been forging my name."
+
+"Impossible!" exclaimed Mrs. Dinneford.
+
+"I wish it were," replied Mr. Dinneford, sadly; "but, alas! it is too
+true. I have just returned from the Fourth National Bank. They have a
+note for three thousand dollars, bearing my signature. It is drawn
+to the order of George Granger, and endorsed by him. The note is a
+forgery."
+
+Mrs. Dinneford became almost wild with excitement. Her fair face grew
+purple. Her eyes shone with a fierce light.
+
+"Have you had him arrested?" she asked.
+
+"Oh no, no, no!" Mr. Dinneford answered. "For poor Edith's sake, if for
+nothing else, this dreadful business must be kept secret. I will take up
+the note when due, and the public need be none the wiser."
+
+"If," said Mrs. Dinneford, "he has forged your name once, he has, in all
+probability, done it again and again. No, no; the thing can't be hushed
+up, and it must not be. Is he less a thief and a robber because he is
+our son-in-law? My daughter the wife of a forger! Great heavens! has it
+come to this Mr. Dinneford?" she added, after a pause, and with intense
+bitterness and rejection in her voice. "The die is cast! Never again, if
+I can prevent it, shall that scoundrel cross our threshold. Let the law
+have its course. It is a crime to conceal crime."
+
+"It will kill our poor child!" answered Mr. Dinneford in a broken voice.
+
+"Death is better than the degradation of living with a criminal,"
+replied his wife. "I say it solemnly, and I mean it; the die is cast!
+Come what will, George Granger stands now and for ever on the outside!
+Go at once and give information to the bank officers. If you do not, I
+will."
+
+With a heavy heart Mr. Dinneford returned to the bank and informed the
+president that the note in question was a forgery. He had been gone from
+home a little over half an hour, when Granger, who had come to ask him
+about the three notes given him that morning by Freeling, put his key in
+the door, and found, a little to his surprise, that the latch was down.
+He rang the bell, and in a few moments the servant appeared. Granger was
+about passing in, when the man said, respectfully but firmly, as he held
+the door partly closed,
+
+"My orders are not to let you come in."
+
+"Who gave you those orders?" demanded Granger, turning white.
+
+"Mrs. Dinneford."
+
+"I wish to see Mr. Dinneford, and I must see him immediately."
+
+"Mr. Dinneford is not at home," answered the servant.
+
+"Shut that door instantly!"
+
+It was the voice of Mrs. Dinneford, speaking from within. Granger heard
+it; in the next moment the door was shut in his face.
+
+The young man hardly knew how he got back to the store. On his arrival
+he found himself under arrest, charged with forgery, and with fresh
+evidence of the crime on his person in the three notes received that
+morning from his partner, who denied all knowledge of their existence,
+and appeared as a witness against him at the hearing before a
+magistrate. Granger was held to bail to answer the charge at the next
+term of court.
+
+It would have been impossible to keep all this from Edith, even if there
+had been a purpose to do so. Mrs. Dinneford chose to break the dreadful
+news at her own time and in her own way. The shock was fearful. On the
+night that followed her baby was born.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+
+"_IT_ is a splendid boy," said the nurse as she came in with the
+new-born baby in her arms, "and perfect as a bit of sculpture. Just look
+at that hand."
+
+"Faugh!" ejaculated Mrs. Dinneford, to whom this was addressed. Her
+countenance expressed disgust. She turned her head away. "Hide the thing
+from my sight!" she added, angrily. "Cover it up! smother it if you
+will!"
+
+"You are still determined?" said the nurse.
+
+"Determined, Mrs. Bray; I am not the woman to look back when I have once
+resolved. You know me." Mrs. Dinneford said this passionately.
+
+The two women were silent for a little while. Mrs. Bray, the nurse, kept
+her face partly turned from Mrs. Dinneford. She was a short, dry, wiry
+little woman, with French features, a sallow complexion and very black
+eyes.
+
+The doctor looked in. Mrs. Dinneford went quickly to the door, and
+putting her hand on his arm, pressed him back, going out into the entry
+with him and closing the door behind them. They talked for a short time
+very earnestly.
+
+"The whole thing is wrong," said the doctor as he turned to go, "and I
+will not be answerable for the consequences."
+
+"No one will require them at your hand, Doctor Radcliffe," replied
+Mrs. Dinneford. "Do the best you can for Edith. As for the rest, know
+nothing, say nothing. You understand."
+
+Doctor Burt Radcliffe had a large practice among rich and fashionable
+people. He had learned to be very considerate of their weaknesses,
+peculiarities and moral obliquities. His business was to doctor them
+when sick, to humor them when they only thought themselves sick, and to
+get the largest possible fees for his, services. A great deal came under
+his observation that he did not care to see, and of which he saw as
+little as possible. From policy he had learned to be reticent. He held
+family secrets enough to make, in the hands of a skillful writer, more
+than a dozen romances of the saddest and most exciting character.
+
+Mrs. Dinneford knew him thoroughly, and just how far to trust him. "Know
+nothing, say nothing" was a good maxim in the case, and so she divulged
+only the fact that the baby was to be cast adrift. His weak remonstrance
+might as well not have been spoken, and he knew it.
+
+While this brief interview was in progress, Nurse Bray sat with the baby
+on her lap. She had taken the soft little hands into her own; and evil
+and cruel though she was, an impulse of tenderness flowed into her heart
+from the angels who were present with the innocent child. It grew
+lovely in her eyes. Its helplessness stirred in her a latent instinct of
+protection. "No no, it must not be," she was saying to herself, when the
+door opened and Mrs. Dinneford came back.
+
+Mrs. Bray did not lift her head, but sat looking down at the baby and
+toying with its hands.
+
+"Pshaw!" ejaculated Mrs. Dinneford, in angry disgust, as she noticed
+this manifestation of interest. "Bundle the thing up and throw into that
+basket. Is the woman down stairs?"
+
+"Yes," replied Mrs. Bray as she slowly drew a light blanket over the
+baby.
+
+"Very well. Put it in the basket, and let her take it away."
+
+"She is not a good woman," said the nurse, whose heart was failing her
+at the last moment.
+
+"She may be the devil for all I care," returned Mrs. Dinneford.
+
+Mrs. Bray did as she was ordered, but with an evident reluctance that
+irritated Mrs. Dinneford.
+
+"Go now and bring up the woman," she said, sharply.
+
+The woman was brought. She was past the prime of life, and had an evil
+face. You read in it the record of bad passions indulged and the signs
+of a cruel nature. She was poorly clad, and her garments unclean.
+
+"You will take this child?" said Mrs. Dinneford abruptly, as the woman
+came into her presence.
+
+"I have agreed to do so," she replied, looking toward Mrs. Bray.
+
+"She is to have fifty dollars," said the nurse.
+
+"And that is to be the last of it!" Mrs. Dinneford's face was pale, and
+she spoke in a hard, husky voice.
+
+Opening her purse, she took from it a small roll of bills, and as she
+held out the money said, slowly and with a hard emphasis,
+
+"You understand the terms. I do not know you--not even your name. I
+don't wish to know you. For this consideration you take the child away.
+That is the end of it between you and me. The child is your own as much
+as if he were born to you, and you can do with him as you please. And
+now go." Mrs. Dinneford waved her hand.
+
+"His name?" queried the woman.
+
+"He has no name!" Mrs. Dinneford stamped her foot in angry impatience.
+
+The woman stooped down, and taking up the basket, tucked the covering
+that had been laid over the baby close about its head, so that no one
+could see what she carried, and went off without uttering another word.
+
+It was some moments before either Mrs. Dinneford or the nurse spoke.
+Mrs. Bray was first to break silence.
+
+"All this means a great deal more than you have counted on," she said,
+in a voice that betrayed some little feeling. "To throw a tender baby
+out like that is a hard thing. I am afraid--"
+
+"There, there! no more of that," returned Mrs. Dinneford, impatiently.
+"It's ugly work, I own, but it had to be done--like cutting off a
+diseased limb. He will die, of course, and the sooner it is over, the
+better for him and every one else."
+
+"He will have a hard struggle for life, poor little thing!" said the
+nurse. "I would rather see him dead."
+
+Mrs. Dinneford, now that this wicked and cruel deed was done, felt ill
+at ease. She pushed the subject away, and tried to bury it out of sight
+as we bury the dead, but did not find the task an easy one.
+
+What followed the birth and removal of Edith's baby up to the time of
+her return to reason after long struggle for life, has already been
+told. Her demand to have her baby--"Oh, mother, bring me my baby!
+I shall die if you do not!" and the answer, "Your baby is in
+heaven!"--sent the feeble life-currents back again upon her heart. There
+was another long period of oblivion, out of which she came very slowly,
+her mind almost as much a blank as the mind of a child.
+
+She had to learn again the names of things, and to be taught their use.
+It was touching to see the untiring devotion of her father, and the
+pleasure he took in every new evidence of mental growth. He went
+over the alphabet with her, letter by letter, many times each day,
+encouraging her and holding her thought down to the unintelligible signs
+with a patient tenderness sad yet beautiful to see; and when she began
+to combine letters into words, and at last to put words together, his
+delight was unbounded.
+
+Very slowly went on the new process of mental growth, and it was months
+before thought began to reach out beyond the little world that lay just
+around her.
+
+Meanwhile, Edith's husband had been brought to trial for forgery,
+convicted and sentenced to the State's prison for a term of years. His
+partner came forward as the chief witness, swearing that he had believed
+the notes genuine, the firm having several times had the use of Mr.
+Dinneford's paper, drawn to the order of Granger.
+
+Ere the day of trial came the poor young man was nearly broken-hearted.
+Public disgrace like this, added to the terrible private wrongs he was
+suffering, was more than he had the moral strength to bear. Utterly
+repudiated by his wife's family, and not even permitted to see Edith, he
+only knew that she was very ill. Of the birth of his baby he had but
+a vague intimation. A rumor was abroad that it had died, but he could
+learn nothing certain. In his distress and uncertainty he called on Dr.
+Radcliffe, who replied to his questions with a cold evasion. "It was
+put out to nurse," said the doctor, "and that is all I know about it."
+Beyond this he would say nothing.
+
+Granger was not taken to the State's prison after his sentence, but
+to an insane asylum. Reason gave way under the terrible ordeal through
+which he had been made to pass.
+
+"Mother," said Edith, one day, in a tone that caused Mrs. Dinneford's
+heart to leap. She was reading a child's simple story-book, and looked
+up as she spoke. Her eyes were wide open and full of questions.
+
+"What, my dear?" asked Mrs. Dinneford, repressing her feelings and
+trying to keep her voice calm.
+
+"There's something I can't understand, mother." She looked down at
+herself, then about the room. Her manner was becoming nervous.
+
+"What can't you understand?"
+
+Edith shut her hands over her eyes and remained very still. When
+she removed them, and her mother looked into her face the childlike
+sweetness and content were all gone, and a conscious woman was before
+her. The transformation was as sudden as it was marvelous.
+
+Both remained silent for the space of nearly a minute. Mrs. Dinneford
+knew not what to say, and waited for some sign from her daughter.
+
+"Where is my baby, mother?" Edith said this in a low, tremulous whisper,
+leaning forward as she spoke, repressed and eager.
+
+"Have you forgotten?" asked Mrs. Dinneford, with regained composure.
+
+"Forgotten what?"
+
+"You were very ill after your baby was born; no one thought you could
+live; you were ill for a long time. And the baby--"
+
+"What of the baby, mother?" asked Edith, beginning to tremble violently.
+Her mother, perceiving her agitation, held back the word that was on her
+lips.
+
+"What of the baby, mother?" Edith repeated the question.
+
+"It died," said Mrs. Dinneford, turning partly away. She could not look
+at her child and utter this cruel falsehood.
+
+"Dead! Oh, mother, don't say that! The baby can't be dead!"
+
+A swift flash of suspicion came into her eyes.
+
+"I have said it, my child," was the almost stern response of Mrs.
+Dinneford. "The baby is dead."
+
+A weight seemed to fall on Edith. She bent forward, crouching down until
+her elbows rested on her knees and her hands supported her head. Thus
+she sat, rocking her body with a slight motion. Mrs. Dinneford watched
+her without speaking.
+
+"And what of George?" asked Edith, checking her nervous movement at
+last.
+
+Her mother did not reply. Edith waited a moment, and then lifted herself
+erect.
+
+"What of George?" she demanded.
+
+"My poor child!" exclaimed Mrs. Dinneford, with a gush of genuine pity,
+putting her arms about Edith and drawing her head against her bosom. "It
+is more than you have strength to bear."
+
+"You must tell me," the daughter said, disengaging herself. "I have
+asked for my husband."
+
+"Hush! You must not utter that word again;" and Mrs. Dinneford put her
+fingers on Edith's lips. "The wretched man you once called by that name
+is a disgraced criminal. It is better that you know the worst."
+
+When Mr. Dinneford came home, instead of the quiet, happy child he
+had left in the morning, he found a sad, almost broken-hearted woman,
+refusing to be comforted. The wonder was that under the shock of this
+terrible awakening, reason had not been again and hopelessly dethroned.
+
+After a period of intense suffering, pain seemed to deaden sensibility.
+She grew calm and passive. And now Mrs. Dinneford set herself to the
+completion of the work she had begun. She had compassed the ruin of
+Granger in order to make a divorce possible; she had cast the baby
+adrift that no sign of the social disgrace might remain as an impediment
+to her first ambition. She would yet see her daughter in the position
+to which she had from the beginning resolved to lift her, cost what it
+might. But the task was not to be an easy one.
+
+After a period of intense suffering, as we have said, Edith grew calm
+and passive. But she was never at ease with her mother, and seemed to
+be afraid of her. To her father she was tender and confiding. Mrs.
+Dinneford soon saw that if Edith's consent to a divorce from her husband
+was to be obtained, it must come through her father's influence; for
+if she but hinted at the subject, it was met with a flash of almost
+indignant rejection. So her first work was to bring her husband over to
+her side. This was not difficult, for Mr. Dinneford felt the disgrace
+of having for a son-in-law a condemned criminal, who was only saved from
+the State's prison by insanity. An insane criminal was not worthy to
+hold the relation of husband to his pure and lovely child.
+
+After a feeble opposition to her father's arguments and persuasions,
+Edith yielded her consent. An application for a divorce was made, and
+speedily granted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+
+_OUT_ of this furnace Edith came with a new and purer spirit. She had
+been thrust in a shrinking and frightened girl; she came out a woman in
+mental stature, in feeling and self-consciousness.
+
+The river of her life, which had cut for itself a deeper channel, lay
+now so far down that it was out of the sight of common observation. Even
+her mother failed to apprehend its drift and strength. Her father knew
+her better. To her mother she was reserved and distant; to her father,
+warm and confiding. With the former she would sit for hours without
+speaking unless addressed; with the latter she was pleased and social,
+and grew to be interested in what interested him. As mentioned, Mr.
+Dinneford was a man of wealth and leisure, and active in many public
+charities. He had come to be much concerned for the neglected and
+cast-off children of poor and vicious parents, thousands upon thousands
+of whom were going to hopeless ruin, unthought of and uncared for by
+Church or State, and their condition often formed the subject of his
+conversation as well at home as elsewhere.
+
+Mrs. Dinneford had no sympathy with her husband in this direction. A
+dirty, vicious child was an offence to her, not an object of pity, and
+she felt more like, spurning it with her foot than touching it with
+her hand. But it was not so with Edith; she listened to her father, and
+became deeply interested in the poor, suffering, neglected little ones
+whose sad condition he could so vividly portray, for the public duties
+of charity to which he was giving a large part of his time made him
+familiar with much that was sad and terrible in human suffering and
+degradation.
+
+One day Edith said to her father,
+
+"I saw a sight this morning that made me sick. It has haunted me ever
+since. Oh, it was dreadful!"
+
+"What was it?" asked Mr. Dinneford.
+
+"A sick baby in the arms of a half-drunken woman. It made me shiver to
+look at its poor little face, wasted by hunger and sickness and purple
+with cold. The woman sat at the street corner begging, and the people
+went by, no one seeming to care for the helpless, starving baby in her
+arms. I saw a police-officer almost touch the woman as he passed. Why
+did he not arrest her?"
+
+"That was not his business," replied Mr. Dinneford. "So long as she did
+not disturb the peace, the officer had nothing to do with her."
+
+"Who, then, has?"
+
+"Nobody."
+
+"Why, father!" exclaimed Edith. "Nobody?"
+
+"The woman was engaged in business. She was a beggar, and the sick,
+half-starved baby was her capital in trade," replied Mr. Dinneford.
+"That policeman had no more authority to arrest her than he had to
+arrest the organ-man or the peanut-vender."
+
+"But somebody should see after a poor baby like that. Is there no law to
+meet such cases?"
+
+"The poor baby has no vote," replied Mr. Dinneford, "and law-makers
+don't concern themselves much about that sort of constituency; and even
+if they did, the executors of law would be found indifferent. They are
+much more careful to protect those whose business it is to make drunken
+beggars like the one you saw, who, if men, can vote and give them place
+and power. The poor baby is far beneath their consideration."
+
+"But not of Him," said Edith, with eyes full of tears, "who took little
+children in his arms and blessed them, and said, Suffer them to come
+unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven."
+
+"Our law-makers are not, I fear, of his kingdom," answered Mr.
+Dinneford, gravely, "but of the kingdom of this world."
+
+A little while after, Edith, who had remained silent and thoughtful,
+said, with a tremor in her voice,
+
+"Father, did you see my baby?"
+
+Mr. Dinneford started at so unexpected a question, surprised and
+disturbed. He did not reply, and Edith put the question again.
+
+"No, my dear," he answered, with a hesitation of manner that was almost
+painful.
+
+After looking into his face steadily for some moments, Edith dropped her
+eyes to the floor, and there was a constrained silence between them for
+a good while.
+
+"You never saw it?" she queried, again lifting her eyes to her father's
+face. Her own was much paler than when she first put the question.
+
+"Never."
+
+"Why?" asked Edith.
+
+She waited for a little while, and then said,
+
+"Why don't you answer me, father?"
+
+"It was never brought to me."
+
+"Oh, father!"
+
+"You were very ill, and a nurse was procured immediately."
+
+"I was not too sick to see my baby," said Edith, with white, quivering
+lips. "If they had laid it in my bosom as soon as it was born, I would
+never have been so ill, and the baby would not have died. If--if--"
+
+She held back what she was about saying, shutting her lips tightly. Her
+face remained very pale and strangely agitated. Nothing more was then
+said.
+
+A day or two afterward, Edith asked her mother, with an abruptness that
+sent the color to her face, "Where was my baby buried?"
+
+"In our lot at Fairview," was replied, after a moment's pause.
+
+Edith said no more, but on that very day, regardless of a heavy rain
+that was falling, went out to the cemetery alone and searched in the
+family lot for the little mound that covered her baby--searched, but did
+not find it. She came back so changed in appearance that when her mother
+saw her she exclaimed,
+
+"Why, Edith! Are you sick?"
+
+"I have been looking for my baby's grave and cannot find it," she
+answered. "There is something wrong, mother. What was done with my baby?
+I must know." And she caught her mother's wrists with both of her hands
+in a tight grip, and sent searching glances down through her eyes.
+
+"Your baby is dead," returned Mrs. Dinneford, speaking slowly and with
+a hard deliberation. "As for its grave--well, if you will drag up the
+miserable past, know that in my anger at your wretched _mesalliance_ I
+rejected even the dead body of your miserable husband's child, and would
+not even suffer it to lie in our family ground. You know how bitterly I
+was disappointed, and I am not one of the kind that forgets or forgives
+easily. I may have been wrong, but it is too late now, and the past may
+as well be covered out of sight."
+
+"Where, then, was my baby buried?" asked Edith, with a calm resolution
+of manner that was not to be denied.
+
+"I do not know. I did not care at the time, and never asked."
+
+"Who can tell me?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Who took my baby to nurse?"
+
+"I have forgotten the woman's name. All I know is that she is dead. When
+the child died, I sent her money, and told her to bury it decently."
+
+"Where did she live?"
+
+"I never knew precisely. Somewhere down town."
+
+"Who brought her here? who recommended her?" said Edith, pushing her
+inquiries rapidly.
+
+"I have forgotten that also," replied Mrs. Dinneford, maintaining her
+coldness of manner.
+
+"My nurse, I presume," said Edith. "I have a faint recollection of
+her--a dark little woman with black eyes whom I had never seen before.
+What was her name?"
+
+"Bodine," answered Mrs. Dinneford, without a moment's hesitation.
+
+"Where does she live?"
+
+"She went to Havana with a Cuban lady several months ago."
+
+"Do you know the lady's name?"
+
+"It was Casteline, I think."
+
+Edith questioned no further. The mother and daughter were still sitting
+together, both deeply absorbed in thought, when a servant opened the
+door and said to Mrs. Dinneford,
+
+"A lady wishes to see you."
+
+"Didn't she give you her card?"
+
+"No ma'am."
+
+"Nor send up her name?"
+
+"No, ma'am."
+
+"Go down and ask her name."
+
+The servant left the room. On returning, she said,
+
+"Her name is Mrs. Bray."
+
+Mrs. Dinneford turned her face quickly, but not in time to prevent Edith
+from seeing by its expression that she knew her visitor, and that her
+call was felt to be an unwelcome one. She went from the room without
+speaking. On entering the parlor, Mrs. Dinneford said, in a low, hurried
+voice,
+
+"I don't want you to come here, Mrs. Bray. If you wish to see me send me
+word, and I will call on you, but you must on no account come here."
+
+"Why? Is anything wrong?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Edith isn't satisfied about the baby, has been out to Fairview looking
+for its grave, wants to know who her nurse was."
+
+"What did you tell her?"
+
+"I said that your name was Mrs. Bodine, and that you had gone to Cuba."
+
+"Do you think she would know me?"
+
+"Can't tell; wouldn't like to run the risk of her seeing you here. Pull
+down your veil. There! close. She said, a little while ago, that she had
+a faint recollection of you as a dark little woman with black eyes whom
+she had never seen before."
+
+"Indeed!" and Mrs. Bray gathered her veil close about her face.
+
+"The baby isn't living?" Mrs. Dinneford asked the question in a whisper.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, it can't be! Are you sure?"
+
+"Yes; I saw it day before yesterday."
+
+"You did! Where?"
+
+"On the street, in the arms of a beggar-woman."
+
+"You are deceiving me!" Mrs. Dinneford spoke with a throb of anger in
+her voice.
+
+"As I live, no! Poor little thing! half starved and half frozen. It
+'most made me sick."
+
+"It's impossible! You could not know that it was Edith's baby."
+
+"I do know," replied Mrs. Bray, in a voice that left no doubt on Mrs.
+Dinneford's mind.
+
+"Was the woman the same to whom we gave the baby?"
+
+"No; she got rid of it in less than a month."
+
+"What did she do with it?"
+
+"Sold it for five dollars, after she had spent all the money she
+received from you in drink and lottery-policies."
+
+"Sold it for five dollars!"
+
+"Yes, to two beggar-women, who use it every day, one in the morning and
+the other in the afternoon, and get drunk on the money they receive,
+lying all night in some miserable den."
+
+Mrs. Dinneford gave a little shiver.
+
+"What becomes of the baby when they are not using it?" she asked.
+
+"They pay a woman a dollar a week to take care of it at night."
+
+"Do you know where this woman lives?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Were you ever there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What kind of a place is it?"
+
+"Worse than a dog-kennel."
+
+"What does all this mean?" demanded Mrs. Dinneford, with repressed
+excitement. "Why have you so kept on the track of this baby, when you
+knew I wished it lost sight of?"
+
+"I had my own reasons," replied Mrs. Bray. "One doesn't know what may
+come of an affair like this, and it's safe to keep well up with it."
+
+Mrs. Dinneford bit her lips till the blood almost came through. A faint
+rustle of garments in the hall caused her to start. An expression of
+alarm crossed her face.
+
+"Go now," she said, hurriedly, to her visitor; "I will call and see you
+this afternoon."
+
+Mrs. Bray quietly arose, saying, as she did so, "I shall expect you,"
+and went away.
+
+There was a menace in her tone as she said, "I shall expect you," that
+did not escape the ears of Mrs. Dinneford.
+
+Edith was in the hall, at some distance from the parlor door. Mrs. Bray
+had to pass her as she went out. Edith looked at her intently.
+
+"Who is that woman?" she asked, confronting her mother, after the
+visitor was gone.
+
+"If you ask the question in a proper manner, I shall have no objection
+to answer," said Mrs. Dinneford, with a dignified and slightly offended
+air; "but my daughter is assuming rather, too much."
+
+"Mrs. Bray, the servant said."
+
+"No, Mrs. Gray."
+
+"I understood her to say Mrs. Bray."
+
+"I can't help what you understood." The mother spoke with some asperity
+of manner. "She calls herself Gray, but you can have it anything you
+please; it won't change her identity."
+
+"What did she want?"
+
+"To see me."
+
+"I know." Edith was turning away with an expression on her face that
+Mrs. Dinneford did not like, so she said,
+
+"She is in trouble, and wants me to help her, if you must know. She
+used to be a dressmaker, and worked for me before you were born; she got
+married, and then her troubles began. Now she is a widow with a house
+full of little children, and not half bread enough to feed them. I've
+helped her a number of times already, but I'm getting tired of it; she
+must look somewhere else, and I told her so."
+
+Edith turned from her mother with an unsatisfied manner, and went up
+stairs. Mrs. Dinneford was surprised, not long afterward, to meet her at
+her chamber door, dressed to go out. This was something unusual.
+
+"Where are you going?" she asked, not concealing her surprise.
+
+"I have a little errand out," Edith replied.
+
+This was not satisfactory to her mother. She asked other questions, but
+Edith gave only evasive answers.
+
+On leaving the house, Edith walked quickly, like one in earnest about
+something; her veil was closely drawn. Only a few blocks from where she
+lived was the office of Dr. Radcliffe. Hither she directed her steps.
+
+"Why, Edith, child!" exclaimed the doctor, not concealing the surprise
+he felt at seeing her. "Nobody sick, I hope?"
+
+"No one," she answered.
+
+There was a momentary pause; then Edith said, abruptly,
+
+"Doctor, what became of my baby?"
+
+"It died," answered Doctor Radcliffe, but not without betraying some
+confusion. The question had fallen upon him too suddenly.
+
+"Did you see it after it was dead?" She spoke in a firm voice, looking
+him steadily in the face.
+
+"No," he replied, after a slight hesitation.
+
+"Then how do you know that it died?" Edith asked.
+
+"I had your mother's word for it," said the doctor.
+
+"What was done with my baby after it was born?"
+
+"It was given out to nurse."
+
+"With your consent?"
+
+"I did not advise it. Your mother had her own views in the case. It was
+something over which I had no control."
+
+"And you never saw it after it was taken away?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"And do not really know whether it be dead or living?"
+
+"Oh, it's dead, of course, my child. There is no doubt of that," said
+the doctor, with sudden earnestness of manner.
+
+"Have you any evidence of the fact?"
+
+"My dear, dear child," answered the doctor, with much feeling, "it is
+all wrong. Why go back over this unhappy ground? why torture yourself
+for nothing? Your baby died long ago, and is in heaven."
+
+"Would God I could believe it!" she exclaimed, in strong agitation. "If
+it were so, why is not the evidence set before me? I question my mother;
+I ask for the nurse who was with me when my baby was born, and for the
+nurse to whom it was given afterward, and am told that they are dead or
+out of the country. I ask for my baby's grave, but it cannot be found.
+I have searched for it where my mother told me it was, but the grave
+is not there. Why all this hiding and mystery? Doctor, you said that my
+baby was in heaven, and I answered, 'Would God it were so!' for I saw a
+baby in hell not long ago!"
+
+The doctor was scared. He feared that Edith was losing her mind, she
+looked and spoke so wildly.
+
+"A puny, half-starved, half-frozen little thing, in the arms of a
+drunken beggar," she added. "And, doctor, an awful thought has haunted
+me ever since."
+
+"Hush, hush!" said the doctor, who saw what was in her mind. "You must
+not indulge such morbid fancies."
+
+"It is that I may not indulge them that I have come to you. I want
+certainty, Dr. Radcliffe. Somebody knows all about my baby. Who was my
+nurse?"
+
+"I never saw her before the night of your baby's birth, and have never
+seen her since. Your mother procured her."
+
+"Did you hear her name?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And so you cannot help me at all?" said Edith, in a disappointed voice.
+
+"I cannot, my poor child," answered the doctor.
+
+All the flush and excitement died out of Edith's face. When she arose to
+go, she was pale and haggard, like one exhausted by pain, and her steps
+uneven, like the steps of an invalid walking for the first time. Dr.
+Radcliffe went with her in silence to the door.
+
+"Oh, doctor," said Edith, in a choking voice, as she lingered a moment
+on the steps, "can't you bring out of this frightful mystery something
+for my heart to rest upon? I want the truth. Oh, doctor, in pity help me
+to find the truth!"
+
+"I am powerless to help you," the doctor replied. "Your only hope lies
+in your mother. She knows all about it; I do not."
+
+And he turned and left her standing at the door. Slowly she descended
+the steps, drawing her veil as she did so about her face, and walked
+away more like one in a dream than conscious of the tide of life setting
+so strongly all about her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+
+_MEANTIME_, obeying the unwelcome summons, Mrs. Dinneford had gone to
+see Mrs. Bray. She found her in a small third-story room in the lower
+part of the city, over a mile away from her own residence. The meeting
+between the two women was not over-gracious, but in keeping with their
+relations to each other. Mrs. Dinneford was half angry and impatient;
+Mrs. Bray cool and self-possessed.
+
+"And now what is it you have to say?" asked the former, almost as soon
+as she had entered.
+
+"The woman to whom you gave that baby was here yesterday."
+
+A frightened expression came into Mrs. Dinneford's face. Mrs. Bray
+watched her keenly as, with lips slightly apart, she waited for what
+more was to come.
+
+"Unfortunately, she met me just as I was at my own door, and so found
+out my residence," continued Mrs. Bray. "I was in hopes I should never
+see her again. We shall have trouble, I'm afraid."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"A bad woman who has you in her power can trouble you in many ways,"
+answered Mrs. Bray.
+
+"She did not know my name--you assured me of that. It was one of the
+stipulations."
+
+"She does know, and your daughter's name also. And she knows where the
+baby is. She's deeper than I supposed. It's never safe to trust such
+people; they have no honor."
+
+Fear sent all the color out of Mrs. Dinneford's face.
+
+"What does she want?"
+
+"Money."
+
+"She was paid liberally."
+
+"That has nothing to do with it. These people have no honor, as I said;
+they will get all they can."
+
+"How much does she want?"
+
+"A hundred dollars; and it won't end there, I'm thinking. If she is
+refused, she will go to your house; she gave me that alternative--would
+have gone yesterday, if good luck had not thrown her in my way. I
+promised to call on you and see what could be done."
+
+Mrs. Dinneford actually groaned in her fear and distress.
+
+"Would you like to see her yourself?" coolly asked Mrs. Bray.
+
+"Oh dear! no, no!" and the lady put up her hands in dismay.
+
+"It might be best," said her wily companion.
+
+"No, no, no! I will have nothing to do with her! You must keep her away
+from me," replied Mrs. Dinneford, with increasing agitation.
+
+"I cannot keep her away without satisfying her demands. If you were to
+see her yourself, you would know just what her demands were. If you do
+not see her, you will only have my word for it, and I am left open
+to misapprehension, if not worse. I don't like to be placed in such a
+position."
+
+And Mrs. Bray put on a dignified, half-injured manner.
+
+"It's a wretched business in every way," she added, "and I'm sorry that
+I ever had anything to do with it. It's something dreadful, as I told
+you at the time, to cast a helpless baby adrift in such a way. Poor
+little soul! I shall never feel right about it."
+
+"That's neither here nor there;" and Mrs. Dinneford waved her hand
+impatiently. "The thing now in hand is to deal with this woman."
+
+"Yes, that's it--and as I said just now, I would rather have you deal
+with her yourself; you may be able to do it better than I can."
+
+"It's no use to talk, Mrs. Bray. I will not see the woman."
+
+"Very well; you must be your own judge in the case."
+
+"Can't you bind her up to something, or get her out of the city? I'd
+pay almost anything to have her a thousand miles away. See if you can't
+induce her to go to New Orleans. I'll pay her passage, and give her a
+hundred dollars besides, if she'll go."
+
+Mrs. Bray smiled a faint, sinister smile:
+
+"If you could get her off there, it would be the end of her. She'd never
+stand the fever."
+
+"Then get her off, cost what it may," said Mrs. Dinneford.
+
+"She will be here in less than half an hour." Mrs. Bray looked at the
+face of a small cheap clock that stood on the mantel.
+
+"She will?" Mrs. Dinneford became uneasy, and arose from her chair.
+
+"Yes; what shall I say to her?"
+
+"Manage her the best you can. Here are thirty dollars--all the money I
+have with me. Give her that, and promise more if necessary. I will see
+you again."
+
+"When?" asked Mrs. Bray.
+
+"At any time you desire."
+
+"Then you had better come to-morrow morning. I shall not go out."
+
+"I will be here at eleven o'clock. Induce her if possible to leave the
+city--to go South, so that she may never come back."
+
+"The best I can shall be done," replied Mrs. Bray as she folded the
+bank-bills she had received from Mrs. Dinneford in a fond, tender sort
+of way and put them into her pocket.
+
+Mrs. Dinneford retired, saying as she did so,
+
+"I will be here in the morning."
+
+An instant change came over the shallow face of the wiry little woman as
+the form of Mrs. Dinneford vanished through the door. A veil seemed to
+fall away from it. All its virtuous sobriety was gone, and a smile of
+evil satisfaction curved about her lips and danced in her keen black
+eyes. She stood still, listening to the retiring steps of her visitor,
+until she heard the street door shut. Then, with a quick, cat-like step,
+she crossed to the opposite side of the room, and pushed open a door
+that led to an adjoining chamber. A woman came forward to meet her. This
+woman was taller and stouter than Mrs. Bray, and had a soft, sensual
+face, but a resolute mouth, the under jaw slightly protruding. Her eyes
+were small and close together, and had that peculiar wily and alert
+expression you sometimes see, making you think of a serpent's eyes. She
+was dressed in common finery and adorned by cheap jewelry.
+
+"What do you think of that, Pinky Swett?" exclaimed Mrs. Bray, in a
+voice of exultation. "Got her all right, haven't I?"
+
+"Well, you have!" answered the woman, shaking all over with unrestrained
+laughter. "The fattest pigeon I've happened to see for a month of
+Sundays. Is she very rich?"
+
+"Her husband is, and that's all the same. And now, Pinky"--Mrs. Bray
+assumed a mock gravity of tone and manner--"you know your fate--New
+Orleans and the yellow fever. You must pack right off. Passage free and
+a hundred dollars for funeral expenses. Nice wet graves down there--keep
+off the fire;" and she gave a low chuckle.
+
+"Oh yes; all settled. When does the next steamer sail?" and Pinky almost
+screamed with merriment. She had been drinking.
+
+"H-u-s-h! h-u-s-h! None of that here, Pinky. The people down stairs are
+good Methodists, and think me a saint."
+
+"You a saint? Oh dear!" and she shook with repressed enjoyment.
+
+After this the two women grew serious, and put their heads together for
+business.
+
+"Who is this woman, Fan? What's her name, and where does she live?"
+asked Pinky Swett.
+
+"That's my secret, Pinky," replied Mrs. Bray, "and I can't let it go; it
+wouldn't be safe. You get a little off the handle sometimes, and don't
+know what you say--might let the cat out of the bag. Sally Long took the
+baby away, and she died two months ago; so I'm the only one now in
+the secret. All I want of you is to keep track of the baby. Here is a
+five-dollar bill; I can't trust you with more at a time. I know your
+weakness, Pinky;" and she touched her under the chin in a familiar,
+patronizing way.
+
+Pinky wasn't satisfied with this, and growled a little, just showing her
+teeth like an unquiet dog.
+
+"Give me ten," she said; "the woman gave you thirty. I heard her say so.
+And she's going to bring you seventy to-morrow."
+
+"You'll only waste it, Pinky," remonstrated Mrs. Bray. "It will all be
+gone before morning."
+
+"Fan," said the woman, leaning toward Mrs. Bray and speaking in a low,
+confidential tone, "I dreamed of a cow last night, and that's good
+luck, you know. Tom Oaks made a splendid hit last Saturday--drew twenty
+dollars--and Sue Minty got ten. They're all buzzing about it down in our
+street, and going to Sam McFaddon's office in a stream."
+
+"Do they have good luck at Sam McFaddon's?" asked Mrs. Bray, with
+considerable interest in her manner.
+
+"It's the luckiest place that I know. Never dreamed of a cow or a hen
+that I didn't make a hit, and I dreamed of a cow last night. She was
+giving such a splendid pail of milk, full to the brim, just as old Spot
+and Brindle used to give. You remember our Spot and Brindle, Fan?"
+
+"Oh yes." There was a falling inflection in Mrs. Bray's voice, as if
+the reference had sent her thoughts away back to other and more innocent
+days.
+
+The two women sat silent for some moments after that; and when Pinky
+spoke, which she did first, it was in lower and softer tones:
+
+"I don't like to think much about them old times, Fan; do you? I might
+have done better. But it's no use grizzling about it now. What's done's
+done, and can't be helped. Water doesn't run up hill again after it's
+once run down. I've got going, and can't stop, you see. There's nothing
+to catch at that won't break as soon as you touch it. So I mean to be
+jolly as I move along."
+
+"Laughing is better than crying at any time," returned Mrs. Bray; "here
+are five more;" and she handed Pinky Swett another bank-bill. "I'm going
+to try my luck. Put half a dollar on ten different rows, and we'll go
+shares on what is drawn. I dreamed the other night that I saw a flock of
+sheep, and that's good luck, isn't it?"
+
+Pinky thrust her hand into her pocket and drew out a worn and soiled
+dream-book.
+
+"A flock of sheep; let me see;" and she commenced turning over the
+leaves. "Sheep; here it is: 'To see them is a sign of sorrow--11, 20,
+40, 48. To be surrounded by many sheep denotes good luck--2, 11, 55.'
+That's your row; put down 2, 11, 55. We'll try that. Next put down 41
+11, 44--that's the lucky row when you dream of a cow."
+
+As Pinky leaned toward her friend she dropped her parasol.
+
+"That's for luck, maybe," she said, with a brightening face. "Let's see
+what it says about a parasol;" and she turned over her dream-book.
+
+"For a maiden to dream she loses her parasol shows that her sweetheart
+is false and will never marry her--5, 51, 56."
+
+"But you didn't dream about a parasol, Pinky."
+
+"That's no matter; it's just as good as a dream. 5, 51, 56 is the row.
+Put that down for the second, Fan."
+
+As Mrs. Bray was writing out these numbers the clock on the mantel
+struck five.
+
+"8, 12, 60," said Pinky, turning to the clock; "that's the clock row."
+
+And Mrs. Bray put down these figures also.
+
+"That's three rows," said Pinky, "and we want ten." She arose, as she
+spoke, and going to the front window, looked down upon the street.
+
+"There's an organ-grinder; it's the first thing I saw;" and she came
+back fingering the leaves of her dream-book. "Put down 40, 50, 26."
+
+Mrs. Bray wrote the numbers on her slip of paper.
+
+"It's November; let's find the November row." Pinky consulted her book
+again. "Signifies you will have trouble through life--7, 9, 63. That's
+true as preaching; I was born in November, and I've had it all trouble.
+How many rows does that make?"
+
+"Five."
+
+"Then we will cut cards for the rest;" and Pinky drew a soiled pack from
+her pocket, shuffled the cards and let her friends cut them.
+
+"Ten of diamonds;" she referred to the dream-book. "10, 13, 31; put that
+down."
+
+The cards were shuffled and cut again.
+
+"Six of clubs--6, 35, 39."
+
+Again they were cut and shuffled. This time the knave of clubs was
+turned up.
+
+"That's 17, 19, 28," said Pinky, reading from her book.
+
+The next cut gave the ace of clubs, and the policy numbers were 18, 63,
+75.
+
+"Once more, and the ten rows will be full;" and the cards were cut
+again.
+
+"Five of hearts--5, 12, 60;" and the ten rows were complete.
+
+"There's luck there, Fan; sure to make a hit," said Pinky, with almost
+childish confidence, as she gazed at the ten rows of figures. "One
+of 'em can't help coming out right, and that would be fifty
+dollars--twenty-five for me and twenty-five for you; two rows would give
+a hundred dollars, and the whole ten a thousand. Think of that, Fan!
+five hundred dollars apiece."
+
+"It would break Sam McFaddon, I'm afraid," remarked Mrs. Bray.
+
+"Sam's got nothing to do with it," returned Pinky.
+
+"He hasn't?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Who has, then?"
+
+"His backer."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Oh, I found it all out--I know how it's done. Sam's got a backer--a man
+that puts up the money. Sam only sells for his backer. When there's a
+hit, the backer pays."
+
+"Who's Sam's backer, as you call him?"
+
+"Couldn't get him to tell; tried him hard, but he was close as an
+oyster. Drives in the Park and wears a two thousand dollar diamond pin;
+he let that out. So he's good for the hits. Sam always puts the money
+down, fair and square."
+
+"Very well; you get the policy, and do it right off, Pinky, or the
+money'll slip through your fingers."
+
+"All right," answered Pinky as she folded the slip of paper containing
+the lucky rows. "Never you fear. I'll be at Sam McFaddon's in ten
+minutes after I leave here."
+
+"And be sure," said Mrs. Bray, "to look after the baby to-night, and see
+that it doesn't perish with cold; the air's getting sharp."
+
+"It ought to have something warmer than cotton rags on its poor little
+body," returned Pinky. "Can't you get it some flannel? It will die if
+you don't."
+
+"I sent it a warm petticoat last week," said Mrs. Bray.
+
+"You did?"
+
+"Yes; I bought one at a Jew shop, and had it sent to the woman."
+
+"Was it a nice warm one?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Pinky drew a sigh. "I saw the poor baby last night; hadn't anything on
+but dirty cotton rags. It was lying asleep in a cold cellar on a little
+heap of straw. The woman had given it something, I guess, by the way
+it slept. The petticoat had gone, most likely, to Sam McFaddon's. She
+spends everything she can lay her hands on in policies and whisky."
+
+"She's paid a dollar a week for taking care of the baby at night and on
+Sundays," said Mrs. Bray.
+
+"It wouldn't help the baby any if she got ten dollars," returned Pinky.
+"It ought to be taken away from her."
+
+"But who's to do that? Sally Long sold it to the two beggar women, and
+they board it out. I have no right to interfere; they own the baby, and
+can do as they please with it."
+
+"It could be got to the almshouse," said Pinky; "it would be a thousand
+times better off."
+
+"It mustn't go to the almshouse," replied Mrs. Bray; "I might lose track
+of it, and that would never do."
+
+"You'll lose track of it for good and all before long, if you don't get
+it out of them women's bands. No baby can hold out being begged with
+long; it's too hard on the little things. For you know how it is, Fan;
+they must keep 'em half starved and as sick as they will bear without
+dying right off, so as to make 'em look pitiful. You can't do much at
+begging with a fat, hearty-looking baby."
+
+"What's to be done about it?" asked Mrs. Bray. "I don't want that baby
+to die."
+
+"Would its mother know it if she saw it?" asked Pinky.
+
+"No; for she never set eyes on it."
+
+"Then, if it dies, get another baby, and keep track of that. You can
+steal one from a drunken mother any night in the week. I'll do it for
+you. One baby is as good as another."
+
+"It will be safer to have the real one," replied Mrs. Bray. "And now,
+Pinky that you have put this thing into my head, I guess I'll commission
+you to get the baby away from that woman."
+
+"All right!"
+
+"But what are we to do with it? I can't have it here."
+
+"Of course you can't. But that's easily managed, if your're willing to
+pay for it."
+
+"Pay for it?"
+
+"Yes; if it isn't begged with, and made to pay its way and earn
+something into the bargain, it's got to be a dead weight on somebody. So
+you see how it is, Fan. Now, if you'll take a fool's advice, you'll
+let 'it go to the almshouse, or let it alone to die and get out of its
+misery as soon as possible. You can find another baby that will do just
+as well, if you should ever need one."
+
+"How much would it cost, do you think, to have it boarded with some one
+who wouldn't abuse it? She might beg with it herself, or hire it out two
+or three times a week. I guess it would stand that."
+
+"Beggars don't belong to the merciful kind," answered Pinky; "there's no
+trusting any of them. A baby in their hands is never safe. I've seen 'em
+brought in at night more dead than alive, and tossed on a dirty rag-heap
+to die before morning. I'm always glad when they're out of their misery,
+poor things! The fact is, Fan, if you expect that baby to live, you've
+got to take it clean out of the hands of beggars."
+
+"What could I get it boarded for outright?" asked Mrs. Bray.
+
+"For 'most anything, 'cording to how it's done. But why not, while
+you're about it, bleed the old lady, its grandmother, a little deeper,
+and take a few drops for the baby?"
+
+"Guess you're kind o' right about that, Fan; anyhow, we'll make a start
+on it. You find another place for the brat."
+
+"'Greed; when shall I do it?"
+
+"The sooner, the better. It might die of cold any night in that horrible
+den. Ugh!"
+
+"I've been in worse places. Bedlow street is full of them, and so is
+Briar street and Dirty alley. You don't know anything about it."
+
+"Maybe not, and maybe I don't care to know. At present I want to settle
+about this baby. You'll find another place for it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And then steal it from the woman who has it now?"
+
+"Yes; no trouble in the world. She's drunk every night," answered Pinky
+Swett, rising to go.
+
+"You'll see me to-morrow?" said Mrs. Bray.
+
+"Oh yes."
+
+"And you won't forget about the policies?"
+
+"Not I. We shall make a grand hit, or I'm a fool. Day-day!" Pinky waved
+her hand gayly, and then retired.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+
+_A COLD_ wet drizzling rain was beginning to fall when Pinky Swett
+emerged from the house. Twilight was gathering drearily. She drew her
+thin shawl closely, and shivered as the east wind struck her with a
+chill.
+
+At hurried walk of five or ten minutes brought her to a part of the town
+as little known to its citizens generally as if it were in the centre
+of Africa--a part of the town where vice, crime, drunkenness and beggary
+herd together in the closest and most shameless contact; where men and
+women, living in all foulness, and more like wild beasts than human
+beings, prey greedily upon each other, hurting, depraving and marring
+God's image in all over whom they can get power or influenced--_a very
+hell upon the earth!_--at part of the town where theft and robbery and
+murder are plotted, and from which prisons and almshouses draw their
+chief population.
+
+That such a herding together, almost in the centre of a great Christian
+city, of the utterly vicious and degraded, should be permitted, when
+every day's police and criminal records give warning of its cost
+and danger, is a marvel and a reproach. Almost every other house, in
+portions of this locality, is a dram-shop, where the vilest liquors are
+sold. Policy-offices, doing business in direct violation of law, are in
+every street and block, their work of plunder and demoralization going
+on with open doors and under the very eyes of the police. Every one of
+them is known to these officers. But arrest is useless. A hidden and
+malign influence, more potent than justice, has power to protect the
+traffic and hold the guilty offenders harmless. Conviction is rarely, if
+ever, reached.
+
+The poor wretches, depraved and plundered through drink and
+policy-gambling, are driven into crime. They rob and steal and debase
+themselves for money with which to buy rum and policies, and sooner or
+later the prison or death removes the greater number of them from their
+vile companions. But drifting toward this fatal locality under the
+attraction of affinity, or lured thither by harpies in search of new
+supplies of human victims to repair the frightful waste perpetually
+made, the region keeps up its dense population, and the work of
+destroying human souls goes on. It is an awful thing to contemplate.
+Thousands of men and women, boys and girls, once innocent as the
+babes upon whom Christ laid his hand in blessing, are drawn into this
+whirlpool of evil every year, and few come out except by the way of
+prison or death.
+
+It was toward this locality that Pinky Swett directed her feet, after
+parting with Mrs. Bray. Darkness was beginning to settle down as she
+turned off from one of the most populous streets, crowded at the time by
+citizens on their way to quiet and comfortable homes, few if any of whom
+had ever turned aside to look upon and get knowledge of the world or
+crime and wretchedness so near at hand, but girdled in and concealed
+from common observation.
+
+Down a narrow street she turned from the great thoroughfare, walking
+with quick steps, and shivering a little as the penetrating east wind
+sent a chill of dampness through the thin shawl she drew closer and
+closer about her shoulders. Nothing could be in stronger contrast than
+the rows of handsome dwellings and stores that lined the streets through
+which she had just passed, and the forlorn, rickety, unsightly and
+tumble-down houses amid which she now found herself.
+
+Pinky had gone only a little way when the sharp cries of a child cut the
+air suddenly, the shrill, angry voice of a woman and the rapid fall of
+lashes mingled with the cries. The child begged for mercy in tones of
+agony, but the loud voice, uttering curses and imprecations, and the
+cruel blows, ceased not. Pinky stopped and shivered. She felt the pain
+of these blows, in her quickly-aroused sympathy, almost as much as
+if they had been falling on her own person. Opposite to where she had
+paused was a one-story frame house, or enclosed shed, as unsightly
+without as a pig-pen, and almost as filthy within. It contained two
+small rooms with very low ceilings. The only things in these rooms that
+could be called furniture were an old bench, two chairs from which the
+backs had been broken, a tin cup black with smoke and dirt, two or
+three tin pans in the same condition, some broken crockery and an iron
+skillet. Pinky stood still for a moment, shivering, as we have said. She
+knew what the blows and the curses and the cries of pain meant; she had
+heard them before. A depraved and drunken woman and a child ten years
+old, who might or might not be her daughter, lived there. The child was
+sent out every day to beg or steal, and if she failed to bring home a
+certain sum of money, was cruelly beaten by the woman. Almost every
+day the poor child was cut with lashes, often on the bare flesh; almost
+every day her shrieks rang out from the miserable hovel. But there was
+no one to interfere, no one to save her from the smarting blows, no one
+to care what she suffered.
+
+Pinky Swett could stand it no longer. She had often noticed the ragged
+child, with her pale, starved face and large, wistful eyes, passing
+in and out of this miserable woman's den, sometimes going to the
+liquor-shops and sometimes to the nearest policy-office to spend for
+her mother, if such the woman really was, the money she had gained by
+begging.
+
+With a sudden impulse, as a deep wail and a more piteous cry for mercy
+smote upon her ears, Pinky sprang across the street and into the hovel.
+The sight that met her eyes left no hesitation in her mind. Holding up
+with one strong arm the naked body of the poor child--she had drawn the
+clothes over her head--the infuriated woman was raining down blows from
+a short piece of rattan upon the quivering flesh, already covered with
+welts and bruises.
+
+"Devil!" cried Pinky as she rushed upon this fiend in human shape and
+snatched the little girl from her arm. "Do you want to kill the child?"
+
+She might almost as well have assaulted a tigress.
+
+The woman was larger, stronger, more desperate and more thoroughly given
+over to evil passions than she. To thwart her in anything was to rouse
+her into a fury. A moment she stood in surprise and bewilderment; in
+the next, and ere Pinky had time to put herself on guard, she had sprung
+upon her with a passionate cry that sounded more like that of a wild
+beast than anything human. Clutching her by the throat with one hand,
+and with the other tearing the child from her grasp, she threw the
+frightened little thing across the room.
+
+"Devil, ha!" screamed the woman; "devil!" and she tightened her grasp
+on Pinky's throat, at the same time striking her in the face with her
+clenched fist.
+
+Like a war-horse that snuffs the battle afar off and rushes to the
+conflict, so rushed the inhabitants of that foul neighborhood to the
+spot from whence had come to their ears the familiar and not unwelcome
+sound of strife. Even before Pinky had time to shake off her assailant,
+the door of the hovel was darkened by a screen of eager faces. And
+such faces! How little of God's image remained in them to tell of
+their divine origination!--bloated and scarred, ashen pale and wasted,
+hollow-eyed and red-eyed, disease looking out from all, yet all lighted
+up with the keenest interest and expectancy.
+
+Outside, the crowd swelled with a marvelous rapidity. Every cellar and
+room and garret, every little alley and hidden rookery, "hawk's nest"
+and "wren's nest," poured out its unseemly denizens, white and black,
+old and young, male and female, the child of three years old, keen,
+alert and self-protective, running to see the "row" side by side with
+the toothless crone of seventy; or most likely passing her on the way.
+Thieves, beggars, pick-pockets, vile women, rag-pickers and the like,
+with the harpies who prey upon them, all were there to enjoy the show.
+
+Within, a desperate fight was going on between Pinky Swett and the woman
+from whose hands she had attempted to rescue the child--a fight in which
+Pinky was getting the worst of it. One garment after another was torn
+from her person, until little more than a single one remained.
+
+"Here's the police! look out!" was cried at this juncture.
+
+"Who cares for the police? Let 'em come," boldly retorted the woman. "I
+haven't done nothing; it's her that's come in drunk and got up a row."
+
+Pushing the crowd aside, a policeman entered the hovel.
+
+"Here she is!" cried the woman, pointing toward Pinky, from whom she
+had sprung back the moment she heard the word police. "She came in here
+drunk and got up a row. I'm a decent woman, as don't meddle with nobody.
+But she's awful when she gets drunk. Just look at her--been tearing her
+clothes off!"
+
+At this there was a shout of merriment from the crowd who had witnessed
+the fight.
+
+"Good for old Sal! she's one of 'em! Can't get ahead of old Sal, drunk
+or sober!" and like expressions were shouted by one and another.
+
+Poor Pinky, nearly stripped of her clothing, and with a great bruise
+swelling under one of her eyes, bewildered and frightened at the aspect
+of things around her, could make no acceptable defence.
+
+"She ran over and pitched into Sal, so she did! I saw her! She made
+the fight, she did!" testified one of the crowd; and acting on this
+testimony and his own judgment of the case, the policeman said roughly,
+as he laid his hand on Pinky.
+
+"Pick up your duds and come along."
+
+Pinky lifted her torn garments from the dirty floor and gathered them
+about her person as best she could, the crowd jeering all the time. A
+pin here and there, furnished by some of the women, enabled her to get
+them into a sort of shape and adjustment. Then she tried to explain the
+affair to the policeman, but he would not listen.
+
+"Come!" he said, sternly.
+
+"What are you going to do with me?" she asked, not moving from where she
+stood.
+
+"Lock you up," replied the policeman. "So come along."
+
+"What's the matter here?" demanded a tall, strongly-built woman,
+pressing forward. She spoke with a foreign accent, and in a tone of
+command. The motley crowd, above whom she towered, gave way for her as
+she approached. Everything about the woman showed her to be superior in
+mind and moral force to the unsightly wretches about her. She had the
+fair skin, blue eyes and light hair of her nation. Her features were
+strong, but not masculine. You saw in them no trace of coarse sensuality
+or vicious indulgence.
+
+"Here's Norah! here's the queen!" shouted a voice from the crowd.
+
+"What's the matter here?" asked the woman as she gained an entrance to
+the hovel.
+
+"Going to lock up Pinky Swett," said a ragged little girl who had forced
+her way in.
+
+"What for?" demanded the woman, speaking with the air of one in
+authority.
+
+"'Cause she wouldn't let old Sal beat Kit half to death," answered the
+child.
+
+"Ho! Sal's a devil and Pinky's a fool to meddle with her." Then turning
+to the policeman, who still had his hand on the girl, she said,
+
+"What're you goin' to do, John?"
+
+"Goin' to lock her up. She's drunk an' bin a-fightin'."
+
+"You're not goin' to do any such thing."
+
+"I'm not drunk, and it's a lie if anybody says so," broke in Pinky. "I
+tried to keep this devil from beating the life out of poor little Kit,
+and she pitched into me and tore my clothes off. That's what's the
+matter."
+
+The policeman quietly removed his hand from Pinky's shoulder, and
+glanced toward the woman named Sal, and stood as if waiting orders.
+
+"Better lock _her_ up," said the "queen," as she had been called. Sal
+snarled like a fretted wild beast.
+
+"It's awful, the way she beats poor Kit," chimed in the little girl who
+had before spoken against her. "If I was Kit, I'd run away, so I would."
+
+"I'll wring your neck off," growled Sal, in a fierce undertone, making a
+dash toward the girl, and swearing frightfully. But the child shrank to
+the side of the policeman.
+
+"If you lay a finger on Kit to-night," said the queen, "I'll have her
+taken away, and you locked up into the the bargain."
+
+Sal responded with another snarl.
+
+"Come." The queen moved toward the door. Pinky followed, the policeman
+offering no resistance. A few minutes later, and the miserable crowd of
+depraved human beings had been absorbed again into cellar and garret,
+hovel and rookery, to take up the thread of their evil and sensual
+lives, and to plot wickedness, and to prey upon and deprave each
+other--to dwell as to their inner and real lives among infernals, to be
+in hell as to their spirits, while their bodies yet remained upon the
+earth.
+
+Pinky and her rescuer passed down the street for a short distance until
+they came to another that was still narrower. On each side dim lights
+shone from the houses, and made some revelation of what was going on
+within. Here liquor was sold, and there policies. Here was a junk-shop,
+and there an eating-saloon where for six cents you could make a meal out
+of the cullings from beggars' baskets. Not very tempting to an ordinary
+appetite was the display inside, nor agreeable to the nostrils the odors
+that filled the atmosphere. But hunger like the swines', that was not
+over-nice, satisfied itself amid these disgusting conglomerations, and
+kept off starvation.
+
+Along this wretched street, with scarcely an apology for a sidewalk,
+moved Pinky and the queen, until they reached a small two-story frame
+house that presented a different aspect from the wretched tenements amid
+which it stood. It was clean upon the outside, and had, as contrasted
+with its neighbors, an air of superiority. This was the queen's
+residence. Inside, all was plain and homely, but clean and in order.
+
+The excitement into which Pinky had been thrown was nearly over by this
+time.
+
+"You've done me a good turn, Norah," she said as the door closed upon
+them, "and I'll not soon forget you."
+
+"Ugh!" ejaculated Norah as she looked into Pinky's bruised face; "Sal's
+hit you square in the eye; it'll be black as y'r boot by morning. I'll
+get some cold water."
+
+A basin of cold water was brought, and Pinky held a wet cloth to the
+swollen spot for a long time, hoping thereby not only to reduce the
+swelling, but to prevent discoloration.
+
+"Y'r a fool to meddle with Sal," said Norah as she set the basin of
+water before Pinky.
+
+"Why don't you meddle with her? Why do you let her beat poor little Kit
+the way she does?" demanded Pinky.
+
+Norah shrugged her shoulders, and answered with no more feeling in her
+voice than if she had been speaking of inanimate things:
+
+"She's got to keep Kit up to her work."
+
+"Up to her work!"
+
+"Yes; that's just it. Kit's lazy and cheats--buys cakes and candies; and
+Sal has to come down on her; it's the way, you know. If Sal didn't come
+down sharp on her all the while, Kit wouldn't bring her ten cents a day.
+They all have to do it--so much a day or a lickin'; and a little lickin'
+isn't any use--got to 'most kill some of 'em. We're used to it in here.
+Hark!"
+
+The screams of a child in pain rang out wildly, the sounds coming from
+across the narrow street. Quick, hard strokes of a lash were heard at
+the same time. Pinky turned a little pale.
+
+"Only Mother Quig," said Norah, with an indifferent air; "she has to do
+it 'most every night--no getting along any other way with Tom. It beats
+all how much he can stand."
+
+"Oh, Norah, won't she never stop?" cried Pinky, starting up. "I can't
+bear it a minute longer."
+
+"Shut y'r ears. You've got to," answered the woman, with some impatience
+in her voice. "Tom has to be kept to his work as well as the rest of
+'em. Half the fuss he's making is put on, anyhow; he doesn't mind a
+beating any more than a horse. I know his hollers. There's Flanagan's
+Nell getting it now," added Norah as the cries and entreaties of another
+child were heard. She drew herself up and listened, a slight shade of
+concern drifting across her face.
+
+A long, agonizing wail shivered through the air.
+
+"Nell's Sick, and can't do her work." The woman rose as she spoke. "I
+saw her goin' off to-day, and told Flanagan she'd better keep her at
+home."
+
+Saying this, Norah went out quickly, Pinky following. With head erect
+and mouth set firmly, the queen strode across the street and a little
+way down the pavement, to the entrance of a cellar, from which the cries
+and sounds of whipping came. Down the five or six rotten and broken
+steps she plunged, Pinky close after her.
+
+"Stop!" shouted Norah, in a tone of command.
+
+Instantly the blows ceased, and the cries were hushed.
+
+"You'll be hanged for murder if you don't take care," said Norah.
+"What's Nell been doin'?"
+
+"Doin', the slut!" ejaculated the woman, a short, bloated, revolting
+creature, with scarcely anything human in her face. "Doin', did ye say?
+It's nothin' she's been doin', the lazy, trapsing huzzy! Who's that
+intrudin' herself in here?" she added fiercely, as she saw Pinky, making
+at the same time a movement toward the girl. "Get out o' here, or I'll
+spile y'r pictur'!"
+
+"Keep quiet, will you?" said Norah, putting her hand on the woman and
+pushing her back as easily as if she had been a child. "Now come here,
+Nell, and let me look at you."
+
+Out of the far corner of the cellar into which Flanagan had thrown her
+when she heard Norah's voice, and into the small circle of light made
+by a single tallow candle, there crept slowly the figure of a child
+literally clothed in rags. Norah reached out her hand to her as she came
+up--there was a scared look on her pinched face--and drew her close to
+the light.
+
+"Gracious! your hand's like an ice-ball!" exclaimed Norah.
+
+Pinky looked at the child, and grew faint at heart. She had large hazel
+eyes, that gleamed with a singular lustre out of the suffering, grimed
+and wasted little face, so pale and sad and pitiful that the sight of it
+was enough to draw tears from any but the brutal and hardened.
+
+"Are you sick?" asked Norah.
+
+"No, she's not sick; she's only shamming," growled Flanagan.
+
+"You shut up!" retorted Norah. "I wasn't speaking to you." Then she
+repeated her question:
+
+"Are you sick, Nell?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Norah laid her hand on the child's head:
+
+"Does it hurt here?"
+
+"Oh yes! It hurts so I can't see good," answered Nell.
+
+"It's all a lie! I know her; she's shamming."
+
+"Oh no, Norah!" cried the child, a sudden hope blending with the fear in
+her voice. "I ain't shamming at all. I fell down ever so many times in
+the street, and 'most got run over. Oh dear! oh dear!" and she clung to
+the woman with a gesture of despair piteous to see.
+
+"I don't believe you are, Nell," said Norah, kindly. Then, to the woman,
+"Now mind, Flanagan, Nell's sick; d'ye hear?"
+
+The woman only uttered a defiant growl.
+
+"She's not to be licked again to-night." Norah spoke as one having
+authority.
+
+"I wish ye'd be mindin' y'r own business, and not come interfarin' wid
+me. She's my gal, and I've a right to lick her if I plaze."
+
+"Maybe she is and maybe she isn't," retorted Norah.
+
+"Who says she isn't my gal?" screamed the woman, firing up at this and
+reaching out for Nell, who shrunk closer to Norah.
+
+"Maybe she is and maybe she isn't," said the queen, quietly repeating
+her last sentence; "and I think maybe she isn't. So take care and mind
+what I say. Nell isn't to be licked any more to-night."
+
+"Oh, Norah," sobbed the child, in a husky, choking voice, "take me,
+won't you? She'll pinch me, and she'll hit my head on the wall, and
+she'll choke me and knock me. Oh, Norah, Norah!"
+
+Pinky could stand this no longer. Catching up the bundle of rags in
+her arms, she sprang out of the cellar and ran across the street to the
+queen's house, Norah and Flanagan coming quickly after her. At the
+door, through which Pinky had passed, Norah paused, and turning to the
+infuriated Irish woman, said, sternly,
+
+"Go back! I won't have you in here; and if you make a row, I'll tell
+John to lock you up."
+
+"I want my Nell," said the woman, her manner changing. There was a shade
+of alarm in her voice.
+
+"You can't have her to-night; so that's settled. And if there's any row,
+you'll be locked up." Saying which, Norah went in and shut the door,
+leaving Flanagan on the outside.
+
+The bundle of dirty rags with the wasted body of a child inside, the
+body scarcely heavier than the rags, was laid by Pinky in the corner
+of a settee, and the unsightly mass shrunk together like something
+inanimate.
+
+"I thought you'd had enough with old Sal," said Norah, in a tone of
+reproof, as she came in.
+
+"Couldn't help it," replied Pinky. "I'm bad enough, but I can't stand to
+see a child abused like that--no, not if I die for it."
+
+Norah crossed to the settee and spoke to Nell. But there was no answer,
+nor did the bundle of rags stir.
+
+"Nell! Nell!" She called to deaf ears. Then she put her hand on the
+child and raised one of the arms. It dropped away limp as a withered
+stalk, showing the ashen white face across which it had lain.
+
+The two women manifested no excitement. The child had fainted or was
+dead--which, they did not know. Norah straightened out the wasted little
+form and turned up the face. The eyes were shut, the mouth closed, the
+pinched features rigid, as if still giving expression to pain, but there
+was no mistaking the sign that life had gone out of them. It might be
+for a brief season, it might be for ever.
+
+A little water was thrown into the child's face. Its only effect was to
+streak the grimy skin.
+
+"Poor little thing!" said Pinky. "I hope she's dead."
+
+"They're tough. They don't die easy," returned Norah.
+
+"She isn't one of the tough kind."
+
+"Maybe not. They say Flanagan stole her when she was a little thing,
+just toddling."
+
+"Don't let's do anything to try to bring her to," said Pinky.
+
+Norah stood for some moment's with an irresolute air, then bent over the
+child and examined her more carefully. She could feel no pulse beat, nor
+any motion of the heart,
+
+"I don't want the coroner here," she said, in a tone of annoyance. "Take
+her back to Flanagan; it's her work, and she must stand by it."
+
+"Is she really dead?" asked Pinky.
+
+"Looks like it, and serves Flanagan right. I've told her over and over
+that Nell wouldn't stand it long if she didn't ease up a little. Flesh
+isn't iron."
+
+Again she examined the child carefully, but without the slightest sign
+of feeling.
+
+"It's all the same now who has her," she said, turning off from the
+settee. "Take her back to Flanagan."
+
+But Pinky would not touch the child, nor could threat or persuasion
+lead her to do so. While they were contending, Flanagan, who had fired
+herself up with half a pint of whisky, came storming through the door in
+a blind rage and screaming out,
+
+"Where's my Nell? I want my Nell!"
+
+Catching sight of the child's inanimate form lying on the settee, she
+pounced down upon it like some foul bird and bore it off, cursing and
+striking the senseless clay in her insane fury.
+
+Pinky, horrified at the dreadful sight, and not sure that the child was
+really dead, and so insensible to pain, made a movement to follow, but
+Norah caught her arm with a tight grip and held her back.
+
+"Are you a fool?" said the queen, sternly. "Let Flanagan alone. Nell's
+out of her reach, and I'm glad of it."
+
+"If I was only sure!" exclaimed Pinky.
+
+"You may be. I know death--I've seen it often enough. They'll have the
+coroner over there in the morning. It's Flanagan's concern, not yours or
+mine, so keep out of it if you know when you're well off."
+
+"I'll appear against her at the inquest," said Pinky.
+
+"You'll do no such thing. Keep your tongue behind your teeth. It's time
+enough to show it when it's pulled out. Take my advice, and mind your
+own business. You'll have enough to do caring for your own head, without
+looking after other people's."
+
+"I'm not one of that kind," answered Pinky, a little tartly; "and if
+there's any way to keep Flanagan from murdering another child, I'm going
+to find it out."
+
+"You'll find out something else first," said Norah, with a slight curl
+of her lip.
+
+"What?"
+
+"The way to prison."
+
+"Pshaw! I'm not afraid."
+
+"You'd better be. If you appear against Flanagan, she'll have you caged
+before to-morrow night."
+
+"How can she do it?"
+
+"Swear against you before an alderman, and he'll send you down if it's
+only to get his fee. She knows her man."
+
+"Suppose murder is proved against her?"
+
+"Suppose!" Norah gave a little derisive laugh.
+
+"They don't look after things in here as they do outside. Everybody's
+got the screws on, and things must break sometimes, but it isn't called
+murder. The coroner understands it all. He's used to seeing things
+break."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+
+_FOR_ a short time the sounds of cruel exultation came over from
+Flanagan's; then all was still.
+
+"Sal's put her mark on you," said Norah, looking steadily into Pinky's
+face, and laughing in a cold, half-amused way.
+
+Pinky raised her hand to her swollen cheek. "Does it look very bad?" she
+asked.
+
+"Spoils your beauty some."
+
+"Will it get black?"
+
+"Shouldn't wonder. But what can't be helped, can't. You'll mind your own
+business next time, and keep out of Sal's way. She's dangerous. What's
+the matter?"
+
+"Got a sort of chill," replied the girl, who from nervous reaction was
+beginning to shiver.
+
+"Oh, want something to warm you up." Norah brought out a bottle of
+spirits. Pinky poured a glass nearly half full, added some water, and
+then drank off the fiery mixture.
+
+"None of your common stuff," said Norah, with a smile, as Pinky smacked
+her lips. The girl drew her handkerchief from her pocket, and as she did
+so a piece of paper dropped on the floor.
+
+"Oh, there it is!" she exclaimed, light flashing into her face. "Going
+to make a splendid hit. Just look at them rows."
+
+Norah threw an indifferent glance on the paper.
+
+"They're lucky, every one of them," said Pinky. "Going to put half a
+dollar on each row--sure to make a hit."
+
+The queen gave one of her peculiar shrugs.
+
+"Going to break Sam McFaddon," continued Pinky, her spirits rising under
+the influence of Norah's treat.
+
+"Soft heads don't often break hard rocks," returned the woman, with a
+covert sneer.
+
+"That's an insult!" cried Pinky, on whom the liquor she had just taken
+was beginning to have a marked effect, "and I won't stand an insult from
+you or anybody else."
+
+"Well, I wouldn't if I was you," returned Norah, coolly. A hard
+expression began settling about her mouth.
+
+"And I don't mean to. I'm as good as you are, any day!"
+
+"You may be a great deal better, for all I care," answered Norah. "Only
+take my advice, and keep a civil tongue in your head." There was a
+threatening undertone in the woman's voice. She drew her tall person
+more erect, and shook herself like a wild beast aroused from inaction.
+
+Pinky was too blind to see the change that had come so suddenly. A
+stinging retort fell from her lips. But the words had scarcely died on
+the air ere she found herself in the grip of vice-like hands. Resistance
+was of no more avail than if she had been a child. In what seemed but a
+moment of time she was pushed back through the door and dropped upon the
+pavement. Then the door shut, and she was alone on the outside--no,
+not alone, for scores of the denizens who huddle together in that foul
+region were abroad, and gathered around her as quickly as flies about
+a heap of offal, curious, insolent and aggressive. As she arose to her
+feet she found herself hemmed in by a jeering crowd.
+
+"Ho! it's Pinky Swett!" cried a girl, pressing toward her. "Hi, Pinky!
+what's the matter? What's up?"
+
+"Norah pitched her out! I saw it!" screamed a boy, one of the young
+thieves that harbored in the quarter.
+
+"It's a lie!" Pinky answered back as she confronted the crowd.
+
+At this moment another boy, who had come up behind Pinky, gave her dress
+so violent a jerk that she fell over backward on the pavement, striking
+her head on a stone and cutting it badly. She lay there, unable to rise,
+the crowd laughing with as much enjoyment as if witnessing a dog-fight.
+
+"Give her a dose of mud!" shouted one of the boys; and almost as soon
+as the words were out of his mouth her face was covered with a paste of
+filthy dirt from the gutter. This, instead of exciting pity, only gave
+a keener zest to the show. The street rang with shouts and peals of
+merriment, bringing a new and larger crowd to see the fun. With them
+came one or two policemen.
+
+Seeing that it was only a drunken woman, they pushed back the crowd and
+raised her to her feet. As they did so the blood streamed from the back
+of her head and stained her dress to the waist. She was taken to the
+nearest station-house.
+
+At eleven o'clock on the next morning, punctual to the minute, came Mrs.
+Dinneford to the little third-story room in which she had met Mrs. Bray.
+She repeated her rap at the door before it was opened, and noticed that
+a key was turned in the lock.
+
+"You have seen the woman?" she said as she took an offered seat, coming
+at once to the object of her visit.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I gave her the money."
+
+"Well?"
+
+Mrs. Bray shook her head:
+
+"Afraid I can't do much with her."
+
+"Why?" an anxious expression coming into Mrs. Dinneford's face.
+
+"These people suspect everybody; there is no honor nor truth in them,
+and they judge every one by themselves. She half accused me of getting a
+larger amount of money from you, and putting her off with the paltry sum
+of thirty dollars."
+
+Mrs. Bray looked exceedingly hurt and annoyed.
+
+"Threatened," she went on, "to go to you herself--didn't want any
+go-betweens nor brokers. I expected to hear you say that she'd been at
+your house this morning."
+
+"Good Gracious! no!" Mrs. Dinneford's face was almost distorted with
+alarm.
+
+"It's the way with all these people," coolly remarked Mrs. Bray. "You're
+never safe with them."
+
+"Did you hint at her leaving the city?--going to New Orleans, for
+instance?"
+
+"Oh dear, no! She isn't to be managed in that way--is deeper and more
+set than I thought. The fact is, Mrs. Dinneford"--and Mrs. Bray lowered
+her voice and looked shocked and mysterious--"I'm beginning to suspect
+her as being connected with a gang."
+
+"With a gang? What kind of a gang?" Mrs. Dinneford turned slightly pale.
+
+"A gang of thieves. She isn't the right thing; I found that out long
+ago. You remember what I said when you gave her the child. I told you
+that she was not a good woman, and that it was a cruel thing to put a
+helpless, new-born baby into her hands."
+
+"Never mind about that." Mrs. Dinneford waved her hand impatiently.
+"The baby's out of her hands, so far as that is concerned. A gang of
+thieves!"
+
+"Yes, I'm 'most sure of it. Goes to people's houses on one excuse and
+another, and finds out where the silver is kept and how to get in. You
+don't know half the wickedness that's going on. So you see it's no use
+trying to get her away."
+
+Mrs. Bray was watching the face of her visitor with covert scrutiny,
+gauging, as she did so, by its weak alarms, the measure of her power
+over her.
+
+"Dreadful! dreadful!" ejaculated Mrs. Dinneford, with dismay.
+
+"It's bad enough," said Mrs. Bray, "and I don't see the end of it. She's
+got you in her power, and no mistake, and she isn't one of the kind to
+give up so splendid an advantage. I'm only surprised that she's kept
+away so long."
+
+"What's to be done about it?" asked Mrs. Dinneford, her alarm and
+distress increasing.
+
+"Ah! that's more than I can tell," coolly returned Mrs. Bray. "One thing
+is certain--I don't want to have anything more to do with her. It isn't
+safe to let her come here. You'll have to manage her yourself."
+
+"No, no, no, Mrs. Bray! You mustn't desert me!" answered Mrs. Dinneford,
+her face growing pallid with fear. "Money is of no account. I'll pay
+'most anything, reasonable or unreasonable, to have her kept away."
+
+And she drew out her pocket-book while speaking. At this moment there
+came two distinct raps on the door. It had been locked after Mrs.
+Dinneford's entrance. Mrs. Bray started and changed countenance, turning
+her face quickly from observation. But she was self-possessed in an
+instant. Rising, she said in a whisper,
+
+"Go silently into the next room, and remain perfectly still. I believe
+that's the woman now. I'll manage her as best I can."
+
+Almost as quick as thought, Mrs. Dinneford vanished through a door that
+led into an adjoining room, and closing it noiselessly, turned a key
+that stood in the lock, then sat down, trembling with nervous alarm. The
+room in which she found herself was small, and overlooked the street;
+it was scantily furnished as a bed-room. In one corner, partly hid by
+a curtain that hung from a hoop fastened to the wall, was an old wooden
+chest, such as are used by sailors. Under the bed, and pushed as far
+back as possible, was another of the same kind. The air of the room was
+close, and she noticed the stale smell of a cigar.
+
+A murmur of voices from the room she had left so hastily soon reached
+her ears; but though she listened intently, standing close to the door,
+she was not able to distinguish a word. Once or twice she was sure that
+she heard the sound of a man's voice. It was nearly a quarter of an
+hour by her watch--it seemed two hours--before Mrs. Bray's visitor or
+visitors retired; then there came a light rap on the door. She opened
+it, and stood face to face again with the dark-eyed little woman.
+
+"You kept me here a long time," said Mrs. Dinneford, with ill-concealed
+impatience.
+
+"No longer than I could help," replied Mrs. Bray. "Affairs of this kind
+are not settled in a minute."
+
+"Then it was that miserable woman?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, what did you make out of her?"
+
+"Not much; she's too greedy. The taste of blood has sharpened her
+appetite."
+
+"What does she want?"
+
+"She wants two hundred dollars paid into her hand to-day, and says that
+if the money isn't here by sundown, you'll have a visit from her in less
+than an hour afterward."
+
+"Will that be the end of it?"
+
+A sinister smile curved Mrs. Bray's lips slightly.
+
+"More than I can say," she answered.
+
+"Two hundred dollars?"
+
+"Yes. She put the amount higher, but I told her she'd better not go for
+too big a slice or she might get nothing--that there was such a thing
+as setting the police after her. She laughed at this in such a wicked,
+sneering way that I felt my flesh creep, and said she knew the police,
+and some of their masters, too, and wasn't afraid of them. She's a
+dreadful woman;" and Mrs. Bray shivered in a very natural manner.
+
+"If I thought this would be the last of it!" said Mrs. Dinneford as she
+moved about the room in a disturbed way, and with an anxious look on her
+face.
+
+"Perhaps," suggested her companion, "it would be best for you to grapple
+with this thing at the outset--to take our vampire by the throat and
+strangle her at once. The knife is the only remedy for some forms of
+disease. If left to grow and prey upon the body, they gradually suck
+away its life and destroy it in the end."
+
+"If I only knew how to do it," replied Mrs. Dinneford. "If I could only
+get her in my power, I'd make short works of her." Her eyes flashed with
+a cruel light.
+
+"It might be done."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Mr. Dinneford knows the chief of police."
+
+The light went out of Mrs. Dinneford's eyes:
+
+"It can't be done in that way, and you know it as well as I do."
+
+Mrs. Dinneford turned upon Mrs. Bray sharply, and with a gleam of
+suspicion in her face.
+
+"I don't know any other way, unless you go to the chief yourself,"
+replied Mrs. Bray, coolly. "There is no protection in cases like this
+except through the law. Without police interference, you are wholly in
+this woman's power."
+
+Mrs. Dinneford grew very pale.
+
+"It is always dangerous," went on Mrs. Bray, "to have anything to do
+with people of this class. A woman who for hire will take a new-born
+baby and sell it to a beggar-woman will not stop at anything. It is very
+unfortunate that you are mixed up with her."
+
+"I'm indebted to you for the trouble," replied. Mrs. Dinneford, with
+considerable asperity of manner. "You ought to have known something
+about the woman before employing her in a delicate affair of this kind."
+
+"Saints don't hire themselves to put away new-born babies," retorted
+Mrs. Bray, with an ugly gurgle in her throat. "I told you at the time
+that she was a bad woman, and have not forgotten your answer."
+
+"What did I answer?"
+
+"That she might be the devil for all you cared!"
+
+"You are mistaken."
+
+"No; I repeat your very words. They surprised and shocked me at the
+time, and I have not forgotten them. People who deal with the devil
+usually have the devil to pay; and your case, it seems, is not to be an
+exception."
+
+Mrs. Bray had assumed an air of entire equality with her visitor.
+
+A long silence followed, during which Mrs. Dinneford walked the floor
+with the quick, restless motions of a caged animal.
+
+"How long do you think two hundred dollars will satisfy her?" she asked,
+at length, pausing and turning to her companion.
+
+"It is impossible for me to say," was answered; "not long, unless you
+can manage to frighten her off; you must threaten hard."
+
+Another silence followed.
+
+"I did not expect to be called on for so large a sum," Mrs. Dinneford
+said at length, in a husky voice, taking out her pocket-book as she
+spoke. "I have only a hundred dollars with me. Give her that, and put
+her off until to-morrow."
+
+"I will do the best I can with her," replied Mrs. Bray, reaching out her
+hand for the money, "but I think it will be safer for you to let me have
+the balance to-day. She will, most likely, take it into her head that
+I have received the whole sum from you, and think I am trying to cheat
+her. In that case she will be as good as her word, and come down on
+you."
+
+"Mrs. Bray!" exclaimed Mrs. Dinneford, suspicion blazing from her eyes.
+"Mrs. Bray!"--and she turned upon her and caught her by the arms with
+a fierce grip--"as I live, you are deceiving me. There is no woman but
+yourself. You are the vampire!"
+
+She held the unresisting little woman in her vigorous grasp for some
+moments, gazing at her in stern and angry accusation.
+
+Mrs. Bray stood very quit and with scarcely a change of countenance
+until this outburst of passion had subsided. She was still holding the
+money she had taken from Mrs. Dinneford. As the latter released her she
+extended her hand, saying, in a low resolute voice, in which not the
+faintest thrill of anger could be detected,
+
+"Take your money." She waited for a moment, and then let the little roll
+of bank-bills fall at Mrs. Dinneford's feet and turned away.
+
+Mrs. Dinneford had made a mistake, and she saw it--saw that she was
+now more than ever in the power of this woman, whether she was true or
+false. If false, more fatally in her power.
+
+At this dead-lock in the interview between these women there came a
+diversion. The sound of feet was heard on the stairs, then a hurrying
+along the narrow passage; a hand was on the door, but the key had been
+prudently turned on the inside.
+
+With a quick motion, Mrs. Bray waved her hand toward the adjoining
+chamber. Mrs. Dinneford did not hesitate, but glided in noiselessly,
+shutting and locking the door behind her.
+
+"Pinky Swett!" exclaimed Mrs. Bray, in a low voice, putting her finger
+to her lips, as she admitted her visitor, at the same time giving a
+warning glance toward the other room. Eyeing her from head to foot, she
+added, "Well, you are an object!"
+
+Pinky had drawn aside a close veil, exhibiting a bruised and swollen
+face. A dark band lay under one of her eyes, and there was a cut with
+red, angry margins on the cheek.
+
+"You are an object," repeated Mrs. Bray as Pinky moved forward into the
+room.
+
+"Well, I am, and no mistake," answered Pinky, with a light laugh. She
+had been drinking enough to overcome the depression and discomfort of
+her feelings consequent on the hard usage she had received and a night
+in one of the city station-houses. "Who's in there?"
+
+Mrs. Bray's finger went again to her lips. "No matter," was replied.
+"You must go away until the coast is clear. Come back in half an hour."
+
+And she hurried Pinky out of the door, locking it as the girl retired.
+When Mrs. Dinneford came out of the room into which he had gone so
+hastily, the roll of bank-notes still lay upon the floor. Mrs. Bray had
+prudently slipped them into her pocket before admitting Pinky, but as
+soon as she was alone had thrown them down again.
+
+The face of Mrs. Dinneford was pale, and exhibited no ordinary signs of
+discomfiture and anxiety.
+
+"Who was that?" she asked.
+
+"A friend," replied Mrs. Bray, in a cold, self-possessed manner.
+
+A few moments of embarrassed silence followed. Mrs. Bray crossed the
+room, touching with her foot the bank-bills, as if they were of no
+account to her.
+
+"I am half beside myself," said Mrs. Dinneford.
+
+Mrs. Bray made no response, did not even turn toward her visitor.
+
+"I spoke hastily."
+
+"A vampire!" Mrs. Bray swept round upon her fiercely. "A blood-sucker!"
+and she ground her teeth in well-feigned passion.
+
+Mrs. Dinneford sat down trembling.
+
+"Take your money and go," said Mrs. Bray, and she lifted the bills from
+the floor and tossed them into her visitor's lap. "I am served right. It
+was evil work, and good never comes of evil."
+
+But Mrs. Dinneford did not stir. To go away at enmity with this woman
+was, so far as she could see, to meet exposure and unutterable disgrace.
+Anything but that.
+
+"I shall leave this money, trusting still to your good offices," she
+said, at length, rising. Her manner was much subdued. "I spoke hastily,
+in a sort of blind desperation. We should not weigh too carefully the
+words that are extorted by pain or fear. In less than an hour I will
+send you a hundred dollars more."
+
+Mrs. Dinneford laid the bank-bills on a table, and then moved to the
+door, but she dared not leave in this uncertainty. Looking back, she
+said, with an appealing humility of voice and manner foreign to her
+character,
+
+"Let us be friends still, Mrs. Bray; we shall gain nothing by being
+enemies. I can serve you, and you can serve me. My suspicions were ill
+founded. I felt wild and desperate, and hardly knew what I was saying."
+
+She stood anxiously regarding the little dark-eyed woman, who did not
+respond by word or movement.
+
+Taking her hand from the door she was about opening, Mrs. Dinneford came
+back into the room, and stood close to Mrs. Bray:
+
+"Shall I send you the money?"
+
+"You can do as you please," was replied, with chilling indifference.
+
+"Are you implacable?"
+
+"I am not used to suspicion, much less denunciation and assault. A
+vampire! Do you know what that means?"
+
+"It meant, as used by me, only madness. I did not know what I was
+saying. It was a cry of pain--nothing more. Consider how I stand, how
+much I have at stake, in what a wretched affair I have become involved.
+It is all new to me, and I am bewildered and at fault. Do not desert me
+in this crisis. I must have some one to stand between me and this woman;
+and if you step aside, to whom can I go?"
+
+Mrs. Bray relented just a little. Mrs. Dinneford pleaded and humiliated
+herself, and drifted farther into the toils of her confederate.
+
+"You are not rich, Mrs. Bray," she said, at parting, "independent in
+spirit as you are. I shall add a hundred dollars for your own use; and
+if ever you stand in need, you will know where to find an unfailing
+friend."
+
+Mrs. Bray put up her hands, and replied, "No, no, no; don't think of
+such a thing. I am not mercenary. I never serve a friend for money."
+
+But Mrs. Dinneford heard the "yes" which flushed into the voice that
+said "no." She was not deceived.
+
+A rapid change passed over Mrs. Bray on the instant her visitor left the
+room. Her first act was to lock the door; her next, to take the roll of
+bank-bills from the table and put it into her pocket. Over her face a
+gleam of evil satisfaction had swept.
+
+"Got you all right now, my lady!" fell with a chuckle from her lips. "A
+vampire, ha!" The chuckle was changed for a kind of hiss. "Well, have it
+so. There is rich blood in your veins, and it will be no fault of mine
+if I do not fatten upon it. As for pity, you shall have as much of it
+as you gave to that helpless baby. Saints don't work in this kind of
+business, and I'm not a saint."
+
+And she chuckled and hissed and muttered to herself, with many signs of
+evil satisfaction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+
+_FOR_ an hour Mrs. Bray waited the reappearance of Pinky Swett, but the
+girl did not come back. At the end of this time a package which had been
+left at the door was brought to her room. It came from Mrs. Dinneford,
+and contained two hundred dollars. A note that accompanied the package
+read as follows:
+
+"Forgive my little fault of temper. It is your interest to be my friend.
+The woman must not, on any account, be suffered to come near me."
+
+Of course there was no signature. Mrs. Bray's countenance was radiant as
+she fingered the money.
+
+"Good luck for me, but bad for the baby," she said, in a low, pleased
+murmur, talking to herself. "Poor baby! I must see better to its
+comfort. It deserves to be looked after. I wonder why Pinky doesn't
+come?"
+
+Mrs. Bray listened, but no sound of feet from the stairs or entries, no
+opening or shutting of doors, broke the silence that reigned through the
+house.
+
+"Pinky's getting too low down--drinks too much; can't count on her any
+more." Mrs. Bray went on talking to herself. "No rest; no quiet; never
+satisfied; for ever knocking round, and for ever getting the worst
+of it. She was a real nice girl once, and I always liked her. But she
+doesn't take any care of herself."
+
+As Pinky went out, an hour before, she met a fresh-looking girl, not
+over seventeen, and evidently from the country. She was standing on the
+pavement, not far from the house in which Mrs. Bray lived, and had
+a traveling-bag in her hand. Her perplexed face and uncertain manner
+attracted Pinky's attention.
+
+"Are you looking for anybody?" she asked.
+
+"I'm trying to find a Mrs. Bray," the girl answered. "I'm a stranger
+from the country."
+
+"Oh, you are?" said Pinky, drawing her veil more tightly so that her
+disfigured face could not be seen.
+
+"Yes I'm from L----."
+
+"Indeed? I used to know some people there."
+
+"Then you've been in L----?" said the girl, with a pleased, trustful
+manner, as of one who had met a friend at the right time.
+
+"Yes, I've visited there."
+
+"Indeed? Who did you know in L----?"
+
+"Are you acquainted with the Cartwrights?"
+
+"I know of them. They are among our first people," returned the girl.
+
+"I spent a week in their family a few years ago, and had a very pleasant
+time," said Pinky.
+
+"Oh, I'm glad to know that," remarked the girl. "I'm a stranger here;
+and if I can't find Mrs. Bray, I don't see what I am to do. A lady from
+here who was staying at the hotel gave me at letter to Mrs. Bray. I was
+living at the hotel, but I didn't like it; it was too public. I told the
+lady that I wanted to learn a trade or get into a store, and she said
+the city was just the place for me, and that she would give me a letter
+to a particular friend, who would, on her recommendation, interest he
+self for me. It's somewhere along here that she lived, I'm sure;" and
+she took a letter from her pocket and examined the direction.
+
+The girl was fresh and young and pretty, and had an artless, confiding
+manner. It was plain she knew little of the world, and nothing of its
+evils and dangers.
+
+"Let me see;" and Pinky reached out her hand for the letter. She put it
+under her veil, and read,
+
+"MRS. FANNY BRAY, "No. 631----street, "----
+
+"By the hand of Miss Flora Bond."
+
+"Flora Bond," said Pinky, in a kind, familiar tone.
+
+"Yes, that is my name," replied the girl; "isn't this----street?"
+
+"Yes; and there, is the number you are looking for."
+
+"Oh, thank you! I'm so glad to find the place. I was beginning to feel
+scared."
+
+"I will ring the bell for you," said Pinky, going to the door of No.
+631. A servant answered the summons.
+
+"Is Mrs. Bray at home?" inquired Pinky.
+
+"I don't know," replied the servant, looking annoyed. "Her rooms are in
+the third story;" and she held the door wide open for them to enter. As
+they passed into the hall Pinky said to her companion,
+
+"Just wait here a moment, and I will run up stairs and see if she is
+in."
+
+The girl stood in the hall until Pinky came back.
+
+"Not at home, I'm sorry to say."
+
+"Oh dear! that's bad; what shall I do?" and the girl looked distressed.
+
+"She'll be back soon, no doubt," said Pinky, in a light, assuring voice.
+"I'll go around with you a little and see things."
+
+The girl looked down at her traveling-bag.
+
+"Oh, that's nothing; I'll help you to carry it;" and Pinky took it from
+her hand.
+
+"Couldn't we leave it here?" asked Flora.
+
+"It might not be safe; servants are not always to be trusted, and
+Mrs. Bray's rooms are locked; we can easily carry it between us. I'm
+strong--got good country blood in my veins. You see I'm from the country
+as well as you; right glad we met. Don't know what you would have done."
+
+And she drew the girl out, talking familiarly, as they went.
+
+"Haven't had your dinner yet?"
+
+"No; just arrived in the cars, and came right here."
+
+"You must have something to eat, then. I know a nice place; often get
+dinner there when I'm out."
+
+The girl did not feel wholly at ease. She had not yet been able to get
+sight of Pinky's closely-veiled features, and there was something in her
+voice that made her feel uncomfortable.
+
+"I don't care for any dinner," she said; "I'm not hungry."
+
+"Well, I am, then, so come. Do you like oysters?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Cook them splendidly. Best place in the city. And you'd like to get
+into a store or learn a trade?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What trade did you think of?"
+
+"None in particular."
+
+"How would you like to get into a book-bindery? I know two or three
+girls in binderies, and they can make from five to ten dollars a week.
+It's the nicest, cleanest work I know of."
+
+"Oh, do you?" returned Flora, with newly-awakening interest.
+
+"Yes; we'll talk it all over while we're eating dinner. This way."
+
+And Pinky turned the corner of a small street that led away from the
+more crowded thoroughfare along which they had been passing.
+
+"It's a quiet and retired place, where only the nicest kind of people
+go," she added. "Many working-girls and girls in stores get their
+dinners there. We'll meet some of them, no doubt; and if any that I know
+should happen in, we might hear of a good place. Just the thing, isn't
+it? I'm right glad I met you."
+
+They had gone halfway down the square, when Pinky stopped before the
+shop of a confectioner. In the window was a display of cakes, pies and
+candies, and a sign with the words, "LADIES' RESTAURANT."
+
+"This is the place," she said, and opening the door, passed in, the
+young stranger following.
+
+A sign of caution, unseen by Flora, was made to a girl who stood behind
+the counter. Then Pinky turned, saying,
+
+"How will you have your oysters? stewed, fried, broiled or roasted?"
+
+"I'm not particular--any way," replied Flora.
+
+"I like them fried. Will you have them the same way?"
+
+Flora nodded assent.
+
+"Let them be fried, then. Come, we'll go up stairs. Anybody there?"
+
+"Two or three only."
+
+"Any girls from the bindery?"
+
+"Yes; I think so."
+
+"Oh. I'm glad of that! Want to see some of them. Come, Miss Bond."
+
+And Pinky, after a whispered word to the attendant, led the way to a
+room up stairs in which were a number of small tables. At one of these
+were two girls eating, at another a girl sitting by herself, and at
+another a young man and a girl. As Pinky and her companion entered,
+the inmates of the room stared at them familiarly, and then winked and
+leered at each other. Flora did not observe this, but she felt a sudden
+oppression and fear. They sat down at a table not far from one of the
+windows. Flora looked for the veil to be removed, so that she might see
+the face of her new friend. But Pinky kept it closely down.
+
+In about ten minutes the oysters were served. Accompanying them were two
+glasses of some kind of liquor. Floating on one of these was a small bit
+of cork. Pinky took this and handed the other to her companion, saying,
+
+"Only a weak sangaree. It will refresh you after your fatigue; and I
+always like something with oysters, it helps to make them lay lighter on
+the stomach."
+
+Meantime, one of the girls had crossed over and spoken to Pinky. After
+word or two, the latter said,
+
+"Don't you work in a bindery, Miss Peter?"
+
+"Yes," was answered, without hesitation.
+
+"I thought so. Let me introduce you to my friend, Miss Flora Bond. She's
+from the country, and wants to get into some good establishment. She
+talked about a store, but I think a bindery is better."
+
+"A great deal better," was replied by Miss Peter. "I've tried them both,
+and wouldn't go back to a store again on any account. If I can serve
+your friend, I shall be most happy."
+
+"Thank you!" returned Flora; "you are very kind."
+
+"Not at all; I'm always glad when I can be of service to any one. You
+think you'd like to go into a bindery?"
+
+"Yes. I've come to the city to get employment, and haven't much choice."
+
+"There's no place like the city," remarked the other. "I'd die in the
+country--nothing going on. But you won't stagnate here. When did you
+arrive?"
+
+"To-day."
+
+"Have you friends here?"
+
+"No. I brought a letter of introduction to a lady who resides in the
+city."
+
+"What's her name?"
+
+"Mrs. Bray."
+
+Miss Peter turned her head so that Flora could not see her face. It was
+plain from its expression that she knew Mrs. Bray.
+
+"Have you seen her yet?" she asked.
+
+"No. She was out when I called. I'm going back in a little while."
+
+The girl sat down, and went on talking while the others were eating.
+Pinky had emptied her glass of sangaree before she was half through with
+her oysters, and kept urging Flora to drink.
+
+"Don't be afraid of it, dear," she said, in a kind, persuasive way;
+"there's hardly a thimbleful of wine in the whole glass. It will soothe
+your nerves, and make you feel ever so much better."
+
+There was something in the taste of the sangaree that Flora did not
+like--a flavor that was not of wine. But urged repeatedly by her
+companion, whose empty glass gave her encouragement and confidence, she
+sipped and drank until she had taken the whole of it. By this time she
+was beginning to have a sense of fullness and confusion in the head, and
+to feel oppressed and uncomfortable. Her appetite suddenly left her, and
+she laid down her knife and fork and leaned her head upon her hand.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Pinky.
+
+"Nothing," answered the girl; "only my head feels a little strangely. It
+will pass off in a moment."
+
+"Riding in the cars, maybe," said Pinky. "I always feel bad after being
+in the cars; it kind of stirs me up."
+
+Flora sat very quietly at the table, still resting her head upon
+her hands. Pinky and the girl who had joined them exchanged looks of
+intelligence. The former had drawn her veil partly aside, yet concealing
+as much as possible the bruises on her face.
+
+"My! but you're battered!" exclaimed Miss Peter, in a whisper that was
+unheard by Flora.
+
+Pinky only answered by a grimace. Then she said to Flora, with
+well-affected concern,
+
+"I'm afraid you are ill, dear? How do you feel?"
+
+"I don't know," answered the poor girl, in a voice that betrayed great
+anxiety, if not alarm. "It came over me all at once. I'm afraid that
+wine was too strong; I am not used to taking anything."
+
+"Oh dear, no! it wasn't that. I drank a glass, and don't feel it any
+more than if it had been water."
+
+"Let's go," said Flora, starting up. "Mrs. Bray must be home by this
+time."
+
+"All right, if you feel well enough," returned Pinky, rising at the same
+time.
+
+"Oh dear! how my head swims!" exclaimed Flora, putting both hands to
+her temples. She stood for a few moments in an uncertain attitude, then
+reached out in a blind, eager way.
+
+Pinky drew quickly to her side, and put one arm about her waist.
+
+"Come," she said, "the air is too close for you here;" and with the
+assistance of the girl who had joined them, she steadied Flora down
+stairs.
+
+"Doctored a little too high," whispered Miss Peter, with her mouth close
+to Pinky's ear.
+
+"All right," Pinky whispered back; "they know how to do it."
+
+At the foot of the stairs Pinky said,
+
+"You take her out through the yard, while I pay for the oysters. I'll be
+with you in a moment."
+
+Poor Flora, was already too much confused by the drugged liquor she had
+taken to know what they were doing with her.
+
+Hastily paying for the oysters and liquor, Pinky was on hand in a few
+moments. From the back door of the house they entered a small yard, and
+passed from this through a gate into a narrow private alley shut in on
+each side by a high fence. This alley ran for a considerable distance,
+and had many gates opening into it from yards, hovels and rear
+buildings, all of the most forlorn and wretched character. It terminated
+in a small street.
+
+Along this alley Pinky and the girl she had met at the restaurant
+supported Flora, who was fast losing strength and consciousness. When
+halfway down, they held a brief consultation.
+
+"It won't do," said Pinky, "to take her through to----street. She's too
+far gone, and the police will be down on us and carry her off."
+
+"Norah's got some place in there," said the other, pointing to an old
+wooden building close by.
+
+"I'm out with Norah," replied Pinky, "and don't mean to have anything
+more to do with her."
+
+"Where's your room?"
+
+"That isn't the go. Don't want her there. Pat Maley's cellar is just
+over yonder. We can get in from the alley."
+
+"Pat's too greedy a devil. There wouldn't be anything left of her when
+he got through. No, no, Pinky; I'll have nothing to do with it if she's
+to go into Pat Maley's cellar."
+
+"Not much to choose between 'em," answered Pinky. "But it won't do to
+parley here. We must get her in somewhere."
+
+And she pushed open a gate as she spoke. It swung back on one hinge
+and struck the fence with a bang, disclosing a yard that beggared
+description in its disorder and filth. In the back part of this yard
+was a one-and-a-half-story frame building, without windows, looking more
+like an old chicken-house or pig-stye than a place for human beings
+to live in. The loft over the first story was reached by ladder on the
+outside. Above and below the hovel was laid off in kind of stalls or
+bunks furnished with straw. There were about twenty of these. It was
+a ten-cent lodging-house, filled nightly. If this wretched hut or
+stye--call it what you will--had been torn down, it would not have
+brought ten dollars as kindling-wood. Yet its owner, a gentleman (?)
+living handsomely up town, received for it the annual rent of two
+hundred and fifty dollars. Subletted at an average of two dollars a
+night, it gave an income of nearly seven hundred dollars a year. It was
+known as the "Hawk's Nest," and no bird of prey ever had a fouler nest
+than this.
+
+As the gate banged on the fence a coarse, evil-looking man, wearing a
+dirty Scotch cap and a red shirt, pushed his head up from the cellar of
+the house that fronted on the street.
+
+"What's wanted?" he asked, in a kind of growl, his upper lip twitching
+and drawing up at one side in a nervous way, letting his teeth appear.
+
+"We want to get this girl in for a little while," said Pinky. "We'll
+take her away when she comes round. Is anybody in there?" and she
+pointed to the hovel.
+
+The man shook his head.
+
+"How much?" asked Pinky.
+
+"Ten cents apiece;" and he held out his hand.
+
+Pinky gave him thirty cents. He took a key from his pocket, and opened
+the door that led into the lower room. The stench that came out as the
+door swung back was dreadful. But poor Flora Bond was by this time so
+relaxed in every muscle, and so dead to outward things, that it was
+impossible to get her any farther. So they bore her into this horrible
+den, and laid her down in one of the stalls on a bed of loose straw.
+Inside, there was nothing but these stalls and straw--not a table or
+chair, or any article of furniture. They filled up nearly the entire
+room, leaving only a narrow passage between them. The only means of
+ventilation was by the door.
+
+As soon as Pinky and her companion in this terrible wickedness were
+alone with their victim, they searched her pocket for the key of her
+traveling-bag. On finding it, Pinky was going to open it, when the other
+said,
+
+"Never mind about that; we can examine her baggage in safer place. Let's
+go for the movables."
+
+And saying this, she fell quickly to work on the person of Flora,
+slipping out the ear-rings first, then removing her breast-pin and
+finger-rings, while Pinky unbuttoned the new gaiter boots, and drew off
+both boots and stockings, leaving upon the damp straw the small, bare
+feet, pink and soft almost as a baby's.
+
+It did not take these harpies five minutes to possess themselves of
+everything but the poor girl's dress and undergarments. Cloth oversack,
+pocket-book, collar, linen cuffs, hat, shoes and stockings--all these
+were taken.
+
+"Hallo!" cried the keeper of this foul den as the two girls hurried out
+with the traveling-bag and a large bundle sooner than he had expected;
+and he came quickly forth from the cellar in which he lived like a cruel
+spider and tried to intercept them, but they glided through the gate
+and were out of his reach before he could get near. He could follow them
+only with obscene invectives and horrible oaths. Well he knew what had
+been done--that there had been a robbery in the "Hawk's Nest," and he
+not in to share the booty.
+
+Growling like a savage dog, this wretch, in whom every instinct of
+humanity had long since died--this human beast, who looked on innocence
+and helplessness as a wolf looks upon a lamb--strode across the yard and
+entered the den. Lying in one of the stalls upon the foul, damp straw
+he found Flora Bond. Cruel beast that he was, even he felt himself
+held back as by an invisible hand, as he looked at the pure face of the
+insensible girl. Rarely had his eyes rested on a countenance so full of
+innocence. But the wolf has no pity for the lamb, nor the hawk for the
+dove. The instinct of his nature quickly asserted itself.
+
+Avarice first. From the face his eyes turned to see what had been left
+by the two girls. An angry imprecation fell from his lips when he saw
+how little remained for him. But when he lifted Flora's head and unbound
+her hair, a gleam of pleasure came info his foul face. It was a full
+suit of rich chestnut brown, nearly three feet long, and fell in thick
+masses over her breast and shoulders. He caught it up eagerly, drew it
+through his great ugly hands, and gloated over it with something of a
+miser's pleasure as he counts his gold. Then taking a pair of scissors
+from his pocket, he ran them over the girl's head with the quickness and
+skill of a barber, cutting close down, that he might not lose even the
+sixteenth part of an inch of her rich tresses. An Indian scalping his
+victim could not have shown more eagerness. An Indian's wild pleasure
+was in his face as he lifted the heavy mass of brown hair and held it
+above his head. It was not a trophy--not a sign of conquest and triumph
+over an enemy--but simply plunder, and had a market value of fifteen or
+twenty dollars.
+
+The dress was next examined; it was new, but not of a costly material.
+Removing this, the man went out with his portion of the spoils, and
+locked the door, leaving the half-clothed, unconscious girl lying on
+the damp, filthy straw, that swarmed with vermin. It was cold as well as
+damp, and the chill of a bleak November day began creeping into her warm
+blood. But the stupefying draught had been well compounded, and held her
+senses locked.
+
+Of what followed we cannot write, and we shiver as we draw a veil over
+scenes that should make the heart of all Christendom ache--scenes that
+are repeated in thousands of instances year by year in our large cities,
+and no hand is stretched forth to succor and no arm to save. Under
+the very eyes of the courts and the churches things worse than we have
+described--worse than the reader can imagine--are done every day. The
+foul dens into which crime goes freely, and into which innocence is
+betrayed, are known to the police, and the evil work that is done
+is ever before them. From one victim to another their keepers pass
+unquestioned, and plunder, debauch, ruin and murder with an impunity
+frightful to contemplate. As was said by a distinguished author,
+speaking of a kindred social enormity, "There is not a country
+throughout the earth on which a state of things like this would not
+bring a curse. There is no religion upon earth that it would not deny;
+there is no people on earth that it would not put to shame."
+
+And we are Christians!
+
+No. Of what followed we cannot write. Those who were near the "Hawk's
+Nest" heard that evening, soon after nightfall, the single wild,
+prolonged cry of a woman. It was so full of terror and despair that even
+the hardened ears that heard it felt a sudden pain. But they were used
+to such things in that region, and no one took the trouble to learn what
+it meant. Even the policeman moving on his beat stood listening for only
+a moment, and then passed on.
+
+Next day, in the local columns of a city paper, appeared the following:
+
+"FOUL PLAY.--About eleven o'clock last night the body of a beautiful
+young girl, who could not have been over seventeen years of age, was
+discovered lying on the pavement in----street. No one knew how she came
+there. She was quite dead when found. There was nothing by which she
+could be identified. All her clothes but a single undergarment had been
+removed, and her hair cut off close to her head. There were marks of
+brutal violence on her person. The body was placed in charge of the
+coroner, who will investigate the matter."
+
+On the day after, this paragraph appeared:
+
+"SUSPICION OF FOUL PLAY.--The coroner's inquest elicited nothing in
+regard to the young girl mentioned yesterday as having been found dead
+and stripped of her clothing in----street. No one was able to identify
+her. A foul deed at which the heart shudders has been done; but the
+wretches by whom it was committed have been able to cover their tracks."
+
+And that was the last of it. The whole nation gives a shudder of fear at
+the announcement of an Indian massacre and outrage. But in all our large
+cities are savages more cruel and brutal in their instincts than the
+Comanches, and they torture and outrage and murder a hundred poor
+victims for every one that is exposed to Indian brutality, and there
+comes no succor. Is it from ignorance of the fact? No, no, no! There is
+not a Judge on the bench, not a lawyer at the bar, not a legislator at
+the State capital, not a mayor or police-officer, not a minister who
+preaches the gospel of Christ, who came to seek and to save, not an
+intelligent citizen, but knows of all this.
+
+What then? Who is responsible? The whole nation arouses itself at news
+of an Indian assault upon some defenseless frontier settlement, and the
+general government sends troops to succor and to punish. But who takes
+note of the worse than Indian massacres going on daily and nightly in
+the heart of our great cities? Who hunts down and punishes the human
+wolves in our midst whose mouths are red with the blood of innocence?
+Their deeds of cruelty outnumber every year a hundred--nay, a
+thousand--fold the deeds of our red savages. Their haunts are known, and
+their work is known. They lie in wait for the unwary, they gather in the
+price of human souls, none hindering, at our very church doors. Is no
+one responsible for all this? Is there no help? Is evil stronger than
+good, hell stronger than heaven? Have the churches nothing to do in this
+matter? Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost--came to
+the lowliest, the poorest and the vilest, to those over whom devils had
+gained power, and cast out the devils. Are those who call themselves
+by his name diligent in the work to which he put his blessed hands?
+Millions of dollars go yearly into magnificent churches, but how
+little to the work of saving and succoring the weak, the helpless, the
+betrayed, the outcast and the dying, who lie uncared for at the mercy
+of human fiends, and often so near to the temples of God that their
+agonized appeals for help are drowned by the organ and choir!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+
+_THE_ two girls, on leaving the "Hawk's Nest" with their plunder, did
+not pass from the narrow private alley into the small street at its
+termination, but hurried along the way they had come, and re-entered the
+restaurant by means of the gate opening into the yard. Through the back
+door they gained a small, dark room, from which a narrow stairway led
+to the second and third stories of the rear building. They seemed to be
+entirely familiar with the place.
+
+On reaching the third story, Pinky gave two quick raps and then a single
+rap on a closed door. No movement being heard within, she rapped again,
+reversing the order--that is, giving one distinct rap, and then two in
+quick succession. At this the door came slowly open, and the two girls
+passed in with their bundle of clothing and the traveling-bag.
+
+The occupant of this room was a small, thin, well-dressed man,
+with cold, restless gray eyes and the air of one who was alert and
+suspicious. His hair was streaked with gray, as were also his full beard
+and moustache. A diamond pin of considerable value was in his shirt
+bosom. The room contained but few articles. There was a worn and faded
+carpet on the floor, a writing-table and two or three chairs, and
+a small bookcase with a few books, but no evidence whatever of
+business--not a box or bundle or article of merchandise was to be seen.
+
+As the two girls entered he, shut the door noiselessly, and turned the
+key inside. Then his manner changed; his eyes lighted, and there was an
+expression of interest in his face. He looked toward the bag and bundle.
+
+Pinky sat down upon the floor and hurriedly unlocked the traveling-bag.
+Thrusting in her hand, she drew out first a muslin nightgown and threw
+it down, then a light shawl, a new barege dress, a pair of slippers,
+collars, cuffs, ribbons and a variety of underclothing, and last of all
+a small Bible and a prayer-book. These latter she tossed from her with a
+low derisive laugh, which was echoed by her companion, Miss Peter.
+
+The bundle was next opened, and the cloth sacque, the hat, the boots
+and stockings and the collar and cuffs thrown upon the floor with the
+contents of the bag.
+
+"How much?" asked Pinky, glancing up at the man.
+
+They were the first words that had been spoken. At this the man knit
+his brows in an earnest way, and looked business. He lifted each article
+from the floor, examined it carefully and seemed to be making a close
+estimate of its value. The traveling-bag was new, and had cost probably
+five dollars. The cloth sacque could not have been made for less than
+twelve dollars. A fair valuation of the whole would have been near forty
+dollars.
+
+"How much?" repeated Pinky, an impatient quiver in her voice.
+
+"Six dollars," replied the man.
+
+"Six devils!" exclaimed Pinky, in a loud, angry voice.
+
+"Six devils! you old swindler!" chimed in Miss Peter.
+
+"You can take them away. Just as you like," returned the man, with cool
+indifference. "Perhaps the police will give you more. It's the best I
+can do."
+
+"But see here, Jerkin," said Pinky: "that sacque is worth twice the
+money."
+
+"Not to me. I haven't a store up town. I can't offer it for sale in the
+open market. Don't you understand?"
+
+"Say ten dollars."
+
+"Six."
+
+"Here's a breast-pin and a pair of ear-rings," said Miss Peter; "we'll
+throw them in;" and she handed Jerkin, as he was called, the bits of
+jewelry she had taken from the person of Flora Bond. He looked at them
+almost contemptuously as he replied,
+
+"Wouldn't give you a dollar for the set."
+
+"Say eight dollars for the whole," urged Pinky.
+
+"Six fifty, and not a cent more," answered Jerkin.
+
+"Hand over, then, you old cormorant!" returned the girl, fretfully.
+"It's a shame to swindle us in this way."
+
+The man took out his pocket-book and paid the money, giving half to each
+of the girls.
+
+"It's just a swindle!" repeated Pinky. "You're an old hard-fisted
+money-grubber, and no better than a robber. Three dollars and a quarter
+for all that work! It doesn't pay for the trouble. We ought to have had
+ten apiece."
+
+"You can make it ten or twenty, or maybe a hundred, if you will," said
+Jerkin, with a knowing twinkle in his eyes. He gave his thumb a little
+movement over his shoulder as he spoke.
+
+"That's so!" exclaimed Pinky, her manner undergoing a change, and her
+face growing bright--at least as much of it as could brighten. "Look
+here, Nell," speaking to Miss Peter, and drawing a piece of paper from
+her pocket, "I've got ten rows here. Fanny Bray gave me five dollars to
+go a half on each row. Meant to have gone to Sam McFaddon's last night,
+but got into a muss with old Sal and Norah, and was locked up."
+
+"They make ten hits up there to one at Sam McFaddon's," said Jerkin,
+again twitching his thumb over his shoulder. "It's the luckiest office I
+ever heard of. Two or three hits every day for a week past--got a lucky
+streak, somehow. If you go in anywhere, take my advice and go in there,"
+lifting his hand and twitching his thumb upward and over his shoulder
+again.
+
+The two girls passed from the room, and the door was shut and locked
+inside. No sooner had they done so than Jerkin made a new examination of
+the articles, and after satisfying himself as to their value proceeded
+to put them out of sight. Lifting aside a screen that covered the
+fireplace, he removed from the chimney back, just above the line of
+sight, a few loose bricks, and through the hole thus made thrust the
+articles he had bought, letting them drop into a fireplace on the other
+side.
+
+On leaving the room of this professional receiver of stolen goods, Pinky
+and her friend descended to the second story, and by a door which had
+been cut through into the adjoining property passed to the rear building
+of the house next door. They found themselves on a landing, or little
+square hall, with a stairway passing down to the lower story and another
+leading to the room above. A number of persons were going up and coming
+down--a forlorn set, for the most part, of all sexes, ages and colors.
+Those who were going up appeared eager and hopeful, while those who were
+coming down looked disappointed, sorrowful, angry or desperate. There
+was a "policy shop" in one of the rooms above, and these were some of
+its miserable customers. It was the hour when the morning drawings
+of the lotteries were received at the office, or "shop," and the poor
+infatuated dupes who had bet on their favorite "rows" were crowding in
+to learn the result.
+
+Poor old men and women in scant or wretched clothing, young girls with
+faces marred by evil, blotched and bloated creatures of both sexes, with
+little that was human in their countenances, except the bare features,
+boys and girls not yet in their teens, but old in vice and crime, and
+drunkards with shaking nerves,--all these were going up in hope and
+coming down in disappointment. Here and there was one of a different
+quality, a scantily-dressed woman with a thin, wasted face and hollow
+eyes, who had been fighting the wolf and keeping fast hold of her
+integrity, or a tender, innocent-looking girl, the messenger of a weak
+and shiftless mother, or a pale, bright-eyed boy whose much-worn but
+clean and well-kept garments gave sad evidence of a home out of which
+prop and stay had been removed. The strong and the weak, the pure and
+the defiled, were there. A poor washerwoman who in a moment of weakness
+has pawned the garments entrusted to her care, that she might venture
+upon a "row" of which she had dreamed, comes shrinking down with a pale,
+frightened face, and the bitterness of despair in her heart. She has
+lost. What then? She has no friend from whom she can borrow enough money
+to redeem the clothing, and if it is not taken home she may be arrested
+as a thief and sent to prison. She goes away, and temptation lies close
+at her feet. It is her extremity and the evil one's opportunity. So far
+she has kept herself pure, but the disgrace of a public prosecution and
+a sentence to prison are terrible things to contemplate. She is in peril
+of her soul. God help her!
+
+Who is this dressed in rusty black garments and closely veiled, who
+comes up from the restaurant, one of the convenient and unsuspected
+entrances to this robber's den?--for a "policy-shop" is simply a robbery
+shop, and is so regarded by the law, which sets a penalty upon the
+"writer" and the "backer" as upon other criminals. But who is this
+veiled woman in faded mourning garments who comes gliding as noiselessly
+as a ghost out from one of the rooms of the restaurant, and along the
+narrow entry leading to the stairway, now so thronged with visitors?
+Every day she comes and goes, no one seeing her face, and every day,
+with rare exceptions, her step is slower and her form visibly more
+shrunken when she goes out than when she comes in. She is a broken-down
+gentlewoman, the widow of an officer, who left her at his death a
+moderate fortune, and quite sufficient for the comfortable maintenance
+of herself and two nearly grown-up daughters. But she had lived at
+the South, and there acquired a taste for lottery gambling. During her
+husband's lifetime she wasted considerable money in lottery tickets,
+once or twice drawing small prizes, but like all lottery dupes spending
+a hundred dollars for one gained. The thing had become a sort of mania
+with her. She thought so much of prizes and drawn numbers through the
+day that she dreamed of them all night. She had a memorandum-book in
+which were all the combinations she had ever heard of as taking prizes.
+It contained page after page of lucky numbers and fancy "rows," and was
+oftener in her hand than any other book.
+
+There being no public sale of lottery tickets in Northern cities, this
+weak and infatuated woman found out where some of the "policy-shops"
+were kept, and instead of buying tickets, as before, risked her money on
+numbers that might or might not come out of the wheel in lotteries said
+to be drawn in certain Southern States, but chiefly in Kentucky. The
+numbers rarely if ever came out. The chances were too remote. After her
+husband's death she began fretting over the smallness of her income. It
+was not sufficient to give her daughters the advantages she desired
+them to have, and she knew of but one way to increase it. That way was
+through the policy-shops. So she gave her whole mind to this business,
+with as much earnestness and self-absorption as a merchant gives himself
+to trade. She had a dream-book, gotten up especially for policy buyers,
+and consulted it as regularly as a merchant does his price-current or a
+broker the sales of stock. Every day she bet on some "row" or series of
+"rows," rarely venturing less than five dollars, and sometimes, when she
+felt more than usually confident, laying down a twenty-dollar bill,
+for the "hit" when made gave from fifty to two hundred dollars for each
+dollar put down, varying according to the nature of the combinations. So
+the more faith a policy buyer had in his "row," the larger the venture
+he would feel inclined to make.
+
+Usually it went all one way with the infatuated lady. Day after day she
+ventured, and day after day she lost, until from hundreds the sums she
+was spending had aggregated themselves into thousands. She changed from
+one policy-shop to another, hoping for better luck. It was her business
+to find them out, and this she was able to do by questioning some of
+those whom she met at the shops. One of these was in a building on a
+principal street, the second story of which was occupied by a milliner.
+It was visited mostly by ladies, who could pass in from the street,
+no one suspecting their errand. Another was in the attic of a house in
+which were many offices and places of business, with people going in and
+coming out all the while, none but the initiated being in the secret;
+while another was to be found in the rear of a photograph gallery. Every
+day and often twice a day, as punctually as any man of business, did
+this lady make her calls at one and another of these policy-offices to
+get the drawings or make new ventures. At remote intervals she would
+make a "hit;" once she drew twenty dollars, and once fifty. But for
+these small gains she had paid thousands of dollars.
+
+After a "hit" the betting on numbers would be bolder. Once she selected
+what was known as a "lucky row," and determined to double on it until it
+came out a prize. She began by putting down fifty cents. On the next day
+she put down a dollar upon the same combination, losing, of course,
+Two dollars were ventured on the next day; and so she went on doubling,
+until, in her desperate infatuation, she doubled for the ninth time,
+putting down two hundred and fifty-six dollars.
+
+If successful now, she would draw over twenty-five thousand dollars.
+There was no sleep for the poor lady during the night that followed.
+She walked the floor of her chamber in a state of intense nervous
+excitement, sometimes in a condition of high hope and confidence and
+sometimes haunted by demons of despair. She sold five shares of stock
+on which she had been receiving an annual dividend of ten per cent., in
+order to get funds for this desperate gambling venture, in which over
+five hundred dollars had now been absorbed.
+
+Pale and nervous, she made her appearance at the breakfast-table on the
+next morning, unable to take a mouthful of food. It was in vain that her
+anxious daughters urged her to eat.
+
+A little after twelve o'clock she was at the policy-office. The drawn
+numbers for the morning were already in. Her combination was 4, 10, 40.
+With an eagerness that could not be repressed, she caught up the slip
+of paper containing the thirteen numbers out of seventy-five, which
+purported to have been drawn that morning somewhere in "Kentucky," and
+reported by telegraph--caught it up with hands that shook so violently
+that she could not read the figures. She had to lay the piece of paper
+down upon the little counter before which she stood, in order that it
+might be still, so that she could read her fate.
+
+The first drawn number was 4. What a wild leap her heart gave! The next
+was 24; the next 8; the next 70; the next 41, and the next 39. Her heart
+grew almost still; the pressure as of a great hand was on her bosom. 10
+came next. Two numbers of her row were out. A quiver of excitement ran
+through her frame. She caught up the paper, but it shook as before, so
+that she could not see the figures. Dashing it back upon the counter,
+and holding it down almost violently, she bent over, with eyes starting
+from their sockets, and read the line of figures to the end, then sank
+over upon the counter with a groan, and lay there half fainting and too
+weak to lift herself up. If the 40 had been there, she would have made a
+hit of twenty-five thousand dollars. But the 40 was not there, and this
+made all the difference.
+
+"Once more," said the policy-dealer, in a tone of encouragement, as he
+bent over the miserable woman. "Yesterday, 4 came out; to-day, 4, 10;
+tomorrow will be the lucky chance; 4, 10, 40 will surely be drawn. I
+never knew this order to fail. If it had been 10 first, and then 4, 10,
+or 10, 4, I would not advise you to go on. But 4, 10, 40 will be drawn
+to-morrow as sure as fate."
+
+"What numbers did you say? 4, 10, 40?" asked an old man, ragged and
+bloated, who came shuffling in as the last remarks was made.
+
+"Yes," answered the dealer. "This lady has been doubling, and as the
+chances go, her row is certain to make a hit to-morrow."
+
+"Ha! What's the row? 4, 10, 40?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The old man fumbled in his pocket, and brought out ten cents.
+
+"I'll go that on the row. Give me a piece."
+
+The dealer took a narrow slip of paper and wrote on it the date, the
+sum risked and the combination of figures, and handed it to the old man,
+saying,
+
+"Come here to-morrow; and if the bottom of the world doesn't drop out,
+you'll find ten dollars waiting for you."
+
+Two or three others were in by this time, eager to look over the list of
+drawn numbers and to make new bets.
+
+"Glory!" cried one of them, a vile-looking young woman, and she
+commenced dancing about the room.
+
+All was excitement now. "A hit! a hit!" was cried. "How much? how much?"
+and they gathered to the little counter and desk of the policy-dealer.
+
+"1, 2, 3," cried the girl, dancing about and waving her little slip
+of paper over her head. "I knew it would come--dreamed of them numbers
+three nights hand running! Hand over the money, old chap! Fifteen
+dollars for fifteen cents! That's the go!"
+
+The policy-dealer took the girl's "piece," and after comparing it with
+the record of drawn numbers, said, in a pleased voice,
+
+"All right! A hit, sure enough. You're in luck to-day."
+
+The girl took the money, that was promptly paid down, and as she counted
+it over the dealer remarked,
+
+"There's a doubling game going on, and it's to be up to-morrow, sure."
+
+"What's the row?" inquired the girl.
+
+"4, 10, 40," said the dealer.
+
+"Then count me in;" and she laid down five dollars on the counter.
+
+"Take my advice and go ten," urged the policy-dealer.
+
+"No, thank you! shouldn't know what to do with more than five hundred
+dollars. I'll only go five dollars this time."
+
+The "writer," as a policy-seller is called, took the money and gave
+the usual written slip of paper containing the selected numbers;
+loudly proclaiming her good luck, the girl then went away. She was an
+accomplice to whom a "piece" had been secretly given after the drawn
+numbers were in.
+
+Of course this hit was the sensation of the day among the policy-buyers
+at that office, and brought in large gains.
+
+The wretched woman who had just seen five hundred dollars vanish into
+nothing instead of becoming, as under the wand of an enchanter, a
+great heap of gold, listened in a kind of maze to what passed around
+her--listened and let the tempter get to her ear again. She went away,
+stooping in her gait as one bearing a heavy burden. Before an hour had
+passed hope had lifted her again into confidence. She had to make but
+one venture more to double on the risk of the day previous, and secure a
+fortune that would make both herself and daughters independent for life.
+
+Another sale of good stocks, another gambling venture and another loss,
+swelling the aggregate in this wild and hopeless "doubling" experiment
+to over a thousand dollars.
+
+But she was not cured. As regularly as a drunkard goes to the bar went
+she to the policy-shops, every day her fortune growing less. Poverty
+began to pinch. The house in which she lived with her daughters was
+sold, and the unhappy family shrunk into a single room in a third-rate
+boarding-house. But their income soon became insufficient to meet the
+weekly demand for board. Long before this the daughters had sought for
+something to do by which to earn a little money. Pride struggled hard
+with them, but necessity was stronger than pride.
+
+We finish the story in a few words. In a moment of weakness, with want
+and hard work staring her in the face, one of the daughters married
+a man who broke her heart and buried her in less than two years. The
+other, a weak and sickly girl, got a situation as day governess in the
+family of an old friend of her father's, where she was kindly treated,
+but she lived only a short time after her sister's death.
+
+And still there was no abatement of the mother's infatuation. She was
+more than half insane on the subject of policy gambling, and confident
+of yet retrieving her fortunes.
+
+At the time Pinky Swett and her friend in evil saw her come gliding up
+from the restaurant in faded mourning garments and closely veiled, she
+was living alone in a small, meagrely furnished room, and cooking her
+own food.
+
+Everything left to her at her husband's death was gone. She earned a
+dollar or two each week by making shirts and drawers for the slop-shops,
+spending every cent of this in policies. A few old friends who pitied
+her, but did not know of the vice in which she indulged, paid her
+rent and made occasional contributions for her support. All of these
+contributions, beyond the amount required for a very limited supply of
+food, went to the policy-shops. It was a mystery to her friends how she
+had managed to waste the handsome property left by her husband, but no
+one suspected the truth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+
+"_WHO'S_ that, I wonder?" asked Nell Peter as the dark, close-veiled
+figure glided past them on the stairs.
+
+"Oh, she's a policy-drunkard," answered Pinky, loud enough to be heard
+by the woman, who, as if surprised or alarmed, stopped and turned her
+head, her veil falling partly away, and disclosing features so pale and
+wasted that she looked more like a ghost than living flesh and blood.
+There was a strange gleam in her eyes. She paused only for an instant,
+but her steps were slower as she went on climbing the steep and narrow
+stairs that led to the policy-office.
+
+"Good Gracious, Pinky! did you ever see such a face?" exclaimed Nell
+Peter. "It's a walking ghost, I should say, and no woman at all."
+
+"Oh, I've seen lots of 'em," answered Pinky. "She's a policy-drunkard.
+Bad as drinking when it once gets hold of 'em. They tipple all the time,
+sell anything, beg, borrow, steal or starve themselves to get money to
+buy policies. She's one of 'em that's starving."
+
+By this time they had reached the policy-office. It was in a small room
+on the third floor of the back building, yet as well known to the police
+of the district as if it had been on the front street. One of these
+public guardians soon after his appointment through political influence,
+and while some wholesome sense of duty and moral responsibility yet
+remained, caused the "writer" in this particular office to be arrested.
+He thought that he had done a good thing, and looked for approval and
+encouragement. But to his surprise and chagrin he found that he had
+blundered. The case got no farther than the alderman's. Just how it was
+managed he did not know, but it was managed, and the business of the
+office went on as before.
+
+A little light came to him soon after, on meeting a prominent politician
+to whom he was chiefly indebted for his appointment. Said this
+individual, with a look of warning and a threat in his voice,
+
+"See here, my good fellow; I'm told that you've been going out of your
+way and meddling with the policy-dealers. Take my advice, and mind your
+own business. If you don't, it will be all day with you. There isn't a
+man in town strong enough to fight this thing, so you'd better let it
+alone."
+
+And he did let it alone. He had a wife and three little children, and
+couldn't afford to lose his place. So he minded his own business, and
+let it alone.
+
+Pinky and her friend entered this small third-story back room. Behind a
+narrow, unpainted counter, having a desk at one end, stood a middle-aged
+man, with dark, restless eyes that rarely looked you in the face. He
+wore a thick but rather closely-cut beard and moustache. The police knew
+him very well; so did the criminal lawyers, when he happened to come in
+their way; so did the officials of two or three State prisons in which
+he had served out partial sentences. He was too valuable to political
+"rings" and associations antagonistic to moral and social well-being
+to be left idle in the cell of a penitentiary for the whole term of a
+commitment. Politicians have great influence, and governors are human.
+
+On the walls of the room were pasted a few pictures cut from the
+illustrated papers, some of them portraits of leading politicians, and
+some of them portraits of noted pugilists and sporting-men. The picture
+of a certain judge, who had made himself obnoxious to the fraternity
+of criminals by his severe sentences, was turned upside down. There was
+neither table nor chair in the room.
+
+The woman in black had passed in just before the girls, and was waiting
+her turn to examine the drawn numbers. She had not tasted food since the
+day before, having ventured her only dime on a policy, and was feeling
+strangely faint and bewildered. She did not have to wait long. It was
+the old story. Her combination had not come out, and she was starving.
+As she moved back toward the door she staggered a little. Pinky, who had
+become curious about her, noticed this, and watched her as she went out.
+
+"It's about up with the old lady, I guess," she said to her companion,
+with an unfeeling laugh.
+
+And she was right. On the next morning the poor old woman was found dead
+in her room, and those who prepared her for burial said that she
+was wasted to a skeleton. She had, in fact, starved herself in her
+infatuation, spending day after day in policies what she should have
+spent for food. Pinky's strange remark was but too true. She had become
+a policy-drunkard--a vice almost as disastrous in its effects as its
+kindred, vice, intemperance, though less brutalizing and less openly
+indulged.
+
+"Where now?" was the question of Pinky's friend as they came down, after
+spending in policies all the money they had received from the sale of
+Flora Bond's clothing. "Any other game?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Come along to my room, and I'll tell you."
+
+"Round in Ewing street?"
+
+"Yes. Great game up, if I can only get on the track."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"There's a cast-off baby in Dirty Alley, and Fan Bray knows its mother,
+and she's rich."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Fan's getting lots of hush-money."
+
+"Goody! but that is game!"
+
+"Isn't it? The baby's owned by two beggar-women who board it in Dirty
+Alley. It's 'most starved and frozen to death, and Fan's awful 'fraid
+it may die. She wants me to steal it for her, so that she may have it
+better taken care of, and I was going to do it last night, when I got
+into a muss."
+
+"Who's the woman that boards it?"
+
+"She lives in a cellar, and is drunk every night. Can steal the brat
+easily enough; but if I can't find out who it belongs to, you see it
+will be trouble for nothing."
+
+"No, I don't see any such thing," answered Nell Peter. "If you can't get
+hush-money out of its mother, you can bleed Fanny Bray."
+
+"That's so, and I'm going to bleed her. The mother, you see, thinks
+the baby's dead. The proud old grandmother gave it away, as soon as was
+born, to a woman that Fan Bray found for her. Its mother was out of her
+head, and didn't know nothing. That woman sold the baby to the women who
+keep it to beg with. She's gone up the spout now, and nobody knows who
+the mother and grandmother are but Fan, and nobody knows where the baby
+is but me and Fan. She's bleeding the old lady, and promises to share
+with me if I keep track of the baby and see that it isn't killed or
+starved to death. But I don't trust her. She puts me off with fives and
+tens, when I'm sure she gets hundreds. Now, if we have the baby all
+to ourselves, and find out the mother and grandmother, won't we have a
+splendid chance? I'll bet you on that."
+
+"Won't we? Why, Pinky, this is a gold-mine!"
+
+"Didn't I tell you there was great game up? I was just wanting some one
+to help me. Met you in the nick of time."
+
+The two girls had now reached Pinky's room in Ewing street, where they
+continued in conference for a long time before settling their plans.
+
+"Does Fan know where you live?" queried Nell Peter.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you will have to change your quarters."
+
+"Easily done. Doesn't take half a dozen furniture-cars to move me."
+
+"I know a room."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"It's a little too much out of the way, you'll think, maybe, but
+it's just the dandy for hiding in. You cart keep the brat there, and
+nobody--"
+
+"Me keep the brat?" interrupted Pinky, with a derisive laugh. "That's a
+good one! I see myself turned baby-tender! Ha! ha! that's funny!"
+
+"What do you expect to do with the child after you steal it?" asked
+Pinky's friend.
+
+"I don't intend to nurse it or have it about me."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Board if with some one who doesn't get drunk or buy policies."
+
+"You'll hunt for a long time."
+
+"Maybe, but I'll try. Anyhow, it can't be worse off than it is now. What
+I'm afraid of is that it will be out of its misery before we can get
+hold of it. The woman who is paid for keeping it at night doesn't give
+it any milk--just feeds it on bread soaked in water, and that is slow
+starvation. It's the way them that don't want to keep their babies get
+rid of them about here."
+
+"The game's up if the baby dies," said Nell Peter, growing excited under
+this view of the case. "If it only gets bread soaked in water, it can't
+live. I've seen that done over and over again. They're starving a baby
+on bread and water now just over from my room, and it cries and frets
+and moans all the time it's awake, poor little wretch! I've been
+in hopes for a week that they'd give it an overdose of paregoric or
+something else."
+
+"We must fix it to-night in some way," answered Pinky. "Where's the room
+you spoke of?"
+
+"In Grubb's court. You know Grubb's court?--a kind of elbow going off
+from Rider's court. There's a room up there that you can get where even
+the police would hardly find you out."
+
+"Thieves live there," said Pinky.
+
+"No matter. They'll not trouble you or the baby."
+
+"Is the room furnished?"
+
+"Yes. There's a bed and a table and two chairs."
+
+After farther consultation it was decided that Pinky should move at
+once from her present lodgings to the room in Grubb's court, and get, if
+possible, possession of the baby that very night. The moving was easily
+accomplished after the room was secured. Two small bundles of clothing
+constituted Pinky's entire effects; and taking these, the two girls went
+quietly out, leaving a week's rent unpaid.
+
+The night that closed this early winter day was raw and cold, the
+easterly wind still prevailing, with occasional dashes of rain. In a
+cellar without fire, except a few bits of smouldering wood in an old
+clay furnace, that gave no warmth to the damp atmosphere, and with
+scarcely an article of furniture, a woman half stupid from drink sat on
+a heap of straw, her bed, with her hands clasped about her knees. She
+was rocking her body backward and forward, and crooning to herself in a
+maudlin way. A lighted tallow candle stood on the floor of the cellar,
+and near it a cup of water, in which was a spoon and some bread soaking.
+
+"Mother Hewitt!" called a voice from the cellar door that opened on the
+street. "Here, take the baby!"
+
+Mother Hewitt, as she was called, started up and made her way with an
+unsteady gait to the front part of the cellar, where a woman in not
+much better condition than herself stood holding out a bundle of rags in
+which a fretting baby was wrapped.
+
+"Quick, quick!" called the woman. "And see here," she continued as
+Mother Hewitt reached her arms for the baby; "I don't believe you're
+doing the right thing. Did he have plenty of milk last night and this
+morning?"
+
+"Just as much as he would take."
+
+"I don't believe it. He's been frettin' and chawin' at the strings of
+his hood all the afternoon, when he ought to have been asleep, and he's
+looking punier every day. I believe you're giving him only bread and
+water."
+
+But Mother Hewitt protested that she gave him the best of new milk, and
+as much as he would take.
+
+"Well, here's a quarter," said the woman, handing Mother Hewitt some
+money; "and see that he is well fed to-night and to-morrow morning. He's
+getting 'most too deathly in his face. The people won't stand it if they
+think a baby's going to die--the women 'specially, and most of all the
+young things that have lost babies. One of these--I know 'em by the way
+they look out of their eyes--came twice to-day and stood over him sad
+and sorrowful like; she didn't give me anything. I've seen her before.
+Maybe she's his mother. As like as nor, for nobody knows where he came
+from. Wasn't Sally Long's baby; always thought she'd stole him from
+somebody. Now, mind, he's to have good milk every day, or I'll change
+his boarding-house. D'ye hear!"
+
+And laughing at this sally, the woman turned away to spend in a night's
+debauch the money she had gained in half a day's begging.
+
+Left to herself, Mother Hewitt went staggering back with the baby in
+her arms, and seated herself on the ground beside the cup of bread and
+water, which was mixed to the consistence of cream. As she did so the
+light of her poor candle fell on the baby's face. It was pinched and
+hungry and ashen pale, the thin lips wrought by want and suffering into
+such sad expressions of pain that none but the most stupid and hardened
+could look at them and keep back a gush of tears.
+
+But Mother Hewitt saw nothing of this--felt nothing of this. Pity and
+tenderness had long since died out of her heart. As she laid the baby
+back on one arm she took a spoonful of the mixture prepared for its
+supper, and pushed it roughly into its mouth. The baby swallowed it with
+a kind of starving eagerness, but with no sign of satisfaction on
+its sorrowful little face. But Mother Hewitt was too impatient to get
+through with her work of feeding the child, and thrust in spoonful after
+spoonful until it choked, when she shook it angrily, calling it vile
+names.
+
+The baby cried feebly at this, when she shook it again and slapped it
+with her heavy hand. Then it grew still. She put the spoon again to its
+lips, but it shut them tightly and turned its head away.
+
+"Very well," said Mother Hewitt. "If you won't, you won't;" and she
+tossed the helpless thing as she would have tossed a senseless bundle
+over upon the heap of straw that served as a bed, adding, as she did so,
+"I never coaxed my own brats."
+
+The baby did not cry. Mother Hewitt then blew out the candle, and
+groping her way to the door of the cellar that opened on the street,
+went out, shutting down the heavy door behind her, and leaving the child
+alone in that dark and noisome den--alone in its foul and wet garments,
+but, thanks to kindly drugs, only partially conscious of its misery.
+
+Mother Hewitt's first visit was to the nearest dram-shop. Here she spent
+for liquor five cents of the money she had received. From the dram-shop
+she went to Sam McFaddon's policy-office. This was not hidden away,
+like most of the offices, in an upper room or a back building or in some
+remote cellar, concealed from public observation, but stood with open
+door on the very street, its customers going in and out as freely and
+unquestioned as the customers of its next-door neighbor, the dram-shop.
+Policemen passed Sam's door a hundred times in every twenty-four hours,
+saw his customers going in and out, knew their errand, talked with Sam
+about his business, some of them trying their luck occasionally after
+there had been an exciting "hit," but none reporting him or in any way
+interfering with his unlicensed plunder of the miserable and besotted
+wretches that crowded his neighborhood.
+
+From the whisky-shop to the policy-shop went Mother Hewitt. Here she put
+down five cents more; she never bet higher than this on a "row." From
+the policy-shop she went back to the whisky-shop, and took another
+drink. By this time she was beginning to grow noisy. It so happened that
+the woman who had left the baby with her a little while before came in
+just then, and being herself much the worse for drink, picked a quarrel
+with Mother Hewitt, accusing her of getting drunk on the money she
+received for keeping the baby, and starving it to death. A fight was the
+consequence, in which they were permitted to tear and scratch and bruise
+each other in a shocking way, to the great enjoyment of the little
+crowd of debased and brutal men and women who filled the dram-shop. But
+fearing a visit from the police, the owner of the den, a strong, coarse
+Irishman, interfered, and dragging the women apart, pushed Mother Hewitt
+out, giving her so violent an impetus that she fell forward into the
+middle of the narrow street, where she lay unable to rise, not from any
+hurt, but from sheer intoxication.
+
+"What's up now?" cried one and another as this little ripple of
+disturbance broke upon that vile and troubled sea of humanity.
+
+"Only Mother Hewitt drunk again!" lightly spoke a young girl not out
+of her teens, but with a countenance that seemed marred by centuries of
+debasing evil. Her laugh would have made an angel shiver.
+
+A policeman came along, and stood for a little while looking at the
+prostrate woman.
+
+"It's Mother Hewitt," said one of the bystanders.
+
+"Here, Dick," and the policeman spoke to a man near him. "Take hold of
+her feet."
+
+The man did as told, and the policeman lifting the woman's head and
+shoulders, they carried her a short distance, to where a gate opened
+into a large yard used for putting in carts and wagons at night, and
+deposited her on the ground just inside.
+
+"She can sleep it off there," said the policeman as he dropped his
+unseemly load. "She'll have a-plenty to keep her company before
+morning."
+
+And so they left her without covering or shelter in the wet and chilly
+air of a late November night, drunk and asleep.
+
+As the little crowd gathered by this ripple of excitement melted away, a
+single figure remained lurking in a corner of the yard and out of sight
+in its dark shadow. It was that of a man. The moment he was alone with
+the unconscious woman he glided toward her with the alert movements of
+an animal, and with a quickness that made his work seem instant, rifled
+her pockets. His gains were ten cents and the policy-slip she had just
+received at Sam McFaddon's. He next examined her shoes, but they were of
+no value, lifted her dirty dress and felt its texture for a moment, then
+dropped it with a motion of disgust and a growl of disappointment.
+
+As he came out from the yard with his poor booty, the light from a
+street-lamp fell on as miserable a looking wretch as ever hid himself
+from the eyes of day--dirty, ragged, bloated, forlorn, with scarcely a
+trace of manhood in his swollen and disfigured face. His steps, quick
+from excitement a few moments before, were now shambling and made
+with difficulty. He had not far to walk for what he was seeking. The
+ministers to his appetite were all about him, a dozen in every block of
+that terrible district that seemed as if forsaken by God and man. Into
+the first that came in his way he went with nervous haste, for he had
+not tasted of the fiery stimulant he was craving with a fierce and
+unrelenting thirst for many hours. He did not leave the bar until he had
+drank as much of the burning poison its keeper dispensed as his booty
+would purchase. In less than half an hour he was thrown dead drunk into
+the street and then carried by policemen to the old wagon-yard, to take
+his night's unconscious rest on the ground in company with Mother Hewitt
+and a score besides of drunken wretches who were pitilessly turned out
+from the various dram-shops after their money was spent, and who
+were not considered by the police worth the trouble of taking to the
+station-house.
+
+When Mother Hewitt crept back into her cellar at daylight, the baby was
+gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+
+_FOR_ more than a week after Edith's call on Dr. Radcliffe she seemed to
+take but little interest in anything, and remained alone in her room
+for a greater part of the time, except when her father was in the house.
+Since her questions about her baby a slight reserve had risen up between
+them. During this time she went out at least once every day, and when
+questioned by her mother as to where she had been, evaded any direct
+answer. If questioned more closely, she would show a rising spirit and
+a decision of manner that had the effect to silence and at the same time
+to trouble Mrs. Dinneford, whose mind was continually on the rack.
+
+One day the mother and daughter met in a part of the city where neither
+of them dreamed of seeing the other. It was not far from where Mrs. Bray
+lived. Mrs. Dinneford had been there on a purgational visit, and had
+come away lighter in purse and with a heavier burden of fear and anxiety
+on her heart.
+
+"What are you doing here?" she demanded.
+
+"I've been to St. John's mission sewing-school," replied Edith. "I have
+a class there."
+
+"You have! Why didn't you tell me this before? I don't like such doings.
+This is no place for you."
+
+"My place is where I can do good," returned Edith, speaking slowly, but
+with great firmness.
+
+"Good! You can do good if you want to without demeaning yourself to work
+like this. I don't want you mixed up with these low, vile people, and I
+won't have it!" Mrs. Dinneford spoke in a sharp, positive voice.
+
+Edith made no answer, and they walked on together.
+
+"I shall speak to your father about this," said Mrs. Dinneford. "It
+isn't reputable. I wouldn't have you seen here for the world."
+
+"I shall walk unhurt; you need not fear," returned Edith.
+
+There was silence between them for some time, Edith not caring to speak,
+and her mother in doubt as to what it were best to say.
+
+"How long have you been going to St. John's mission school?" at length
+queried Mrs. Dinneford.
+
+"I've been only a few times," replied Edith.
+
+"And have a class of diseased and filthy little wretches, I
+suppose--gutter children?"
+
+"They are God's children," said Edith, in a tone of rebuke.
+
+"Oh, don't preach to me!" was angrily replied.
+
+"I only said what was true," remarked Edith.
+
+There was silence again.
+
+"Are you going directly home?" asked Mrs. Dinneford, after they had
+walked the distance of several blocks. Edith replied that she was.
+
+"Then you'd better take that car. I shall not be home for an hour yet."
+
+They separated, Edith taking the car. As soon as she was alone Mrs.
+Dinneford quickened her steps, like a person who had been held back
+from some engagement. A walk of ten minutes brought her to one of
+the principal hotels of the city. Passing in, she went up to a
+reception-parlor, where she was met by a man who rose from a seat
+near the windows and advanced to the middle of the room. He was of low
+stature, with quick, rather nervous movements, had dark, restless eyes,
+and wore a heavy black moustache that was liberally sprinkled with
+gray. The lower part of his face was shaved clean. He showed some
+embarrassment as he came forward to meet Mrs. Dinneford.
+
+"Mr. Feeling," she said, coldly.
+
+The man bowed with a mixture of obsequiousness and familiarity, and
+tried to look steadily into Mrs. Dinneford's face, but was not able to
+do so. There was a steadiness and power in her eyes that his could not
+bear.
+
+"What do you want with me, sir?" she demanded, a little sharply.
+
+"Take a chair, and I will tell you," replied Freeling, and he turned,
+moving toward a corner of the room, she following. They sat down, taking
+chairs near each other.
+
+"There's trouble brewing," said the man, his face growing dark and
+anxious.
+
+"What kind of trouble?"
+
+"I had a letter from George Granger yesterday."
+
+"What!" The color went out of the lady's face.
+
+"A letter from George Granger. He wished to see me."
+
+"Did you go?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What did he want?"
+
+Freeling took a deep breath, and sighed. His manner was troubled.
+
+"What did he want?" Mrs. Dinneford repeated the question.
+
+"He's as sane as you or I," said Freeling.
+
+"Is he? Oh, very well! Then let him go to the State's prison." Mrs.
+Dinneford said this with some bravado in her manner. But the color did
+not come back to her face.
+
+"He has no idea of that," was replied.
+
+"What then?" The lady leaned toward Freeling. Her hands moved nervously.
+
+"He means to have the case in court again, but on a new issue."
+
+"He does!"
+
+"Yes; says that he's innocent, and that you and I know it--that he's the
+victim of a conspiracy, and that we are the conspirators!"
+
+"Talk!--amounts to nothing," returned Mrs. Dinneford, with a faint
+little laugh.
+
+"I don't know about that. It's ugly talk, and especially so, seeing that
+it's true."
+
+"No one will give credence to the ravings of an insane criminal."
+
+"People are quick to credit an evil report. They will pity and believe
+him, now that the worst is reached. A reaction in public feeling has
+already taken place. He has one or two friends left who do not hesitate
+to affirm that there has been foul play. One of these has been tampering
+with a clerk of mine, and I came upon them with their heads together
+on the street a few days ago, and had my suspicions aroused by their
+startled look when they saw me."
+
+"'What did that man want with you?' I inquired, when the clerk came in.
+
+"He hesitated a moment, and then replied, 'He was asking me something
+about Mr. Granger.'
+
+"'What about him?' I queried. 'He asked me if I knew anything in regard
+to the forgery,' he returned.
+
+"I pressed him with questions, and found that suspicion was on the right
+track. This friend of Granger's asked particularly about your visits
+to the store, and whether he had ever noticed anything peculiar in
+our intercourse--anything that showed a familiarity beyond what would
+naturally arise between a customer and salesman."
+
+"There's nothing in that," said Mrs. Dinneford. "If you and I keep our
+own counsel, we are safe. The testimony of a condemned criminal goes for
+nothing. People may surmise and talk as much as they please, but no one
+knows anything about those notes but you and I and George."
+
+"A pardon from the governor may put a new aspect on the case."
+
+"A pardon!" There was a tremor of alarm in Mrs. Dinneford's voice.
+
+"Yes; that, no doubt, will be the first move."
+
+"The first move! Why, Mr. Freeling, you don't think anything like this
+is in contemplation?"
+
+"I'm afraid so. George, as I have said, is no more crazy than you or I.
+But he cannot come out of the asylum, as the case now stands, without
+going to the penitentiary. So the first move of his friends will be to
+get a pardon. Then he is our equal in the eyes of the law. It would be
+an ugly thing for you and me to be sued for a conspiracy to ruin this
+young man, and have the charge of forgery added to the count."
+
+Mrs. Dinneford gave a low cry, and shivered.
+
+"But it may come to that."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"The prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself, but the simple
+pass on and are punished," said Freeling. "It is for this that I have
+sent for you. It's an ugly business, and I was a weak fool ever to have
+engaged in it."
+
+"You were a free agent."
+
+"I was a weak fool."
+
+"As you please," returned Mrs. Dinneford, coldly, and drawing herself
+away from him.
+
+It was some moments before either of them spoke again. Then Freeling
+said,
+
+"I was awake all night, thinking over this matter, and it looks uglier
+the more I think of it. It isn't likely that enough evidence could be
+found to convict either of us, but to be tried on such an accusation
+would be horrible."
+
+"Horrible! horrible!" ejaculated Mrs. Dinneford. "What is to be done?"
+She gave signs of weakness and terror. Freeling observed her closely,
+then felt his way onward.
+
+"We are in great peril," he said. "There is no knowing what turn affairs
+will take. I only wish I were a thousand miles from here. It would be
+safer for us both." Then, after a pause, he added, "If I were foot-free,
+I would be off to-morrow."
+
+He watched Mrs. Dinneford closely, and saw a change creep over her face.
+
+"If I were to disappear suddenly," he resumed, "suspicion, if it took
+a definite shape, would fall on me. You would not be thought of in the
+matter."
+
+He paused again, observing his companion keenly but stealthily. He was
+not able to look her fully in the face.
+
+"Speak out plainly," said Mrs. Dinneford, with visible impatience.
+
+"Plainly, then, madam," returned Freeling, changing his whole bearing
+toward her, and speaking as one who felt that he was master of the
+situation, "it has come to this: I shall have to break up and leave
+the city, or there will be a new trial in which you and I will be the
+accused. Now, self-preservation is the first law of nature. I don't mean
+to go to the State's prison if I can help it. What I am now debating
+are the chances in my favor if Granger gets a pardon, and then makes
+an effort to drive us to the wall, which he most surely will. I have
+settled it so far--"
+
+Mrs. Dinneford leaned toward him with an anxious expression on her
+countenance, waiting for the next sentence. But Freeling did not go on.
+
+"How have you settled it?" she demanded, trembling as she spoke with the
+excitement of suspense.
+
+"That I am not going to the wall if I can help it."
+
+"How will you help it?"
+
+"I have an accomplice;" and this time he was able to look at Mrs.
+Dinneford with such a fixed and threatening gaze that her eyes fell.
+
+"You have?" she questioned, in a husky voice.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Mrs. Helen Dinneford. And do you think for a moment that to save myself
+I would hesitate to sacrifice her?"
+
+The lady's face grew white. She tried to speak, but could not.
+
+"I am talking plainly, as you desired, madam," continued Freeling.
+"You led me into this thing. It was no scheme of mine; and if more evil
+consequences are to come, I shall do my best to save my own head. Let
+the hurt go to where it rightfully belongs."
+
+"What do you mean?" Mrs. Dinneford tried to rally herself.
+
+"Just this," was answered: "if I am dragged into court, I mean to go
+in as a witness, and not as a criminal. At the first movement toward an
+indictment, I shall see the district attorney, whom I know very well,
+and give him such information in the case as will lead to fixing the
+crime on you alone, while I will come in as the principal witness. This
+will make your conviction certain."
+
+"Devil!" exclaimed Mrs. Dinneford, her white face convulsed and her eyes
+starting from their sockets with rage and fear. "Devil!" she repeated,
+not able to control her passion.
+
+"Then you know me," was answered, with cool self-possession, "and what
+you have to expect."
+
+Neither spoke for a considerable time. Up to this period they had been
+alone in the parlor. Guests of the house now came in and took seats
+near them. They arose and walked the floor for a little while, still in
+silence, then passed into an adjoining parlor that happened to be empty,
+and resumed the conference.
+
+"This is a last resort," remarked Freeling, softening his voice as they
+sat down--"a card that I do not wish to play, and shall not if I can
+help it. But it is best that you should know that it is in my hand. If
+there is any better way of escape, I shall take it."
+
+"You spoke of going away," said Mrs. Dinneford.
+
+"Yes. But that involves a great deal."
+
+"What?"
+
+"The breaking up of my business, and loss of money and opportunities
+that I can hardly hope ever to regain."
+
+"Why loss of money?"
+
+"I shall have to wind up hurriedly, and it will be impossible to collect
+more than a small part of my outstanding claims. I shall have to go
+away under a cloud, and it will not be prudent to return. Most of these
+claims will therefore become losses. The amount of capital I shall be
+able to take will not be sufficient to do more than provide for a small
+beginning in some distant place and under an assumed name. On the other
+hand, if I remain and fight the thing through, as I have no doubt I can,
+I shall keep my business and my place in society here--hurt, it may be,
+in my good name, but still with the main chance all right. But it will
+be hard for you. If I pass the ordeal safely, you will not. And the
+question to consider is whether you can make it to my interest to go
+away, to drop out of sight, injured in fortune and good name, while you
+go unscathed. You now have it all in a nutshell. I will not press you to
+a decision to-day. Your mind is too much disturbed. To-morrow, at noon,
+I would like to see you again."
+
+Freeling made a motion to rise, but Mrs. Dinneford did not stir.
+
+"Perhaps," he said, "you decide at once to let things take their course.
+Understand me, I am ready for either alternative. The election is with
+yourself."
+
+Mrs. Dinneford was too much stunned by all this to be able to come to
+any conclusion. She seemed in the maze of a terrible dream, full of
+appalling reality. To wait for twenty-four hours in this state of
+uncertainty was more than her thoughts could endure. And yet she must
+have time to think, and to get command of her mental resources.
+
+"Will you be disengaged at five o'clock?" she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I will be here at five."
+
+"Very well."
+
+Mrs. Dinneford arose with a weary air.
+
+"I shall want to hear from you very explicitly," she said. "If your
+demand is anywhere in the range of reason and possibility, I may
+meet it. If outside of that range, I shall of course reject it. It is
+possible that you may not hold all the winning cards--in fact, I know
+that you do not."
+
+"I will be here at five," said Freeling.
+
+"Very well. I shall be on time."
+
+And they turned from each other, passing from the parlor by separate
+doors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+
+_ONE_ morning, about two weeks later, Mr. Freeling did not make his
+appearance at his place of business as usual. At ten o'clock a clerk
+went to the hotel where he boarded to learn the cause of his absence. He
+had not been there since the night before. His trunks and clothing were
+all in their places, and nothing in the room indicated anything more
+than an ordinary absence.
+
+Twelve o'clock, and still Mr. Freeling had not come to the store. Two
+or three notes were to be paid that day, and the managing-clerk began
+to feel uneasy. The bank and check books were in a private drawer in the
+fireproof of which Mr. Freeling had the key. So there was no means of
+ascertaining the balances in bank.
+
+At one o'clock it was thought best to break open the private drawer and
+see how matters stood. Freeling kept three bank-accounts, and it was
+found that on the day before he had so nearly checked out all the
+balances that the aggregate on deposit was not over twenty dollars. In
+looking back over these bank-accounts, it was seen that within a week he
+had made deposits of over fifty thousand dollars, and that most of
+the checks drawn against these deposits were in sums of five thousand
+dollars each.
+
+At three o'clock he was still absent. His notes went to protest, and on
+the next day his city creditors took possession of his effects. One fact
+soon became apparent--he had been paying the rogue's game on a pretty
+liberal scale, having borrowed on his checks, from business friends
+and brokers, not less than sixty or seventy thousand dollars. It was
+estimated, on a thorough examination of his business, that he had
+gone off with at least a hundred thousand dollars. To this amount Mrs.
+Dinneford had contributed from her private fortune the sum of twenty
+thousand dollars. Not until she had furnished him with that large amount
+would he consent to leave the city. He magnified her danger, and so
+overcame her with terrors that she yielded to his exorbitant demand.
+
+On the day a public newspaper announcement of Freeling's rascality was
+made, Mrs. Dinneford went to bed sick of a nervous fever, and was for a
+short period out of her mind.
+
+Neither Mr. Dinneford nor Edith had failed to notice a change in Mrs.
+Dinneford. She was not able to hide her troubled feelings. Edith was
+watching her far more closely than she imagined; and now that she was
+temporarily out of her mind, she did not let a word or look escape
+her. The first aspect of her temporary aberration was that of fear and
+deprecation. She was pursued by some one who filled her with terror,
+and she would lift her hands to keep him off, or hide her head in abject
+alarm. Then she would beg him to keep away. Once she said,
+
+"It's no use; I can't do anything more. You're a vampire!"
+
+"Who is a vampire?" asked Edith, hoping that her mother would repeat
+some name.
+
+But the question seemed to put her on her guard. The expression of fear
+went out of her face, and she looked at her daughter curiously.
+
+Edith did not repeat the question. In a little while the mother's
+wandering thoughts began to find words again, and she went on talking
+in broken sentences out of which little could be gleaned. At length she
+said, turning to Edith and speaking with the directness of one in her
+right mind,
+
+"I told you her name was Gray, didn't I? Gray, not Bray."
+
+It was only by a quick and strong effort that Edith could steady her
+voice as she replied:
+
+"Yes; you said it was Gray."
+
+"Gray, not Bray. You thought it was Bray."
+
+"But it's Gray," said Edith, falling in with her mother's humor. Then
+she added, still trying to keep her voice even,
+
+"She was my nurse when baby was born."
+
+"Yes; she was the nurse, but she didn't--"
+
+Checking herself, Mrs. Dinneford rose on one arm and looked at Edith in
+a frightened way, then said, hurriedly,
+
+"Oh, it's dead, it's dead! You know that; and the woman's dead, too."
+
+Edith sat motionless and silent as a statue, waiting for what more might
+come. But her mother shut her lips tightly, and turned her head away.
+
+A long time elapsed before she was able to read in her mother's confused
+utterances anything to which she could attach a meaning. At last Mrs.
+Dinneford spoke out again, and with an abruptness that startled her:
+
+"Not another dollar, sir! Remember, you don't hold _all_ the winning
+cards!"
+
+Edith held her breath, and sat motionless. Her mother muttered and
+mumbled incoherently for a while, and then said, sharply,
+
+"I said I would ruin him, and I've done it!"
+
+"Ruin who?" asked Edith, in a repressed voice.
+
+This question, instead of eliciting an answer, as Edith had hoped,
+brought her mother back to semi-consciousness. She rose again in bed,
+and looked at her daughter in the same frightened way she had done a
+little while before, then laid herself over on the pillows again. Her
+lips were tightly shut.
+
+Edith was almost wild with suspense. The clue to that sad and painful
+mystery which was absorbing her life seemed almost in her grasp. A
+word from those closely-shut lips, and she would have certainty for
+uncertainty. But she waited and waited until she grew faint, and still
+the lips kept silent.
+
+But after a while Mrs. Dinneford grew uneasy, and began talking. She
+moved her head from side to side, threw her arms about restlessly and
+appeared greatly disturbed.
+
+"Not dead, Mrs. Bray?" she cried out, at last, in a clear, strong voice.
+
+Edith became fixed as a statue once more.
+
+A few moments, and Mrs. Dinneford added,
+
+"No, no! I won't have her coming after me. More money! You're a
+vampire!"
+
+Then she muttered, and writhed and distorted her face like one in some
+desperate struggle. Edith shuddered as she stood over her.
+
+After this wild paroxysm Mrs. Dinneford grew more quiet, and seemed to
+sleep. Edith remained sitting by the bedside, her thoughts intent on the
+strange sentences that had fallen from her Mother's lips. What mystery
+lay behind them? Of what secret were they an obscure revelation? "Not
+dead!" Who not dead? And again, "It's dead! You know that; and the
+woman's dead, too." Then it was plain that she had heard aright the name
+of the person who had called on her mother, and about whom her mother
+had made a mystery. It was Bray; if not, why the anxiety to make her
+believe it Gray? And this woman had been her nurse. It was plain, also,
+that money was being paid for keeping secret. What secret? Then a life
+had been ruined. "I said I would ruin him, and I've done it!" Who? who
+could her mother mean but the unhappy man she had once called husband,
+now a criminal in the eyes of the law, and only saved by insanity from a
+criminal's cell?
+
+Putting all together, Edith's mind quickly wrought out a theory, and
+this soon settled into a conviction--a conviction so close to fact that
+all the chief elements were true.
+
+During her mother's temporary aberration, Edith never left her room
+except for a few minutes at a time. Not a word or sentence escaped
+her notice. But she waited and listened in vain for anything more. The
+talking paroxysm was over. A stupor of mind and body followed. Out
+of this a slow recovery came, but it did not progress to a full
+convalescence. Mrs. Dinneford went forth from her sick-chamber weak and
+nervous, starting at sudden noises, and betraying a perpetual uneasiness
+and suspense. Edith was continually on the alert, watching every look
+and word and act with untiring scrutiny. Mrs. Dinneford soon became
+aware of this. Guilt made her wary, and danger inspired prudence.
+Edith's whole manner had changed. Why? was her natural query. Had she
+been wandering in her mind? Had she given any clue to the dark secrets
+she was hiding? Keen observation became mutual. Mother and daughter
+watched each other with a suspicion that never slept.
+
+It was over a month from the time Freeling disappeared before Mrs.
+Dinneford was strong enough to go out, except in her carriage. In every
+case where she had ridden out, Edith had gone with her.
+
+"If you don't care about riding, it's no matter," the mother would say,
+when she saw Edith getting ready. "I can go alone. I feel quite well and
+strong."
+
+But Edith always had some reason for going against which her mother
+could urge no objections. So she kept her as closely under observation
+as possible. One day, on returning from a ride, as the carriage passed
+into the block where they lived, she saw a woman standing on the step in
+front of their residence. She had pulled the bell, and was waiting for a
+servant to answer it.
+
+"There is some one at our door," said Edith.
+
+Mrs. Dinneford leaned across her daughter, and then drew back quickly,
+saying,
+
+"It's Mrs. Barker. Tell Henry to drive past. I don't want to see
+visitors, and particularly not Mrs. Barker."
+
+She spoke hurriedly, and with ill-concealed agitation. Edith kept her
+eyes on the woman, and saw her go in, but did not tell the driver to
+keep on past the house. It was not Mrs. Barker. She knew that very well.
+In the next moment their carriage drew up at the door.
+
+"Go on, Henry!" cried Mrs. Dinneford, leaning past her daughter, and
+speaking through the window that was open on that side. "Drive down to
+Loring's."
+
+"Not till I get out, Henry," said Edith, pushing open the door and
+stepping to the pavement. Then with a quick movement she shut the door
+and ran across the pavement, calling back to the driver as she did so,
+
+"Take mother to Loring's."
+
+"Stop, Henry!" cried Mrs. Dinneford, and with an alertness that was
+surprising sprung from the carriage, and was on the steps of their house
+before Edith's violent ring had brought a servant to the door. They
+passed in, Edith holding her place just in advance.
+
+"I will see Mrs. Barker," said Mrs. Dinneford, trying to keep out of her
+voice the fear and agitation from which she was suffering. "You can go
+up to your room."
+
+"It isn't Mrs. Barker. You are mistaken." There was as much of betrayal
+in the voice of Edith as in that of her mother. Each was trying to hide
+herself from the other, but the veil in both cases was far too thin for
+deception.
+
+Mother and daughter entered the parlor together. As they did so a woman
+of small stature, and wearing a rusty black dress, arose from a seat
+near the window. The moment she saw Edith she drew a heavy dark veil
+over her face with a quickness of movement that had in it as much of
+discomfiture as surprise.
+
+Mrs. Dinneford was equal to the occasion. The imminent peril in which
+she stood calmed the wild tumult within, as the strong wind calms this
+turbulent ocean, and gave her thoughts clearness and her mind decision.
+Edith saw before the veil fell a startled face, and recognized the
+sallow countenance and black, evil eyes, the woman who had once before
+called to see her mother.
+
+"Didn't I tell you not to come here, Mrs. Gray?" cried out Mrs.
+Dinneford, with an anger that was more real than feigned, advancing
+quickly upon the woman as she spoke. "Go!" and she pointed to the door,
+"and don't you dare to come here again. I told you when you were here
+last time that I wouldn't be bothered with you any longer. I've done all
+I ever intend doing. So take yourself away."
+
+And she pointed again to the door. Mrs. Bray--for it was that
+personage--comprehended the situation fully. She was as good an actor as
+Mrs. Dinneford, and quite as equal to the occasion. Lifting her hand in
+a weak, deprecating way, and then shrinking like one borne down by the
+shock of a great disappointment, she moved back from the excited woman
+and made her way to the hall, Mrs. Dinneford following and assailing her
+in passionate language.
+
+Edith was thrown completely off her guard by this unexpected scene. She
+did not stir from the spot where she stood on entering the parlor until
+the visitor was at the street door, whither her mother had followed the
+retreating figure. She did not hear the woman say in the tone of one who
+spoke more in command than entreaty,
+
+"To-morrow at one o'clock, or take the consequences."
+
+"It will be impossible to-morrow," Mrs. Dinneford whispered back,
+hurriedly; "I have been very ill, and have only just begun to ride out.
+It may be a week, but I'll surely come. I'm watched. Go now! go! go!"
+
+And she pushed Mrs. Bray out into the vestibule and shut the door after
+her. Mrs. Dinneford did not return to the parlor, but went hastily up to
+her own room, locking herself in.
+
+She did not come out until dinner-time, when she made an effort to seem
+composed, but Edith saw her hand tremble every time it was lifted. She
+drank three glasses of wine during the meal. After dinner she went to
+her own apartment immediately, and did not come down again that day.
+
+On the next morning Mrs. Dinneford tried to appear cheerful and
+indifferent. But her almost colorless face, pinched about the lips and
+nostrils, and the troubled expression that would not go out of her eyes,
+betrayed to Edith the intense anxiety and dread that lay beneath the
+surface.
+
+Days went by, but Edith had no more signs. Now that her mother was
+steadily getting back both bodily strength and mental self-poise, the
+veil behind which she was hiding herself, and which had been broken into
+rifts here and there during her sickness, grew thicker and thicker. Mrs.
+Dinneford had too much at stake not to play her cards with exceeding
+care. She knew that Edith was watching her with an intentness that let
+nothing escape. Her first care, as soon as she grew strong enough to
+have the mastery over herself, was so to control voice, manner and
+expression of countenance as not to appear aware of this surveillance.
+Her next was to re-establish the old distance between herself and
+daughter, which her illness had temporarily bridged over, and her next
+was to provide against any more visits from Mrs. Bray.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+
+_AS_ for Edith, all doubts and questionings as to her baby's fate were
+merged into a settled conviction that it was alive, and that her mother
+knew where it was to be found. From her mother's pity and humanity she
+had nothing to hope for the child. It had been cruelly cast adrift,
+pushed out to die; by what means was cared not, so that it died and left
+no trace.
+
+The face of Mrs. Bray had, in the single glance Edith obtained of it,
+become photographed in her mind. If she had been an artist, she could
+have drawn it from memory so accurately that no one who knew the woman
+could have failed to recognize her likeness. Always when in the street
+her eyes searched for this face; she never passed a woman of small
+stature and poor dark clothing without turning to look at her. Every day
+she went out, walking the streets sometimes for hours looking for this
+face, but not finding it. Every day she passed certain corners and
+localities where she had seen women begging, and whenever she found one
+with a baby in her arms would stop to look at the poor starved thing,
+and question her about it.
+
+Gradually all her thoughts became absorbed in the condition of poor,
+neglected and suffering children. Her attendance at the St. John's
+mission sewing-school, which was located in the neighborhood of one
+of the worst places in the city, brought her in contact with little
+children in such a wretched state of ignorance, destitution and vice
+that her heart was moved to deepest pity, intensified by the thought
+that ever and anon flashed across her mind: "And my baby may become like
+one of these!"
+
+Sometimes this thought would drive her almost to madness. Often she
+would become so wild in her suspense as to be on the verge of openly
+accusing her mother with having knowledge of her baby's existence and
+demanding of her its restoration. But she was held back by the fear that
+such an accusation would only shut the door of hope for ever. She had
+come to believe her mother capable of almost any wickedness. Pressed
+to the wall she would never be if there was any way of escape, and to
+prevent such at thing there was nothing so desperate that she would not
+do it; and so Edith hesitated and feared to take the doubtful issue.
+
+Week after week and month after month now went on without a single,
+occurrence that gave to Edith any new light. Mrs. Dinneford wrought with
+her accomplice so effectually that she kept her wholly out of the way.
+Often, in going and returning from the mission-school, Edith would
+linger about the neighborhood where she had once met her mother, hoping
+to see her come out of some one of the houses there, for she had got it
+into her mind that the woman called Mrs. Gray lived somewhere in this
+locality.
+
+One day, in questioning a child who had come to the sewing-school as to
+her home and how she lived, the little girl said something about a baby
+that her mother said she knew must have been stolen.
+
+"How old is the baby?" asked Edith, hardly able to keep the tremor out
+of her voice.
+
+"It's a little thing," answered the child. "I don't know how old it is;
+maybe it's six months old, or maybe it's a year. It can sit upon the
+floor."
+
+"Why does your mother think it has been stolen?"
+
+"Because two bad girls have got it, and they pay a woman to take care of
+it. It doesn't belong to them, she knows. Mother says it would be a good
+thing if it died."
+
+"Why does she say that?"
+
+"Oh she always talks that way about babies--says she's glad when they
+die."
+
+"Is it a boy or a girl?"
+
+"It's a boy baby," answered the child.
+
+"Does the woman take good care of it?"
+
+"Oh dear, no! She lets it sit on the floor 'most all the time, and it
+cries so that I often go up and nurse it. The woman lives in the room
+over ours."
+
+"Where do you live?"
+
+"In Grubb's court."
+
+"Will you show me the way there after school is over?"
+
+The child looked up into Edith's face with an expression of surprise and
+doubt. Edith repeated her question.
+
+"I guess you'd better not go," was answered, in a voice that meant all
+the words expressed.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"It isn't a good place."
+
+"But you live there?"
+
+"Yes, but nobody's going to trouble me."
+
+"Nor me," said Edith.
+
+"Oh, but you don't know what kind of a place it is, nor what dreadful
+people live there."
+
+"I could get a policeman to go with me, couldn't I?"
+
+"Yes, maybe you could, or Mr. Paulding, the missionary. He goes about
+everywhere."
+
+"Where can I find Mr. Paulding?"
+
+"At the mission in Briar street."
+
+"You'll show me the way there after school?"
+
+"Oh yes; it isn't a nice place for you to go, but I guess nobody'll
+trouble you."
+
+After the school closed, Edith, guided by the child, made her way to the
+Briar st. mission-house. As she entered the narrow street in which it
+was situated, the aspect of things was so strange and shocking to her
+eyes that she felt a chill creep to her heart. She had never imagined
+anything so forlorn and squalid, so wretched and comfortless. Miserable
+little hovels, many of them no better than pig-styes, and hardly cleaner
+within, were crowded together in all stages of dilapidation. Windows
+with scarcely a pane of glass, the chilly air kept out by old hats, bits
+of carpet or wads of newspaper, could be seen on all sides, with here
+and there, showing some remains of an orderly habit, a broken pane
+closed with a smooth piece of paper pasted to the sash. Instinctively
+she paused, oppressed by a sense of fear.
+
+"It's only halfway down," said the child. "We'll 'go quick. I guess
+nobody'll speak to you. They're afraid of Mr. Paulding about here. He's
+down on 'em if they meddle with anybody that's coming to the mission."
+
+Edith, thus urged, moved on. She had gone but a few steps when two men
+came in sight, advancing toward her. They were of the class to be seen
+at all times in that region--debased to the lowest degree, drunken,
+ragged, bloated, evil-eyed, capable of any wicked thing. They were
+singing when they came in sight, but checked their drunken mirth as soon
+as they saw Edith, whose heart sunk again. She stopped, trembling.
+
+"They're only drunk," said the child. "I don't believe they'll hurt
+you."
+
+Edith rallied herself and walked on, the men coming closer and closer.
+She saw them look at each other with leering eyes, and then at her in
+a way that made her shiver. When only a few paces distant, they paused,
+and with the evident intention of barring her farther progress.
+
+"Good-afternoon, miss," said one of them, with a low bow. "Can we do
+anything for you?"
+
+The pale, frightened face of Edith was noticed by the other, and it
+touched some remnant of manhood not yet wholly extinguished.
+
+"Let her alone, you miserable cuss!" he cried, and giving his drunken
+companion a shove, sent him staggering across the street. This made the
+way clear, and Edith sprang forward, but she had gone only a few feet
+when she came face to face with another obstruction even more frightful,
+if possible, than the first. A woman with a red, swollen visage, black
+eye, soiled, tattered, drunk, with arms wildly extended, came rushing up
+to her. The child gave a scream. The wretched creature caught at a shawl
+worn by Edith, and was dragging it from her shoulders, when the door of
+one of the houses flew open, and a woman came out hastily. Grasping
+the assailant, she hurled her across the street with the strength of a
+giant.
+
+"We're going to the mission," said the child.
+
+"It's just down there. Go 'long. I'll stand here and see that no one
+meddles with you again."
+
+Edith faltered her thanks, and went on.
+
+"That's the queen," said her companion.
+
+"The queen!" Edith's hasty tones betrayed her surprise.
+
+"Yes; it's Norah. They're all afraid of her. I'm glad she saw us. She's
+as strong as a man."
+
+In a few minutes they reached the mission, but in those few minutes
+Edith saw more to sadden the heart, more to make it ache for humanity,
+than could be described in pages.
+
+The missionary was at home. Edith told him the purpose of her call and
+the locality she desired to visit.
+
+"I wanted to go alone," she remarked, "but this little girl, who is in
+my class at the sewing-school, said it wouldn't be safe, and that you
+would go with me."
+
+"I should be sorry to have you go alone into Grubb's court," said the
+missionary, kindly, and with concern in his voice, "for a worse place
+can hardly be found in the city--I was going to say in the world. You
+will be safe with me, however. But why do you wish to visit Grubb's
+court? Perhaps I can do all that is needed."
+
+"This little girl who lives in there, has been telling me about a
+poor neglected baby that her mother says has no doubt been stolen,
+and--and--" Edith voice faltered, but she quickly gained steadiness
+under a strong effort of will: "I thought perhaps I might be able to
+do something for it--to get it into one of the homes, maybe. It is
+dreadful, sir, to think of little babies being neglected."
+
+Mr. Paulding questioned the child who had brought Edith to the
+mission-house, and learned from her that the baby was merely boarded by
+the woman who had it in charge, and that she sometimes took it out and
+sat on the street, begging. The child repeated what she had said to
+Edith--that the baby was the property, so to speak, of two abandoned
+women, who paid its board.
+
+"I think," said the missionary, after some reflection, "that if getting
+the child out of their hands is your purpose, you had better not go
+there at present. Your visit would arouse suspicion; and if the two
+women have anything to gain by keeping the child in their possession,
+it will be at once taken to a new place. I am moving about in these
+localities all the while, and can look in upon the baby without anything
+being thought of it."
+
+This seemed so reasonable that Edith, who could not get over the nervous
+tremors occasioned by what she had already seen and encountered, readily
+consented to leave the matter for the present in Mr. Paulding's hands.
+
+"If you will come here to-morrow," said the missionary, "I will tell you
+all I can about the baby."
+
+Out of a region where disease, want and crime shrunk from common
+observation, and sin and death held high carnival, Edith hurried with
+trembling feet, and heart beating so heavily that she could hear it
+throb, the considerate missionary going with her until she had crossed
+the boundary of this morally infected district.
+
+Mr. Dinneford met Edith at the door on her arrival home.
+
+"My child," he exclaimed as he looked into her face, back to which the
+color had not returned since her fright in Briar street, "are you sick?"
+
+"I don't feel very well;" and she tried to pass him hastily in the hall
+as they entered the house together. But he laid his hand on her arm
+and held her back gently, then drew her into the parlor. She sat down,
+trembling, weak and faint. Mr. Dinneford waited for some moments,
+looking at her with a tender concern, before speaking.
+
+"Where have you been, my dear?" he asked, at length.
+
+After a little hesitation, Edith told her father about her visit to
+Briar street and the shock she had received.
+
+"You were wrong," he answered, gravely. "It is most fortunate for you
+that you took the child's advice and called at the mission. If you had
+gone to Grubb's court alone, you might not have come out alive."
+
+"Oh no, father! It can't be so bad as that."
+
+"It is just as bad as that," he replied, with a troubled face and
+manner. "Grubb's court is one of the traps into which unwary victims
+are drawn that they may be plundered. It is as much out of common
+observation almost as the lair of a wild beast in some deep wilderness.
+I have heard it described by those who have been there under protection
+of the police, and shudder to think of the narrow escape you have made.
+I don't want you to go into that vile district again. It is no place for
+such as you."
+
+"There's a poor little baby there," said Edith, her voice trembling and
+tears filling her eyes. Then, after a brief struggle with her feelings,
+she threw herself upon her father, sobbing out, "And oh, father, it may
+be my baby!"
+
+"My poor child," said Mr. Dinneford, not able to keep his voice
+firm--"my poor, poor child! It is all a wild dream, the suggestion of
+evil spirits who delight in torment."
+
+"What became of my baby, father? Can you tell me?"
+
+"It died, Edith dear. We know that," returned her father, trying to
+speak very confidently. But the doubt in his own mind betrayed itself.
+
+"Do you know it?" she asked, rising and confronting her father.
+
+"I didn't actually see it die. But--but--"
+
+"You know no more about it than I do," said Edith; "if you did, you
+might set my heart at rest with a word. But you cannot. And so I am left
+to my wild fears, that grow stronger every day. Oh, father, help me, if
+you can. I must have certainty, or I shall lose my reason."
+
+"If you don't give up this wild fancy, you surely will," answered Mr.
+Dinneford, in a distressed voice.
+
+"If I were to shut myself up and do nothing," said Edith, with greater
+calmness, "I would be in a madhouse before a week went by. My safety
+lies in getting down to the truth of this wild fancy, as you call it. It
+has taken such possession of me that nothing but certainty can give me
+rest. Will you help me?"
+
+"How can I help you? I have no clue to this sad mystery."
+
+"Mystery! Then you are as much in the dark as I am--know no more of what
+became of my baby than I do! Oh, father, how could you let such a thing
+be done, and ask no questions--such a cruel and terrible thing--and I
+lying helpless and dumb? Oh, father, my innocent baby cast out like a
+dog to perish--nay, worse, like a lamb among wolves to be torn by their
+cruel teeth--and no one to put forth a hand to save! If I only knew that
+he was dead! If I could find his little grave and comfort my heart over
+it!"
+
+Weak, naturally good men, like Mr. Dinneford, often permit great wrongs
+to be done in shrinking from conflict and evading the sterner duties of
+life. They are often the faithless guardians of immortal trusts.
+
+There was a tone of accusation and rebuke in Edith's voice that smote
+painfully on her father's heart. He answered feebly:
+
+"What could I do? How should I know that anything wrong was being done?
+You were very ill, and the baby was sent away to be nursed, and then I
+was told that it was dead."
+
+"Oh, father! Sent away without your seeing it! My baby! Your little
+grandson! Oh, father!"
+
+"But you know, dear, in what a temper of mind your mother was--how
+impossible it is for me to do anything with her when she once sets
+herself to do a thing."
+
+"Even if it be murder!" said Edith, in a hoarse whisper.
+
+"Hush, hush, my child! You must not speak so," returned the agitated
+father.
+
+A silence fell between them. A wall of separation began to grow up.
+Edith arose, and was moving from the room.
+
+"My daughter!" There was a sob in the father's voice.
+
+Edith stopped.
+
+"My daughter, we must not part yet. Come back; sit down with me, and let
+us talk more calmly. What is past cannot be changed. It is with the now
+of this unhappy business that we have to do."
+
+Edith came back and sat down again, her father taking a seat beside her.
+
+"That is just it," she answered, with a steadiness of tone and manner
+that showed how great was the self-control she was able to exert. "It
+is with the now of this unhappy affair that we have to do. If I spoke
+strongly of the past, it was that a higher and intenser life might be
+given to present duty."
+
+"Let there be no distance between us. Let no wall of separation grow
+up," said Mr. Dinneford, tenderly. "I cannot bear to think of this.
+Confide in me, consult with me. I will help you in all possible ways to
+solve this mystery. But do not again venture alone into that dreadful
+place. I will go with you if you think any good will come of it."
+
+"I must see Mr. Paulding in the morning," said Edith, with calm
+decision.
+
+"Then I will go with you," returned Mr. Dinneford.
+
+"Thank you, father;" and she kissed him. "Until then nothing more can
+be done." She kissed him again, and then went to her own room. After
+locking the door she sank on her knees, leaning forward, with her face
+buried in the cushion of a chair, and did not rise for a long time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+
+_ON_ the next morning, after some persuasion, Edith consented to
+postpone her visit to Grubb's court until after her father had seen Mr.
+Paulding, the missionary.
+
+"Let me go first and gain what information I can," he urged. "It may
+save you a fruitless errand."
+
+It was not without a feeling of almost unconquerable repugnance that
+Mr. Dinneford took his way to the mission-house, in Briar street. His
+tastes, his habits and his naturally kind and sensitive feelings all
+made him shrink from personal contact with suffering and degradation.
+He gave much time and care to the good work of helping the poor and the
+wretched, but did his work in boards and on committees, rather than in
+the presence of the needy and suffering. He was not one of those who
+would pass over to the other side and leave a wounded traveler to
+perish, but he would avoid the road to Jericho, if he thought it likely
+any such painful incident would meet him in the way and shock his fine
+sensibilities. He was willing to work for the downcast, the wronged, the
+suffering and the vile, but preferred doing so at a distance, and not in
+immediate contact. Thus it happened that, although one of the managers
+of the Briar street mission and familiar with its work in a general way,
+he had never been at the mission-house--had never, in fact, set his foot
+within the morally plague-stricken district in which it stood. He had
+often been urged to go, but could not overcome his reluctance to meet
+humanity face to face in its sadder and more degraded aspects.
+
+Now a necessity was upon him, and he had to go. It was about ten o'clock
+in the morning when, at almost a single step, he passed from what seemed
+paradise to purgatory, the sudden contrast was so great. There were but
+few persons in the little street; where the mission was situated at that
+early hour, and most of these were children--poor, half-clothed, dirty,
+wan-faced, keen-eyed and alert bits of humanity, older by far than their
+natural years, few of them possessing any higher sense of right and
+wrong than young savages. The night's late orgies or crimes had left
+most of their elders in a heavy morning sleep, from which they did
+not usually awaken before midday. Here and there one and another came
+creeping out, impelled by a thirst no water could quench. Now it was a
+bloated, wild-eyed man, dirty and forlorn beyond description,
+shambling into sight, but disappearing in a moment or two in one of the
+dram-shops, whose name was legion, and now it was a woman with the
+angel all gone out of her face, barefooted, blotched, coarse, red-eyed,
+bruised and awfully disfigured by her vicious, drunken life. Her steps
+too made haste to the dram-shop.
+
+Such houses for men and women to live in as now stretched before
+his eyes in long dreary rows Mr. Dinneford had never seen, except in
+isolated cases of vice and squalor. To say that he was shocked would but
+faintly express his feelings. Hurrying along, he soon came in sight of
+the mission. At this moment a jar broke the quiet of the scene. Just
+beyond the mission-house two women suddenly made their appearance, one
+of them pushing the other out upon the street. Their angry cries rent
+the air, filling it with profane and obscene oaths. They struggled
+together for a little while, and then one of them, a woman with gray
+hair and not less than sixty years of age, fell across the curb with her
+head on the cobble-stones.
+
+As if a sorcerer had stamped his foot, a hundred wretched creatures,
+mostly women and children, seemed to spring up from the ground. It was
+like a phantasy. They gathered about the prostrate woman, laughing and
+jeering. A policeman who was standing at the corner a little way off
+came up leisurely, and pushing the motley crew aside, looked down at the
+prostrate woman.
+
+"Oh, it's you again!" he said, in a tone of annoyance, taking hold of
+one arm and raising her so that she sat on the curb-stone. Mr. Dinneford
+now saw her face distinctly; it was that of an old woman, but red,
+swollen and terribly marred. Her thin gray hair had fallen over her
+shoulders, and gave her a wild and crazy look.
+
+"Come," said the policeman, drawing on the woman's arm and trying to
+raise her from the ground. But she would not move.
+
+"Come," he said, more imperatively.
+
+"Nature you going to do with me?" she demanded.
+
+"I'm going to lock you up. So come along. Have had enough of you about
+here. Always drunk and in a row with somebody."
+
+Her resistance was making the policeman angry.
+
+"It'll take two like you to do that," returned the woman, in a spiteful
+voice, swearing foully at the same time.
+
+At this a cheer arose from the crowd. A negro with a push-cart came
+along at the moment.
+
+"Here! I want you," called the policeman.
+
+The negro pretended not to hear, and the policeman had to threaten him
+before he would stop.
+
+Seeing the cart, the drunken woman threw herself back upon the pavement
+and set every muscle to a rigid strain. And now came one of those
+shocking scenes--too familiar, alas! in portions of our large Christian
+cities--at which everything pure and merciful and holy in our nature
+revolts: a gray-haired old woman, so debased by drink and an evil life
+that all sense of shame and degradation had been extinguished, fighting
+with a policeman, and for a time showing superior strength, swearing
+vilely, her face distorted with passion, and a crowd made up chiefly
+of women as vile and degraded as herself, and of all ages, and colors,
+laughing, shouting and enjoying the scene intensely.
+
+At last, by aid of the negro, the woman was lifted into the cart and
+thrown down upon the floor, her head striking one of the sides with a
+sickening _thud_. She still swore and struggled, and had to be held down
+by the policeman, who stood over her, while the cart was pushed off to
+the nearest station-house, the excited crowd following with shouts and
+merry huzzas.
+
+Mr. Dinneford was standing in a maze, shocked and distressed by this
+little episode, when a man at his side said in a grave, quiet voice,
+
+"I doubt if you could see a sight just like that anywhere else in all
+Christendom." Then added, as he extended his hand,
+
+"I am glad to see you here, Mr. Dinneford."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Paulding!" and Mr. Dinneford put out his hand and grasped that
+of the missionary with a nervous grip. "This is awful! I am sixty years
+old, but anything so shocking my eyes have not before looked upon."
+
+"We see things worse than this every day," said the missionary. "It is
+only one of the angry boils on the surface, and tells of the corrupt
+and vicious blood within. But I am right glad to find you here, Mr.
+Dinneford. Unless you see these things with your own eyes, it is
+impossible for you to comprehend the condition of affairs in this by-way
+to hell."
+
+"Hell, itself, better say," returned Mr. Dinneford. "It is hell pushing
+itself into visible manifestation--hell establishing itself on the
+earth, and organizing its forces for the destruction of human souls,
+while the churches are too busy enlarging their phylacteries and making
+broader and more attractive the hems of their garments to take note of
+this fatal vantage-ground acquired by the enemy."
+
+Mr. Dinneford stood and looked around him in a dazed sort of way.
+
+"Is Grubb's court near this?" he asked, recollecting the errand upon
+which he had come.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A young lady called to see you yesterday afternoon to ask about a child
+in that court?"
+
+"Oh yes! You know the lady?"
+
+"She is my daughter. One of the poor children in her sewing-class
+told her of a neglected baby in Grubb's court, and so drew upon her
+sympathies that she started to go there, but was warned by the child
+that it would be dangerous for a young lady like her to be seen in that
+den of thieves and harlots, and so she came to you. And now I am here in
+her stead to get your report about the baby. I would not consent to her
+visiting this place again."
+
+Mr. Paulding took his visitor into the mission-house, near which they
+were standing. After they were seated, he said,
+
+"I have seen the baby about which your daughter wished me to make
+inquiry. The woman who has the care of it is a vile creature, well known
+in this region--drunken and vicious. She said at first that it was her
+own baby, but afterward admitted that she didn't know who its mother
+was, and that she was paid for taking care of it. I found out, after
+a good deal of talking round, and an interview with the mother of the
+child who is in your daughter's sewing-class, that a girl of notoriously
+bad character, named Pinky Swett, pays the baby's board. There's a
+mystery about the child, and I am of the opinion that it has been
+stolen, or is known to be the offcast of some respectable family. The
+woman who has the care of it was suspicious, and seemed annoyed at my
+questions."
+
+"Is it a boy?" asked Mr. Dinneford.
+
+"Yes, and has a finely-formed head and a pair of large, clear, hazel
+eyes. Evidently it is of good parentage. The vicious, the sensual and
+the depraved mark their offspring with the unmistakable signs of their
+moral depravity. You cannot mistake them. But this baby has in its
+poor, wasted, suffering little face, in its well-balanced head and deep,
+almost spiritual eyes, the signs of a better origin."
+
+"It ought at once to be taken away from the woman," said Mr. Dinneford,
+in a very decided manner.
+
+"Who is to take it?" asked the missionary.
+
+Mr. Dinneford was silent.
+
+"Neither you nor I have any authority to do so. If I were to see it cast
+out upon the street, I might have it sent to the almshouse; but until I
+find it abandoned or shamefully abused, I have no right to interfere."
+
+"I would like to see the baby," said Mr. Dinneford, on whose mind
+painful suggestions akin to those that were so disturbing his daughter
+were beginning to intrude themselves.
+
+"It would hardly be prudent to go there to-day," said Mr. Paulding.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"It would arouse suspicion; and if there is anything wrong, the baby
+would drop out of sight. You would not find it if you went again. These
+people are like birds with their wings half lifted, and fly away at the
+first warning of danger. As it is, I fear my visit and inquiries will be
+quite sufficient to the cause the child's removal to another place."
+
+Mr. Dinneford mused for a while:
+
+"There ought to be some way to reach a case like this, and there is,
+I am sure. From what you say, it is more than probable that this poor
+little waif may have drifted out of some pleasant home, where love would
+bless it with the tenderest care, into this hell of neglect and cruelty.
+It should be rescued on the instant. It is my duty--it is yours--to see
+that it is done, and that without delay. I will go at once to the mayor
+and state the case. He will send an officer with me, I know, and we will
+take the child by force. If its real mother then comes forward and shows
+herself at all worthy to have the care of it, well; if not, I will see
+that it is taken care of. I know where to place it."
+
+To this proposition Mr. Paulding had no objection to offer.
+
+"If you take that course, and act promptly, you can no doubt get
+possession of the poor thing. Indeed, sir"--and the missionary spoke
+with much earnestness--"if men of influence like yourself would come
+here and look the evil of suffering and neglected children in the face,
+and then do what they could to destroy that evil, there would soon be
+joy in heaven over the good work accomplished by their hands. I could
+give you a list of ten or twenty influential citizens whose will would
+be next to law in a matter like this who could in a month, if they put
+heart and hand to it, do such a work for humanity here as would make the
+angels glad. But they are too busy with their great enterprises to give
+thought and effort to a work like this."
+
+A shadow fell across the missionary's face. There was a tone of
+discouragement in his voice.
+
+"The great question is _what_ to do," said Mr. Dinneford. "There are no
+problems so hard to solve as these problems of social evil. If men and
+women choose to debase themselves, who is to hinder? The vicious heart
+seeks a vicious life. While the heart is depraved the life will be evil.
+So long as the fountain is corrupt the water will be foul."
+
+"There is a side to all this that most people do not consider," answered
+Mr. Paulding. "Self-hurt is one thing, hurt of the neighbor quite
+another. It may be questioned whether society has a right to touch the
+individual freedom of a member in anything that affects himself alone.
+But the moment he begins to hurt his neighbor, whether from ill-will
+or for gain, then it is the duty of society to restrain him. The common
+weal demands this, to say nothing of Christian obligation. If a man were
+to set up an exhibition in our city dangerous to life and limb, but
+so fascinating as to attract large numbers to witness and participate
+therein, and if hundreds were maimed or killed every year, do you think
+any one would question the right of our authorities to repress it? And
+yet to-day there are in our city more than twenty thousand persons who
+live by doing things a thousand times more hurtful to the people than
+any such exhibition could possibly be. And what is marvelous to think
+of, the larger part of these persons are actually licensed by the State
+to get gain by hurting, depraving and destroying the people. Think of
+it, Mr. Dinneford! The whole question lies in a nutshell. There is
+no difficulty about the problem. Restrain men from doing harm to each
+other, and the work is more than half done."
+
+"Is not the law all the while doing this?"
+
+"The law," was answered, "is weakly dealing with effect--how weakly let
+prison and police statistics show. Forty thousand arrests in our city
+for a single year, and the cause of these arrests clearly traced to the
+liquor licenses granted to five or six thousand persons to make money
+by debasing and degrading the people. If all of these were engaged in
+useful employments, serving, as every true citizen is bound to do, the
+common good, do you think we should have so sad and sickening a record?
+No, sir! We must go back to the causes of things. Nothing but radical
+work will do."
+
+"You think, then," said Mr. Dinneford, "that the true remedy for all
+these dreadful social evils lies in restrictive legislation?"
+
+"Restrictive only on the principles of eternal right," answered the
+missionary. "Man's freedom over himself must not be touched. Only his
+freedom to hurt his neighbor must be abridged. Here society has a right
+to put bonds on its members--to say to each individual, You are free to
+do anything by which your neighbor is served, but nothing to harm him.
+Here is where the discrimination must be made; and when the mass of the
+people come to see this, we shall have the beginning of a new day. There
+will then be hope for such poor wretches as crowd this region; or if
+most of them are so far lost as to be without hope, their places,
+when they die, will not be filled with new recruits for the army of
+perdition."
+
+"If the laws we now have were only executed," said Mr. Dinneford,
+"there might be hope in our legislative restrictions. But the people
+are defrauded of justice through defects in its machinery. There are
+combinations to defeat good laws. There are men holding high office
+notoriously in league with scoundrels who prey upon the people. Through
+these, justice perpetually fails."
+
+"The people are alone to blame," replied the missionary. "Each is busy
+with his farm and his merchandise with his own affairs, regardless
+of his neighbor. The common good is nothing, so that his own good is
+served. Each weakly folds his hands and is sorry when these troublesome
+questions are brought to his notice, but doesn't see that he can do
+anything. Nor can the people, unless some strong and influential leaders
+rally them, and, like great generals, lead them to the battle. As I said
+a little while ago, there are ten or twenty men in this city who, if
+they could be made to feel their high responsibility--who, if they could
+be induced to look away for a brief period from their great enterprises
+and concentrate thought and effort upon these questions of social
+evil, abuse of justice and violations of law--would in a single month
+inaugurate reforms and set agencies to work that would soon produce
+marvelous changes. They need not touch the rottenness of this half-dead
+carcass with knife or poultice. Only let them cut off the sources
+of pollution and disease, and the purified air will do the work of
+restoration where moral vitality remains, or hasten the end in those who
+are debased beyond hope."
+
+"What could these men do? Where would their work begin?" asked Mr.
+Dinneford.
+
+"Their own intelligence would soon discover the way to do this work if
+their hearts were in it. Men who can organize and successfully conduct
+great financial and industrial enterprises, who know how to control
+the wealth and power of the country and lead the people almost at will,
+would hardly be at fault in the adjustment of a matter like this.
+What would be the money influence of 'whisky rings' and gambling
+associations, set against the social and money influence of these
+men? Nothing, sir, nothing! Do you think we should long have over six
+thousand bars and nearly four hundred lottery-policy shops in our city
+if the men to whom I refer were to take the matter in hand?"
+
+"Are there so many policy-shops?" asked Mr. Dinneford, in surprise.
+
+"There may be more. You will find them by scores in every locality
+where poor and ignorant people are crowded together, sucking out
+their substance, and in the neighborhood of all the market-houses and
+manufactories, gathering in spoil. The harm they are doing is beyond
+computation. The men who control this unlawful business are rich and
+closely organized. They gather in their dishonest gains at the rate of
+hundreds of thousands of dollars every year, and know how and where
+to use this money for the protection of their agents in the work of
+defrauding the people, and the people are helpless because our men
+of wealth and influence have no time to give to public justice or the
+suppression of great social wrongs. With them, as things now are, rests
+the chief responsibility. They have the intelligence, the wealth and
+the public confidence, and are fully equal to the task if they will put
+their hands to the work. Let them but lift the standard and sound the
+trumpet of reform, and the people will rally instantly at the call.
+It must not be a mere spasmodic effort--a public meeting with wordy
+resolutions and strong speeches only--but organized work based on true
+principles of social order and the just rights of the people."
+
+"You are very much in earnest about this matter," said Mr. Dinneford,
+seeing how excited the missionary had grown.
+
+"And so would you and every other good citizen become if, standing
+face to face, as I do daily, with this awful debasement and crime and
+suffering, you were able to comprehend something of its real character.
+If I could get the influential citizens to whom I have referred to come
+here and see for themselves, to look upon this pandemonium in their
+midst and take in an adequate idea of its character, significance and
+aggressive force, there would be some hope of making them see their
+duty, of arousing them to action. But they stand aloof, busy with
+personal and material interest, while thousands of men, women and
+children are yearly destroyed, soul and body, through their indifference
+to duty and ignorance of their fellows' suffering."
+
+"It is easy to say such things," answered Mr. Dinneford, who felt the
+remarks of Mr. Paulding as almost personal.
+
+"Yes, it is easy to say them," returned the missionary, his voice
+dropping to a lower key, "and it may be of little use to say them. I am
+sometimes almost in despair, standing so nearly alone as I do with my
+feet on the very brink of this devastating flood of evil, and getting
+back only faint echoes to my calls for help. But when year after year
+I see some sheaves coming in as the reward of my efforts and of the few
+noble hearts that work with me, I thank God and take courage, and I lift
+my voice and call more loudly for help, trusting that I may be heard by
+some who, if they would only come up to the help of the Lord against the
+mighty, would scatter his foes like chaff on the threshing-floor. But
+I am holding you back from your purpose to visit the mayor; I think
+you had better act promptly if you would get possession of the child.
+I shall be interested in the result, and will take it as a favor if you
+will call at the mission again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+
+_WHEN_ Mr. Dinneford and the policeman sent by the mayor at his
+solicitation visited Grubb's court, the baby was not to be found. The
+room in which it had been seen by Mr. Paulding was vacant. Such a room
+as it was!--low and narrow, with bare, blackened walls, the single
+window having scarcely two whole panes of glass, the air loaded with the
+foulness that exhaled from the filth-covered floor, the only furniture a
+rough box and a dirty old straw bed lying in a corner.
+
+As Mr. Dinneford stood at the door of this room and inhaled its fetid
+air, he grew sick, almost faint. Stepping back, with a shocked and
+disgusted look on his face, he said to the policeman,
+
+"There must be a mistake. This cannot be the room."
+
+Two or three children and a coarse, half-clothed woman, seeing a
+gentleman going into the house accompanied by a policeman, had followed
+them closely up stairs.
+
+"Who lives in this room?" asked the policeman, addressing the woman.
+
+"Don't know as anybody lives there now," she replied, with evident
+evasion.
+
+"Who did live here?" demanded the policeman.
+
+"Oh, lots!" returned the woman, curtly.
+
+"I want to know who lived here last," said the policeman, a little
+sternly.
+
+"Can't say--never keep the run of 'em," answered the woman, with more
+indifference than she felt. "Goin' and comin' all the while. Maybe it
+was Poll Davis."
+
+"Had she a baby?"
+
+The woman gave a vulgar laugh as she replied: "I rather think not."
+
+"It was Moll Fling," said one of the children, "and she had a baby."
+
+"When was she here last?" inquired the policeman.
+
+The woman, unseen by the latter, raised her fist and threatened the
+child, who did not seem to be in the least afraid of her, for she
+answered promptly:
+
+"She went away about an hour ago."
+
+"And took the baby?"
+
+"Yes. You see Mr. Paulding was here asking about the baby, and she got
+scared."
+
+"Why should that scare her?"
+
+"I don't know, only it isn't her baby."
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"'Cause it isn't--I know it isn't. She's paid to take care of it."
+
+"Who by?"
+
+"Pinky Swett."
+
+"Who's Pinky Swett?"
+
+"Don't you know Pinky Swett?" and the child seemed half surprised.
+
+"Where does Pinky Swett live?" asked the policeman.
+
+"She did live next door for a while, but I don't know where she's gone."
+
+Nothing beyond this could be ascertained. But having learned the names
+of the women who had possession of the child, the policeman said there
+would be no difficulty about discovering them. It might take a little
+time, but they could not escape the vigilance of the police.
+
+With this assurance, Mr. Dinneford hastened from the polluted air of
+Grubb's court, and made his way to the mission in Briar street, in order
+to have some further conference with Mr. Paulding.
+
+"As I feared," said the missionary, on learning that the baby could not
+be found. "These creatures are as keen of scent as Indians, and know
+the smallest sign of danger. It is very plain that there is something
+wrong--that these women have no natural right to the child, and that
+they are not using it to beg with."
+
+"Do you know a woman called Pinky Swett?" asked the policeman.
+
+"I've heard of her, but do not know her by sight. She bears a hard
+reputation even here, and adds to her many evil accomplishments the
+special one of adroit robbery. A victim lured to her den rarely escapes
+without loss of watch or pocket-book. And not one in a hundred dares to
+give information, for this would expose him to the public, and so her
+crimes are covered. Pinky Swett is not the one to bother herself about
+a baby unless its parentage be known, and not then unless the knowledge
+can be turned to advantage."
+
+"The first thing to be done, then, is to find this woman," said the
+policeman.
+
+"That will not be very hard work. But finding the baby, if she thinks
+you are after it, would not be so easy," returned Mr. Paulding. "She's
+as cunning as a fox."
+
+"We shall see. If the chief of police undertakes to find the baby, it
+won't be out of sight long. You'd better confer with the mayor again,"
+added the policeman, addressing Mr. Dinneford.
+
+"I will do so without delay," returned that gentleman.
+
+"I hope to see you here again soon," said the missionary as Mr.
+Dinneford was about going. "If I can help you in any way, I shall do so
+gladly."
+
+"I have no doubt but that you can render good service." Then, in half
+apology, and to conceal the real concern at his heart, Mr. Dinneford
+added, "Somehow, and strangely enough when I come to think of it, I have
+allowed myself to get drawn into this thing, and once in, the natural
+persistence of my character leads me to go on to the end. I am one of
+those who cannot bear to give up or acknowledge a defeat; and so, having
+set my hand to this work, I am going to see it through."
+
+When the little girl who had taken Edith to the mission-house in Briar
+street got home and told her story, there was a ripple of excitement in
+that part of Grubb's court where she lived, and a new interest was felt
+in the poor neglected baby. Mr. Paulding's visit and inquiries added to
+this interest. It had been several days since Pinky Swett's last visit
+to the child to see that it was safe. On the morning after Edith's call
+at the mission she came in about ten o'clock, and heard the news. In
+less than twenty minutes the child and the woman who had charge of it
+both disappeared from Grubb's court. Pinky sent them to her own room,
+not many squares distant, and then drew from the little girl who was in
+Edith's sewing-class all she knew about that young lady. It was not much
+that the child could tell. She was very sweet and good and handsome, and
+wore such beautiful clothes, was so kind and patient with the girls, but
+she did not remember her name, thought it was Edith.
+
+"Now, see here," said Pinky, and she put some money into the child's
+hand; "I want you to find out for me what her name is and where she
+lives. Mind, you must be very careful to remember."
+
+"What do you want to know for?" asked the little girl.
+
+"That's none of your business. Do what I tell you," returned Pinky, with
+impatience; "and if you do it right, I'll give you a quarter more. When
+do you go again?"
+
+"Next week, on Thursday."
+
+"Not till next Thursday!" exclaimed Pinky, in a tone of disappointment.
+
+"The school's only once a week."
+
+Pinky chafed a good deal, but it was of no use; she must wait.
+
+"You'll be sure and go next Thursday?" she said.
+
+"If Mother lets me," replied the child.
+
+"Oh, I'll see to that; I'll make her let you. What time does the school
+go in?"
+
+"At three o'clock."
+
+"Very well. You wait for me. I'll come round here at half-past two, and
+go with you. I want to see the young lady. They'll let me come into the
+school and learn to sew, won't they?"
+
+"I don't know; you're too big, and you don't want to learn."
+
+"How do you know I don't?"
+
+"Because I do."
+
+Pinky laughed, and then said,
+
+"You'll wait for me?"
+
+"Yes, if mother says so."
+
+"All right;" and Pinky hurried away to take measures for hiding the baby
+from a search that she felt almost sure was about being made. The first
+thing she did was to soundly abuse the woman in whose care she had
+placed the hapless child for her neglect and ill treatment, both of
+which were too manifest, and then to send her away under the new aspect
+of affairs she did not mean to trust this woman, nor indeed to trust
+anybody who knew anything of the inquiries which had been made about the
+child. A new nurse must be found, and she must live as far away from the
+old locality as possible. Pinky was not one inclined to put things off.
+Thought and act were always close together. Scarcely had the woman been
+gone ten minutes, before, bundling the baby in a shawl, she started off
+to find a safer hiding-place. This time she was more careful about the
+character and habits of the person selected for a nurse, and the baby's
+condition was greatly improved. The woman in whose charge she placed it
+was poor, but neither drunken nor depraved. Pinky arranged with her to
+take the care of it for two dollars a week, and supplied it with clean
+and comfortable clothing. Even she, wicked and vile as she was, could
+not help being touched by the change that appeared in the baby's
+shrunken face, and in its sad but beautiful eyes, after its wasted
+little body had been cleansed and clothed in clean, warm garments and it
+had taken its fill of nourishing food.
+
+"It's a shame, the way it has been abused," said Pinky, speaking from an
+impulse of kindness, such as rarely swelled in her evil heart.
+
+"A crying shame," answered the woman as she drew the baby close against
+her bosom and gazed down upon its pitiful face, and into the large brown
+eyes that were lifted to hers in mute appeal.
+
+The real motherly tenderness that was in this woman's heart was quickly
+perceived by the child, who did not move its eyes from hers, but lay
+perfectly still, gazing up at her in a kind of easeful rest such as it
+had never before known. She spoke to it in loving tones, touched its
+thin cheeks with her finger in playful caresses, kissed it on its lips
+and forehead, hugged it to her bosom; and still the eyes were fixed on
+hers in a strange baby-wonder, though not the faintest glinting of a
+smile played on its lips or over its serious face. Had it never learned
+to smile?
+
+At last the poor thin lips curved a little, crushing out the lines of
+suffering, and into the eyes there came a loving glance in place of the
+fixed, wondering look that was almost a stare. A slight lifting of the
+hands, a motion of the head, a thrill through the whole body came next,
+and then a tender cooing sound.
+
+"Did you ever see such beautiful eyes?" said the woman. "It will be a
+splendid baby when it has picked up a little."
+
+"Let it pick up as fast as it can," returned Pinky; "but mind what I
+say: you are to be mum. Here's your pay for the first week, and you
+shall have it fair and square always. Call it your own baby, if you
+will, or your grandson. Yes, that's better. He's the child of your dead
+daughter, just sent to you from somewhere out of town. So take good
+care of him, and keep your mouth shut. I'll be round again in a little
+while."
+
+And with this injunction Pinky went away. On the next Thursday she
+visited the St. John's mission sewing-school in company with the little
+girl from Grubb's court, but greatly to her disappointment, Edith did
+not make her appearance. There were four or five ladies in attendance
+on the school, which, under the superintendence of one of them, a woman
+past middle life, with a pale, serious face and a voice clear and sweet,
+was conducted with an order and decorum not often maintained among a
+class of children such as were there gathered together.
+
+It was a long time since Pinky had found herself so repressed and ill
+at ease. There was a spiritual atmosphere in the place that did not
+vitalize her blood. She felt a sense of constriction and suffocation.
+She had taken her seat in the class taught usually by Edith, with the
+intention of studying that young lady and finding out all she could
+about her, not doubting her ability to act the part in hand with perfect
+self-possession. But she had not been in the room a minute before
+confidence began to die, and very soon she found herself ill at ease and
+conscious of being out of her place. The bold, bad woman felt weak and
+abashed. An unseen sphere of purity and Christian love surrounded and
+touched her soul with as palpable an impression as outward things give
+to the body. She had something of the inward distress and pain a devil
+would feel if lifted into the pure air of heaven, and the same desire
+to escape and plunge back into the dense and impure atmosphere in
+which evil finds its life and enjoyment. If she had come with any good
+purpose, it would have been different, but evil, and only evil, was in
+her heart; and when this felt the sphere of love and purity, her breast
+was constricted and life seemed going out of her.
+
+It was little less than torture to Pinky for the short time she
+remained. As soon as she was satisfied that Edith would not be there,
+she threw down the garment on which she had been pretending to sew, and
+almost ran from the room.
+
+"Who is that girl?" asked the lady who was teaching the class, looking
+in some surprise after the hurrying figure.
+
+"It's Pinky Swett," answered the child from Grubb's court. "She wanted
+to see our teacher."
+
+"Who is your regular teacher?" was inquired.
+
+"Don't remember her name."
+
+"It's Edith," spoke up one of the girls. "Mrs. Martin called her that."
+
+"What did this Pinky Swett want to see her about?"
+
+"Don't know," answered the child as she remembered the money Pinky had
+given her and the promise of more.
+
+The teacher questioned no further, but went on with her work in the
+class.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+
+_IT_ was past midday when Mr. Dinneford returned home after his
+fruitless search. Edith, who had been waiting for hours in restless
+suspense, heard his step in the hall, and ran down to meet him.
+
+"Did you see the baby?"' she asked, trying to keep her agitation down.
+
+Mr. Dinneford only shook his head,
+
+"Why, not, father?" Her voice choked.
+
+"It could not be found."
+
+"You saw Mr. Paulding?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Didn't he find the baby?"
+
+"Oh yes. But when I went to Grubb's court this morning, it was not
+there, and no one could or would give any information about it. As the
+missionary feared, those having possession of the baby had taken alarm
+and removed it to another place. But I have seen the mayor and some of
+the police, and got them interested. It will not be possible to hide the
+child for any length of time."
+
+"You said that Mr. Paulding saw it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What did he say?" Edith's voice trembled as she asked the question.
+
+"He thinks there is something wrong."
+
+"Did he tell you how the baby looked?"
+
+"He said that it had large, beautiful brown eyes."
+
+Edith clasped her hands, and drew them tightly against her bosom.
+
+"Oh, father! if it should be my baby!"
+
+"My dear, dear child," said Mr. Dinneford, putting his arms about Edith
+and holding her tightly, "you torture yourself with a wild dream. The
+thing is impossible."
+
+"It is somebody's baby," sobbed Edith, her face on her father's breast,
+"and it may be mine. Who knows?"
+
+"We will do our best to find it," returned Mr. Dinneford, "and then do
+what Christian charity demands. I am in earnest so far, and will leave
+nothing undone, you may rest assured. The police have the mayor's
+instructions to find the baby and give it into my care, and I do not
+think we shall have long to wait."
+
+An ear they thought not of, heard all this. Mrs. Dinneford's suspicions
+had been aroused by many things in Edith's manner and conduct of late,
+and she had watched her every look and word and movement with a keenness
+of observation that let nothing escape. Careful as her husband and
+daughter were in their interviews, it was impossible to conceal anything
+from eyes that never failed in watchfulness. An unguarded word here, a
+look of mutual intelligence there, a sudden silence when she appeared,
+an unusual soberness of demeanor and evident absorbed interest in
+something they were careful to conceal, had the effect to quicken all
+Mrs. Dinneford's alarms and suspicions.
+
+She had seen from the top of the stairs a brief but excited interview
+pass between Edith and her father as the latter stood in the vestibule
+that morning, and she had noticed the almost wild look on her daughter's
+face as she hastened back along the hall and ran up to her room. Here
+she stayed alone for over an hour, and then came down to the parlor,
+where she remained restless, moving about or standing by the window for
+a greater part of the morning.
+
+There was something more than usual on hand. Guilt in its guesses came
+near the truth. What could all this mean, if it had not something to
+do with the cast-off baby? Certainty at last came. She was in the
+dining-room when Edith ran down to meet her father in the hall, and
+slipped noiselessly and unobserved into one of the parlors, where,
+concealed by a curtain, she heard everything that passed between her
+husband and daughter.
+
+Still as death she stood, holding down the strong pulses of her heart.
+From the hall Edith and her father turned into one of the parlors--the
+same in which Mrs. Dinneford was concealed behind the curtain--and sat
+down.
+
+"It had large brown eyes?" said Edith, a yearning tenderness in her
+voice.
+
+"Yes, and a finely-formed bead, showing good parentage," returned the
+father.
+
+"Didn't you find out who the women were--the two bad women the little
+girl told me about? If we had their names, the police could find them.
+The little girl's mother must know who they are."
+
+"We have the name of one of them," said Mr. Dinneford. "She is called
+Pinky Swett, and it can't be long before the police are on her track.
+She is said to be a desperate character. Nothing more can be done now;
+we must wait until the police work up the affair. I will call at the
+mayor's office in the morning and find out what has been done."
+
+Mrs. Dinneford heard no more. The bell rang, and her husband and
+daughter left the parlor and went up stairs. The moment they were beyond
+observation she glided noiselessly through the hall, and reached her
+chamber without being noticed. Soon afterward she came down dressed for
+visiting, and went out hastily, her veil closely drawn. Her manner was
+hurried. Descending the steps, she stood for a single moment, as if
+hesitating which way to go, and then moved off rapidly. Soon she had
+passed out of the fashionable neighborhood in which she lived. After
+this she walked more slowly, and with the air of one whose mind was
+in doubt or hesitation. Once she stopped, and turning about, slowly
+retraced her steps for the distance of a square. Then she wheeled
+around, as if from some new and strong resolve, and went on again. At
+last she paused before a respectable-looking house of moderate size in a
+neighborhood remote from the busier and more thronged parts of the city.
+The shutters were all bowed down to the parlor, and the house had a
+quiet, unobtrusive look. Mrs. Dinneford gave a quick, anxious glance up
+and down the street, and then hurriedly ascended the steps and rang the
+bell.
+
+"Is Mrs. Hoyt in?" she asked of a stupid-looking girl who came to the
+door.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," was answered.
+
+"Tell her a lady wants to see her;" and she passed into the
+plainly-furnished parlor. There were no pictures on the walls nor
+ornaments on the mantel-piece, nor any evidence of taste--nothing
+home-like--in the shadowed room, the atmosphere of which was close and
+heavy. She waited here for a few moments, when there was a rustle of
+garments and the sound of light, quick feet on the stairs. A small,
+dark-eyed, sallow-faced woman entered the parlor.
+
+"Mrs. Bray--no, Mrs. Hoyt."
+
+"Mrs. Dinneford;" and the two women stood face to face for a few
+moments, each regarding the other keenly.
+
+"Mrs. Hoyt--don't forget," said the former, with a warning emphasis in
+her voice. "Mrs. Bray is dead."
+
+In her heart Mrs. Dinneford wished that it were indeed so.
+
+"Anything wrong?" asked the black-eyed little woman.
+
+"Do you know a Pinky Swett?" asked Mrs. Dinneford, abruptly.
+
+Mrs. Hoyt--so we must now call her--betrayed surprise at this
+question, and was about answering "No," but checked herself and gave a
+half-hesitating "Yes," adding the question, "What about her?"
+
+Before Mrs. Dinneford could reply, however, Mrs. Hoyt took hold of her
+arm and said, "Come up to my room. Walls have ears sometimes, and I will
+not answer for these."
+
+Mrs. Dinneford went with her up stairs to a chamber in the rear part of
+the building.
+
+"We shall be out of earshot here," said Mrs. Hoyt as she closed the
+door, locking it at the same time. "And now tell me what's up, and what
+about Pinky Swett."
+
+"You know her?"
+
+"Yes, slightly."
+
+"More than slightly, I guess."
+
+Mrs. Hoyt's eyes flashed impatiently. Mrs. Dinneford saw it, and took
+warning.
+
+"She's got that cursed baby."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"No matter how I know. It's enough that I know. Who is she?"
+
+"That question may be hard to answer. About all I know of her is that
+she came from the country a few years ago, and has been drifting about
+here ever since."
+
+"What is she doing with that baby? and how did she get hold of it?"
+
+"Questions more easily asked than answered."
+
+"Pshaw! I don't want any beating about the bush, Mrs. Bray."
+
+"Mrs. Hoyt," said the person addressed.
+
+"Oh, well, Mrs. Hoyt, then. We ought to understand each other by this
+time."
+
+"I guess we do;" and the little woman arched her brows.
+
+"I don't want any beating about the bush," resumed Mrs. Dinneford. "I am
+here on business."
+
+"Very well; let's to business, then;" and Mrs. Hoyt leaned back in her
+chair.
+
+"Edith knows that this woman has the baby," said Mrs. Dinneford.
+
+"What!" and Mrs. Hoyt started to her feet.
+
+"The mayor has been seen, and the police are after her."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Enough that I know. And now, Mrs. Hoyt, this thing must come to an
+end, and there is not an instant to be lost. Has Pinky Swett, as she is
+called, been told where the baby came from?"
+
+"Not by me."
+
+"By anybody?"
+
+"That is more than I can say."
+
+"What has become of the woman I gave it to?"
+
+"She's about somewhere."
+
+"When did you see her?"
+
+Mrs. Hoyt pretended to think for some moments, and then replied:
+
+"Not for a month or two."
+
+"Had she the baby then?"
+
+"No; she was rid of it long before that."
+
+"Did she know this Pinky Swett?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Curse the brat! If I'd thought all this trouble was to come, I'd have
+smothered it before it was half an hour old."
+
+"Risky business," remarked Mrs. Hoyt.
+
+"Safer than to have let it live," said Mrs. Dinneford, a hard, evil
+expression settling around her mouth. "And now I want the thing done.
+You understand. Find this Pinky Swett. The police are after her, and may
+be ahead of you. I am desperate, you see. Anything but the discovery and
+possession of this child by Edith. It must be got out of the way. If it
+will not starve, it must drown."
+
+Mrs. Dinneford's face was distorted by the strength of her evil
+passions. Her eyes were full of fire, flashing now, and now glaring like
+those of a wild animal.
+
+"It might fall out of a window," said Mrs. Hoyt, in a low, even voice,
+and with a faint smile on her lips. "Children fall out of windows
+sometimes."
+
+"But don't always get killed," answered Mrs. Dinneford, coldly.
+
+"Or, it might drop from somebody's arms into the river--off the deck of
+a ferryboat, I mean," added Mrs. Hoyt.
+
+"That's better. But I don't care how it's done, so it's done."
+
+"Accidents are safer," said Mrs. Hoyt.
+
+"I guess you're right about that. Let it be an accident, then."
+
+It was half an hour from the time Mrs. Dinneford entered this house
+before she came away. As she passed from the door, closely veiled, a
+gentleman whom she knew very well was going by on the opposite side
+of the street. From something in his manner she felt sure that he
+had recognized her, and that the recognition had caused him no little
+surprise. Looking back two or three times as she hurried homeward, she
+saw, to her consternation, that he was following her, evidently with the
+purpose of making sure of her identity.
+
+To throw this man off of her track was Mrs. Dinneford's next concern.
+This she did by taking a street-car that was going in a direction
+opposite to the part of the town in which she lived, and riding for
+a distance of over a mile. An hour afterward she came back to her own
+neighborhood, but not without a feeling of uneasiness. Just as she
+was passing up to the door of her residence a gentleman came hurriedly
+around the nearest corner. She recognized him at a glance. It seemed as
+if the servant would never answer her ring. On he came, until the sound
+of his steps was in her ears. He was scarcely ten paces distant when the
+door opened and she passed in. When she gained her room, she sat down
+faint and trembling. Here was a new element in the danger and disgrace
+that were digging her steps so closely.
+
+As we have seen, Edith did not make her appearance at the mission
+sewing-school on the following Thursday, nor did she go there for many
+weeks afterward. The wild hope that had taken her to Briar street, the
+nervous strain and agitation attendant on that visit, and the reaction
+occasioned by her father's failure to get possession of the baby, were
+too much for her strength, and an utter prostration of mind and body was
+the consequence. There was no fever nor sign of any active disease--only
+weakness, Nature's enforced quietude, that life and reason might be
+saved.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+
+_THE_ police were at fault. They found Pinky Swett, but were not able to
+find the baby. Careful as they were in their surveillance, she managed
+to keep them on the wrong track and to baffle every effort to discover
+what had been done with the child.
+
+In this uncertainty months went by. Edith came up slowly from her
+prostrate condition, paler, sadder and quieter, living in a kind of
+waking dream. Her father tried to hold her back from her mission work
+among the poor, but she said, "I must go, father; I will die if I do
+not."
+
+And so her life lost itself in charities. Now and then her mother
+made an effort to draw her into society. She had not yet given up her
+ambition, nor her hope of one day seeing her daughter take social rank
+among the highest, or what she esteemed the highest. But her power over
+Edith was entirely gone. She might as well have set herself to turn
+the wind from its course as to influence her in anything. It was all in
+vain. Edith had dropped out of society, and did not mean to go back. She
+had no heart for anything outside of her home, except the Christian work
+to which she had laid her hands.
+
+The restless, watchful, suspicious manner exhibited for a long time by
+Mrs. Dinneford, and particularly noticed by Edith, gradually wore off.
+She grew externally more like her old self, but with something new in
+the expression of her face when in repose, that gave a chill to the
+heart of Edith whenever she saw its mysterious record, that seemed in
+her eyes only an imperfect effort to conceal some guilty secret.
+
+Thus the mother and daughter, though in daily personal contact, stood
+far apart--were internally as distant from each other as the antipodes.
+
+As for Mr. Dinneford, what he had seen and heard on his first visit to
+Briar street had aroused him to a new and deeper sense of his duty as
+a citizen. Against all the reluctance and protests of his natural
+feelings, he had compelled himself to stand face to face with the
+appalling degradation and crime that festered and rioted in that almost
+Heaven-deserted region. He had heard and read much about its evil
+condition; but when, under the protection of a policeman, he went from
+house to house, from den to den, through cellar and garret and hovel,
+comfortless and filthy as dog-kennels and pig-styes, and saw the sick
+and suffering, the utterly vile and debauched, starving babes and
+children with faces marred by crime, and the legion of harpies who were
+among them as birds of prey, he went back to his home sick at heart, and
+with a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness out of which he found it
+almost impossible to rise.
+
+We cannot stain our pages with a description of what he saw. It is so
+vile and terrible, alas, so horrible, that few would credit it. The few
+imperfect glimpses of life in that region which we have already given
+are sad enough and painful enough, but they only hint at the real truth.
+
+"What can be done?" asked Mr. Dinneford of the missionary, at their next
+meeting, in a voice that revealed his utter despair of a remedy. "To me
+it seems as if nothing but fire could purify this region."
+
+"The causes that have produced this would soon create another as bad,"
+was answered.
+
+"What are the causes?"
+
+"The primary cause," said Mr. Paulding, "is the effort of hell to
+establish itself on the earth for the destruction of human souls; the
+secondary cause lies in the indifference and supineness of the people.
+'While the husband-men slept the enemy sowed tares.' Thus it was of
+old, and thus it is to-day. The people are sleeping or indifferent, the
+churches are sleeping or indifferent, while the enemy goes on sowing
+tares for the harvest of death."
+
+"Well may you say the harvest of death," returned Mr. Dinneford,
+gloomily.
+
+"And hell," added the missionary, with a stern emphasis. "Yes, sir, it
+is the harvest of death and hell that is gathered here, and such a
+full harvest! There is little joy in heaven over the sheaves that are
+garnered in this accursed region. What hope is there in fire, or any
+other purifying process, if the enemy be permitted to go on sowing his
+evil seed at will?"
+
+"How will you prevent it?" asked Mr. Dinneford.
+
+"Not by standing afar off and leaving the enemy in undisputed
+possession--not by sleeping while he sows and reaps and binds into
+bundles for the fires, his harvests of human souls! We must be as alert
+and wise and ready of hand as he; and God being our helper, we can drive
+him from the field!"
+
+"You have thought over this sad problem a great deal," said Mr.
+Dinneford. "You have stood face to face with the enemy for years, and
+know his strength and his resources. Have you any well-grounded hope of
+ever dislodging him from this stronghold?"
+
+"I have just said it, Mr. Dinneford. But until the churches and the
+people come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty, he cannot be
+dislodged. I am standing here, sustained in my work by a small band of
+earnest Christian men and women, like an almost barren rock in the midst
+of a down-rushing river on whose turbulent surface thousands are being
+swept to destruction. The few we are able to rescue are as a drop in
+the bucket to the number who are lost. In weakness and sorrow, almost
+in despair sometimes, we stand on our rock, with the cry of lost souls
+mingling with the cry of fiends in our ears, and wonder at the churches
+and the people, that they stand aloof--nay, worse, turn from us coldly
+often--when we press the claims of this worse than heathen people who
+are perishing at their very doors.
+
+"Sir," continued the missionary, warming on his theme, "I was in a
+church last Sunday that cost its congregation over two hundred thousand
+dollars. It was an anniversary occasion, and the collections for the day
+were to be given to some foreign mission. How eloquently the preacher
+pleaded for the heathen! What vivid pictures of their moral and
+spiritual destitution he drew! How full of pathos he was, even to tears!
+And the congregation responded in a contribution of over three thousand
+dollars, to be sent somewhere, and to be disbursed by somebody of whom
+not one in a hundred of the contributors knew anything or took the
+trouble to inform themselves. I felt sick and oppressed at such a
+waste of money and Christian sympathy, when heathen more destitute and
+degraded than could be found in any foreign land were dying at home in
+thousands every year, unthought of and uncared for. I gave no amens to
+his prayers--I could not. They would have stuck in my throat. I said to
+myself, in bitterness and anger, 'How dare a watchman on the walls
+of Zion point to an enemy afar off, of whose movements and power and
+organization he knows but little, while the very gates of the city are
+being stormed and its walls broken down?' But you must excuse me, Mr.
+Dinneford. I lose my calmness sometimes when these things crowd my
+thoughts too strongly. I am human like the rest, and weak, and cannot
+stand in the midst of this terrible wickedness and suffering year after
+year without being stirred by it to the very inmost of my being. In my
+intense absorption I can see nothing else sometimes."
+
+He paused for a little while, and then said, in a quiet, business way,
+
+"In seeking a remedy for the condition of society found here, we must
+let common sense and a knowledge of human nature go hand in hand with
+Christian charity. To ignore any of these is to make failure certain. If
+the whisky-and policy-shops were all closed, the task would be easy. In
+a single month the transformation would be marvelous. But we cannot hope
+for this, at least not for a long time to come--not until politics and
+whisky are divorced, and not until associations of bad men cease to
+be strong enough in our courts to set law and justice at defiance. Our
+work, then, must be in the face of these baleful influences."
+
+"Is the evil of lottery-policies so great that you class it with the
+curse of rum?" asked Mr. Dinneford.
+
+"It is more concealed, but as all-pervading and almost as disastrous in
+its effects. The policy-shops draw from the people, especially the poor
+and ignorant, hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. There is no
+more chance of thrift for one who indulges in this sort of gambling than
+there is for one who indulges in drink. The vice in either case drags
+its subject down to want, and in most cases to crime. I could point you
+to women virtuous a year ago, but who now live abandoned lives; and they
+would tell you, if you would question them, that their way downward
+was through the policy-shops. To get the means of securing a hoped-for
+prize--of getting a hundred or two hundred dollars for every single
+one risked, and so rising above want or meeting some desperate
+exigency--virtue was sacrificed in an evil moment."
+
+"The whisky-shops brutalize, benumb and debase or madden with cruel and
+murderous passions; the policy-shops, more seductive and fascinating in
+their allurements, lead on to as deep a gulf of moral ruin and hopeless
+depravity. I have seen the poor garments of a dying child sold at a
+pawn-shop for a mere trifle by its infatuated mother, and the money
+thrown away in this kind of gambling. Women sell or pawn their clothing,
+often sending their little children to dispose of these articles, while
+they remain half clad at home to await the daily drawings and receive
+the prize they fondly hope to obtain, but which rarely, if ever, comes.
+
+"Children learn early to indulge this vice, and lie and steal in order
+to obtain money to gratify it. You would be amazed to see the scores of
+little boys and girls, white and black, who daily visit the policy-shops
+in this neighborhood to put down the pennies they have begged or
+received for stolen articles on some favorite numbers--quick-witted,
+sharp, eager little wretches, who talk the lottery slang as glibly as
+older customers. What hope is there in the future for these children?
+Will their education in the shop of a policy-dealer fit them to become
+honest, industrious citizens?"
+
+All this was so new and dreadful to Mr. Dinneford that he was stunned
+and disheartened; and when, after an interview with the missionary
+that lasted over an hour, he went away, it was with a feeling of utter
+discouragement. He saw little hope of making head against the flood of
+evil that was devastating this accursed region.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+
+_MRS. HOYT_, _alias_ Bray, found Pinky Swett, but she did not find the
+poor cast-off baby. Pinky had resolved to make it her own capital in
+trade. She parleyed and trifled with Mrs. Hoyt week after week, and each
+did her best to get down to the other's secret, but in vain. Mutually
+baffled, they parted at last in bitter anger.
+
+One day, about two months after the interview between Mrs. Dinneford
+and Mrs. Hoyt described in another chapter, the former received in an
+envelope a paragraph cut from a newspaper. It read as follows:
+
+"A CHILD DROWNED.--A sad accident occurred yesterday on board the
+steamer Fawn as she was going down the river. A woman was standing with
+a child in her arms near the railing on the lower deck forward. Suddenly
+the child gave a spring, and was out of her arms in a moment. She caught
+after it frantically, but in vain. Every effort was made to recover the
+child, but all proved fruitless. It did not rise to the surface of the
+water."
+
+Mrs. Dinneford read the paragraph twice, and then tore it into little
+bits. Her mouth set itself sternly. A long sigh of relief came up from
+her chest. After awhile the hard lines began slowly to disappear, giving
+place to a look of satisfaction and comfort.
+
+"Out of my way at last," she staid, rising and beginning to move about
+the room. But the expression of relief and confidence which had come
+into her face soon died out. The evil counselors that lead the soul into
+sin become its tormentors after the sin is committed, and torture it
+with fears. So tortured they this guilty and wretched woman at every
+opportunity. They led her on step by step to do evil, and then crowded
+her mind with suggestions of perils and consequences the bare thought of
+which filled her with terror.
+
+It was only a few weeks after this that Mrs. Dinneford, while looking
+over a morning paper, saw in the court record the name of Pinky
+Swett. This girl had been tried for robbing a man of his pocket-book,
+containing five hundred dollars, found guilty, and sentenced to prison
+for a term of two years.
+
+"Good again!" exclaimed Mrs. Dinneford, with satisfaction. "The wheel
+turns."
+
+After that she gradually rose above the doubts and dread of exposure
+that haunted her continually, and set herself to work to draw her
+daughter back again into society. But she found her influence over Edith
+entirely gone. Indeed, Edith stood so far away from her that she seemed
+more like a stranger than a child.
+
+Two or three times had Pinky Swett gone to the mission sewing-school in
+order to get a sight of Edith. Her purpose was to follow her home, and
+so find out her name and were she lived. With this knowledge in her
+possession, she meant to visit Mrs. Bray, and by a sudden or casual
+mention by name of Edith as the child's mother throw her off her guard,
+and lead her to betray the fact if it were really so. But Edith was sick
+at home, and did not go to the school. After a few weeks the little girl
+who was to identify Edith as the person who had shown so much interest
+in the baby was taken away from Grubb's court by her mother, and nobody
+could tell where to find her. So, Pinky had to abandon her efforts in
+this direction, and Edith, when she was strong enough to go back to
+the sewing-school, missed the child, from whom she was hoping to hear
+something that might give a clue to where the poor waif had been taken.
+
+Up to the time of her arrest and imprisonment, Pinky had faithfully paid
+the child's board, and looked in now and then upon the woman who had it
+in charge, to see that it was properly cared for. How marvelously the
+baby had improved in these two or three months! The shrunken limb's were
+rounded into beautiful symmetry, and the pinched face looked full and
+rosy. The large brown eyes, in which you once saw only fear or a mystery
+of suffering, were full of a happy light, and the voice rang out often
+in merry child-laughter. The baby had learned to walk, and was daily
+growing more and more lovable.
+
+But after Pinky's imprisonment there was a change. The woman--Mrs. Burke
+by name--in whose care the child had been placed could not afford to
+keep him for nothing. The two dollars week received for his board added
+just enough to her income to enable her to remain at home. But failing
+to receive this, she must go out for day's work in families at least
+twice in every week.
+
+What, then, was to be done with little Andy, as the baby was called?
+At first Mrs. Burke thought of getting him into one of the homes
+for friendless children, but the pleasant child had crept into her
+affections, and she could not bear the thought of giving him up. His
+presence stirred in her heart old and tender things long buried out of
+sight, and set the past, with its better and purer memories, side
+by side with the present. She had been many times a mother, but her
+children were all dead but one, and she--Alas! the thought of her,
+whenever it came, made her heart heavy and sad.
+
+"I will keep him a while and see, how it comes out," she said, on
+getting the promise of a neighbor to let Andy play with her children and
+keep an eye on him whenever she was out. He had grown strong, and could
+toddle about and take care of himself wonderfully well for a child of
+his age.
+
+And now began a new life for the baby--a life in which he must look
+out for himself and hold his own in a hand-to-hand struggle. He had no
+rights that the herd of children among whom he was thrown felt bound to
+respect; and if he were not able to maintain his rights, he must go down
+helplessly, and he did go down daily, often hourly. But he had will and
+vital force, and these brought him always to his feet again, and with
+strength increased rather than lost. On the days that Mrs. Burke went
+out he lived for most of the time in the little street, playing with the
+children that swarmed its pavements, often dragged from before wheels or
+horses' hoofs by a friendly hand, or lifted from some gutter in which he
+had fallen, dripping with mud.
+
+When Mrs. Burke came home on the evening of her first day out, the baby
+was a sight to see. His clothes were stiff with dirt, his shoes and
+stockings wet, and his face more like that of a chimney-sweep than
+anything else. But this was not all; there was a great lump as large
+as a pigeon's egg on the back of his head, a black-and-blue spot on his
+forehead and a bad cut on his upper lip. His joy at seeing her and the
+tearful cry he gave as he threw his arm's about her neck quite overcame
+Mrs. Burke, and caused her eyes to grow dim. She was angry at the plight
+in which she found him, and said some hard things to the woman who had
+promised to look after the child, at which the latter grew angry in
+turn, and told her to stay at home and take care of the brat herself, or
+put him in one of the homes.
+
+The fresh care and anxiety felt by Mrs. Burke drew little Andy nearer
+and made her reject more decidedly the thought of giving him up. She
+remained at home on the day following, but did not find it so easy as
+before to keep the baby quiet. He had got a taste of the free, wild life
+of the street, of its companionship and excitement, and fretted to go
+out. Toward evening she put by her work and went on the pavement with
+Andy. It was swarming with children. At the sight of them he began to
+scream with pleasure. Pulling his hand free from that of Mrs. Burke,
+he ran in among them, and in a moment after was tumbled over on the
+pavement. His head got a hard knock, but he didn't seem to mind it, for
+he scrambled to his feet and commenced tossing his hands about, laughing
+and crying out as wildly as the rest. In a little while, over he was
+knocked again, and as he fell one of the children stepped on his hand
+and hurt him so that he screamed with pain. Mrs. Burke caught him in her
+arms; but when he found that she was going to take him in the house he
+stopped crying and struggled to get down. He was willing to take the
+knocks and falls. The pleasure of this free life among children was more
+to him than any of the suffering it brought.
+
+On the next day Mrs. Burke had to go out again. Another neighbor
+promised to look after Andy. When she returned at night, she found
+things worse, if anything, than before. The child was dirtier, if that
+were possible, and there were two great lumps on his head, instead of
+one. He had been knocked down by a horse in the street, escaping death
+by one of the narrowest of chances, and had been discovered and removed
+from a ladder up which he had climbed a distance of twenty feet.
+
+What help was there? None that Mrs. Burke knew, except to give up the
+child, and she was not unselfish enough for this. The thought of sending
+him away was always attended with pain. It would take the light out of
+her poor lonely life, into which he had brought a few stray sunbeams.
+
+She could not, she would not, give him up. He must take his chances. Ah,
+but they were hard chances! Children mature fast under the stimulus
+of street-training. Andy had a large brain and an active, nervous
+organization. Life in the open air gave vigor and hardness to his
+body. As the months went by he learned self-reliance, caution,
+self-protection, and took a good many lessons in the art of aggression.
+A rapidly-growing child needs a large amount of nutritious food to
+supply waste and furnish material for the daily-increasing bodily
+structure. Andy did not get this. At two years of age he had lost all
+the roundness of babyhood. His limbs were slender, his body thin and his
+face colorless and hungry-looking.
+
+About this time--that is, when Andy was two years old--Mrs. Burke took
+sick and died. She had been failing for several months, and unable to
+earn sufficient even to pay her rent. But for the help of neighbors and
+an occasional supply of food or fuel from some public charity, she would
+have starved. At her death Andy had no home and no one to care for him.
+One pitying neighbor after another would take him in at night, or let
+him share a meal with her children, but beyond this he was utterly cast
+out and friendless. It was summer-time when Mrs. Burke died, and the
+poor waif was spared for a time the suffering of cold.
+
+Now and then a mother's heart would be touched, and after a
+half-reluctantly given supper and a place where he might sleep for the
+night would mend and wash his soiled clothes and dry them by the fire,
+ready for morning. The pleased look that she saw in his large, sad
+eyes--for they had grown wistful and sad since the only one he had known
+as a mother died--was always her reward, and something not to be put
+out of her memory. Many of the children took kindly to Andy, and often
+supplied him with food.
+
+"Andy is so hungry, mamma; can't I take him something to eat?" rarely
+failed to bring the needed bread for the poor little cast-adrift. And
+if he was discovered now and then sound asleep in bed with some pitying
+child who had taken him in stealthily after dark, few were hard-hearted
+enough to push him into the street, or make him go down and sleep on the
+kitchen floor. Yet this was not unfrequently done. Poverty is sometimes
+very cruel, yet often tender and compassionate.
+
+One day, a few months after Mrs. Burke's death, Andy, who was beginning
+to drift farther and farther away from the little street, yet always
+managing to get back into it as darkness came on, that he might lay his
+tired body in some friendly place, got lost in strange localities.
+He had wandered about for many hours, sitting now on some step or
+cellar-door or horse-block, watching the children at play and sometimes
+joining in their sports, when they would let him, with the spontaneous
+abandon of a puppy or a kitten, and now enjoying some street-show or
+attractive shop-window. There was nothing of the air of a lost child
+about him. For all that his manner betrayed, his home might have been in
+the nearest court or alley. So, he wandered along from street to
+street without attracting the special notice of any--a bare-headed,
+bare-footed, dirty, half-clad atom of humanity not three years old.
+
+Hungry, tired and cold, for the summer was gone and mid-autumn had
+brought its chilly nights, Andy found himself, as darkness fell, in a
+vile, narrow court, among some children as forlorn and dirty as himself.
+It was Grubb's court--his old home--though in his memory there was of
+course no record of the place.
+
+Too tired and hungry for play, Andy was sitting on the step of a
+wretched hovel, when the door opened and a woman called sharply the
+names of her two children. They answered a little way off. "Come in
+this minute, and get your suppers," she called again, and turning back
+without noticing Andy, left the door open for her children. The poor
+cast-adrift looked in and saw light and food and comfort--a home that
+made him heartsick with longing, mean and disordered and miserable as
+it would have appeared to your eyes and mine, reader. The two children,
+coming at their mother's call, found him standing just on the threshold
+gazing in wistfully; and as they entered, he, drawn by their attraction,
+went in also. Then, turning toward her children, the mother saw Andy.
+
+"Out of this!" she cried, in quick anger, raising her hand and moving
+hastily toward the child. "Off home with you!"
+
+Andy might well be frightened at the terrible face and threatening words
+of this woman, and he was frightened. But he did not turn and fly, as
+she meant that he should. He had learned, young as he was, that if he
+were driven off by every rebuff, he would starve. It was only through
+importunity and perseverance that he lived. So he held his ground, his
+large, clear eyes fixed steadily on the woman's face as she advanced
+upon him. Something in those eyes and in the firmly-set mouth checked
+the woman's purpose if she had meant violence, but she thrust him out
+into the damp street, nevertheless, though not roughly, and shut the
+door against him.
+
+Andy did not cry; poor little baby that he was, he had long since
+learned that for him crying did no good. It brought him nothing. Just
+across the street a door stood open. As a stray kitten creeps in through
+an open door, so crept he through this one, hoping for shelter and a
+place of rest.
+
+"Who're you?" growled the rough but not unkindly voice of a man, coming
+from the darkness. At the same moment a light gleamed out from a match,
+and then the steadier flame of a candle lit up the small room, not more
+than eight or nine feet square, and containing little that could be
+called furniture. The floor was bare. In one corner were some old bits
+of carpet and a blanket. A small table, a couple of chairs with the
+backs broken off and a few pans and dishes made up the inventory of
+household goods.
+
+As the light made all things clear in this poor room, Andy saw the
+bloodshot eyes, and grizzly face of a man, not far past middle life.
+
+"Who are you, little one?" he growled again as the light gave him a view
+of Andy's face. This growl had in it a tone of kindness and welcome to
+the ears of Andy who came forward, saying,
+
+"I'm Andy."
+
+"Indeed! You're Andy, are you?" and he reached out one of his hands.
+
+"Yes; I'm Andy," returned the child, fixing his eyes with a look so
+deep and searching on the man's face that they held him as by a kind of
+fascination.
+
+"Well, Andy, where did you come from?" asked the man.
+
+"Don't know," was answered.
+
+"Don't know!"
+
+Andy shook his head.
+
+"Where do you live?"
+
+"Don't live nowhere," returned the child; "and I'm hungry."
+
+"Hungry?" The man let the hand he was still holding drop, and getting up
+quickly, took some bread from a closet and set it on the old table.
+
+Andy did not wait for an invitation, but seized upon the bread and
+commenced eating almost ravenously. As he did so the man fumbled in his
+pockets. There were a few pennies there. He felt them over, counting
+them with his fingers, and evidently in some debate with himself.
+At last, as he closed the debate, he said, with a kind of compelled
+utterance,
+
+"I say, young one, wouldn't you like some milk with your bread?"
+
+"Milk! oh my I oh goody! yes," answered the child, a gleam of pleasure
+coming into his face.
+
+"Then you shall have some;" and catching up a broken mug, the man went
+out. In a minute or two he returned with a pint of milk, into which he
+broke a piece of bread, and then sat watching Andy as he filled himself
+with the most delicious food he had tasted for weeks, his marred face
+beaming with a higher satisfaction than he had known for a long time.
+
+"Is it good?" asked the man.
+
+"I bet you!" was the cheery answer.
+
+"Well, you're a little brick," laughed the man as he stroked Andy's
+head. "And you don't live anywhere?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Is your mother dead?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And your father?"
+
+"Hain't got no father."
+
+"Would you like to live here?"
+
+Andy looked toward the empty bowl from which he had made such a
+satisfying meal, and said,
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It will hold us both. You're not very big;" and as he said this the man
+drew his arm about the boy in a fond sort of way.
+
+"I guess you're tired," he added, for Andy, now that an arm was drawn
+around him, leaned against it heavily.
+
+"Yes, I'm tired," said the child.
+
+"And sleepy too, poor little fellow! It isn't much of a bed I can give
+you, but it's better than a door-step or a rubbish corner."
+
+Then he doubled the only blanket he had, and made as soft a bed as
+possible. On this he laid Andy, who was fast asleep almost as soon as
+down.
+
+"Poor little chap!" said the man, in a tender, half-broken voice, as he
+stood over the sleeping child, candle in hand. "Poor little chap!"
+
+The sight troubled him. He turned with a quick, disturbed movement and
+put the candle down. The light streaming upward into his face showed
+the countenance of a man so degraded by intemperance that everything
+attractive had died out of it. His clothes were scanty, worn almost
+to tatters, and soiled with the slime and dirt of many an ash-heap or
+gutter where he had slept off his almost daily fits of drunkenness.
+There was an air of irresolution about him, and a strong play of feeling
+in his marred, repulsive face, as he stood by the table on which he
+had set the candle. One hand was in his pocket, fumbling over the few
+pennies yet remaining there.
+
+As if drawn by an attraction he could not resist, his eyes kept turning
+to the spot where Andy lay sleeping. Once, as they came back, they
+rested on the mug from which the child had taken his supper of bread and
+milk.
+
+"Poor little fellow!" came from his lips, in a tone of pity.
+
+Then he sat down by the table and leaned his head on his hand. His face
+was toward the corner of the room where the child lay. He still fumbled
+the small coins in his pocket, but after a while his fingers ceased to
+play with them, then his hand was slowly withdrawn from the pocket, a
+deep sigh accompanying the act.
+
+After the lapse of several minutes he took up the candle, and going over
+to the bed, crouched down and let the light fall on Andy's face. The
+large forehead, soiled as it was, looked white to the man's eyes, and
+the brown matted hair, as he drew it through his fingers, was soft and
+beautiful. Memory had taken him back for years, and he was looking at
+the fair forehead and touching the soft brown hair of another baby. His
+eyes grew dim. He set the candle upon the floor, and putting his hands
+over his face, sobbed two or three times.
+
+When this paroxysm of feeling went off, he got up with a steadier air,
+and set the light back upon the table. The conflict going on in his
+mind was not quite over, but another look at Andy settled the question.
+Stooping with a hurried movement, he blew out the candle, then groped
+his way over to the bed, and lying down, took the child in his arms and
+drew him close to his breast. So the morning found them both asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+
+_MR. DINNEFORD_ had become deeply interested in the work that was going
+on in Briar street, and made frequent visits to the mission house.
+Sometimes he took heart in the work, but oftener he suffered great
+discouragement of feeling. In one of his many conversations with Mr.
+Paulding he said,
+
+"Looking as I do from the standpoint gained since I came here, I am
+inclined to say there is no hope. The enemy is too strong for us."
+
+"He is very strong," returned the missionary, "but God is stronger, and
+our cause is his cause. We have planted his standard here in the very
+midst of the enemy's territory, and have not only held our ground for
+years, but gained some victories. If we had the people, the churches and
+the law-officers on our side, we could drive him out in a year. But we
+have no hope of this--at least not for a long time to come; and so, as
+wisely as we can, as earnestly as we can, and with the limited means at
+our control, we are fighting the foe and helping the weak, and gaining a
+little every year."
+
+"And you really think there is gain?"
+
+"I know it," answered the missionary, with a ringing confidence in his
+voice. "It is by comparisons that we are able to get at true results.
+Come with me into our school-room, next door."
+
+They passed from the office of the mission into the street.
+
+"These buildings," said Mr. Paulding, "erected by that true Christian
+charity which hopeth all things, stand upon the very site of one of the
+worst dens once to be found in this region. In them we have a chapel for
+worship, two large and well ventilated school-rooms, where from two to
+three hundred children that would not be admitted into any public school
+are taught daily, a hospital and dispensary and bathrooms. Let me show
+you the school. Then I will give you a measure of comparison."
+
+Mr. Dinneford went up to the school-rooms. He found them crowded with
+children, under the care of female teachers, who seemed to have but
+little trouble in keeping them in order. Such a congregation of boys and
+girls Mr. Dinneford had never seen before. It made his heart ache as he
+looked into some of their marred and pinched, faces, most of which bore
+signs of pain, suffering, want and evil. It moved him to tears when he
+heard them sing, led by one of the teachers, a tender hymn expressive of
+the Lord's love for poor neglected children.
+
+"The Lord Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost," said the
+missionary as they came down from the school-room, "and we are trying to
+do the same work. And that our labor is not all in vain will be evident
+when I show you what this work was in the beginning. You have seen a
+little of what it is now."
+
+They went back to the office of the missionary.
+
+"It is nearly twenty years," said Mr. Paulding, "since the organization
+of our mission. The question of what to do for the children became
+at once the absorbing one. The only building in which to open a
+Sunday-school that could be obtained was an old dilapidated frame house
+used as a receptacle for bones, rags, etc.; but so forbidding was its
+aspect, and so noisome the stench arising from the putrefying bones
+and rotting rags, that it was feared for the health of those who
+might occupy it. However it was agreed to try the effect of scraping,
+scrubbing, white-washing and a liberal use of chloride of lime. This
+was attended with such good effects that, notwithstanding the place was
+still offensive to the olfactories, the managers concluded to open in it
+our first Sabbath-school.
+
+"No difficulty was experienced in gathering in a sufficient number of
+children to compose a school; for, excited by such a novel spectacle
+as a Sabbath-school in that region, they came in crowds. But such a
+Sabbath-school as that first one was beyond all doubt the rarest thing
+of the kind that any of those interested in its formation had ever
+witnessed. The jostling, tumbling, scratching, pinching, pulling of
+hair, little ones crying and larger ones punching each other's heads and
+swearing most profanely, altogether formed a scene of confusion and
+riot that disheartened the teachers in the start, and made them begin to
+think they had undertaken a hopeless task.
+
+"As to the appearance of these young Ishmaelites, it was plain that they
+had rarely made the acquaintance of soap and water. Hands, feet and
+face exhibited a uniform crust of mud and filth. As it was necessary to
+obtain order, the superintendent, remembering that 'music hath charms
+to soothe the savage breast,' decided to try its effects on the untamed
+group before him; and giving out a line of a hymn adapted to the tune of
+'Lily Dale,' he commenced to sing. The effect was instantaneous. It was
+like oil on troubled waters. The delighted youngsters listened to the
+first line, and then joined in with such hearty good-will that the old
+shanty rang again.
+
+"The attempt to engage and lead them in prayer was, however, a matter of
+great difficulty. They seemed to regard the attitude of kneeling as very
+amusing, and were reluctant to commit themselves so far to the ridicule
+of their companions as to be caught in such a posture. After reading to
+them a portion of the Holy Scriptures and telling them of Jesus,
+they were dismissed, greatly pleased with their first visit to a
+Sabbath-school.
+
+"As for ourselves, we had also received a lesson. We found--what indeed
+we had expected--that the poor children were very ignorant, but we also
+found what we did not expect--namely, such an acute intelligence and
+aptitude to receive instruction as admonished us of the danger of
+leaving them to grow up under evil influences to become master-spirits
+in crime and pests to society. Many of the faces that we had just seen
+were very expressive--indeed, painfully so. Some of them seemed to
+exhibit an unnatural and premature development of those passions whose
+absence makes childhood so attractive.
+
+"Hunger! ay, its traces were also plainly written there. It is painful
+to see the marks of hunger on the human face, but to see the cheeks of
+childhood blanched by famine, to behold the attenuated limbs and bright
+wolfish eyes, ah! that is a sight.
+
+"The organization of a day-school came next. There were hundreds of
+children in the district close about the mission who were wholly without
+instruction. They were too dirty, vicious and disorderly to be admitted
+into any of the public schools; and unless some special means of
+education were provided, they must grow up in ignorance. It was
+therefore resolved to open a day-school, but to find a teacher with her
+heart in such a work was a difficulty hard to be met; moreover, it was
+thought by many unsafe for a lady to remain in this locality alone, even
+though a suitable one should offer. But one brave and self-devoted
+was found, and one Sunday it was announced to the children in the
+Sabbath-school that a day school would be opened in the same building at
+nine o'clock on Monday morning.
+
+"About thirty neglected little ones from the lanes and alleys around
+the mission were found at the schoolroom door at the appointed hour. But
+when admitted, very few of them had any idea of the purpose for which
+they were collected. The efforts of the teacher to seat them proved a
+failure. The idea among them seemed to be that each should take some
+part in amusing the company. One would jump from the back of a bench
+upon which he had been seated, while others were creeping about the
+floor; another, who deemed himself a proficient in turning somersaults,
+would be trying his skill in this way, while his neighbor, equally
+ambitious, would show the teacher how he could stand on his head.
+Occasionally they would pause and listen to the singing of a hymn or the
+reading of a little story; then all would be confusion again; and thus
+the morning wore away. The first session having closed, the teacher
+retired to her home, feeling that a repetition of the scenes through
+which she had passed could scarcely be endured.
+
+"Two o'clock found her again at the door, and the children soon gathered
+around her. Upon entering the schoolroom, most of them were induced
+to be seated, and a hymn was sung which they had learned in the
+Sabbath-school. When it was finished, the question was asked, 'Shall we
+pray?' With one accord they answered, 'Yes.' 'And will you be quiet?'
+They replied in the affirmative. All were then requested to be silent
+and cover their faces. In this posture they remained until the prayer
+was closed; and after resuming their seats, for some minutes order was
+preserved. This was the only encouraging circumstance of the day.
+
+"For many weeks a stranger would scarcely have recognized a school in
+this disorderly gathering which day after day met in the old gloomy
+building. Very many difficulties which we may not name were met and
+conquered. Fights were of common occurrence. A description of one may
+give the reader an idea of what came frequently under our notice.
+
+"A rough boy about fourteen years of age, over whom some influence had
+been gained, was chosen monitor one morning; and as he was a leader in
+all the mischief, it was hoped that putting him upon his honor would
+assist in keeping order. Talking aloud was forbidden. For a few minutes
+matters went on charmingly, until some one, tired of the restraint,
+broke silence. The monitor, feeling the importance of his position, and
+knowing of but one mode of redress, instantly struck him a violent blow
+upon the ear, causing him to scream with pain. In a moment the school
+was a scene of confusion, the friends of each boy taking sides, and
+before the cause of trouble could be ascertained most of the boys
+were piled upon each other in the middle of the room, creating sounds
+altogether indescribable. The teacher, realizing that she was alone, and
+not well understanding her influence, feared for a moment to interfere;
+but as matters were growing worse, something must be done. She made
+an effort to gain the ear of the monitor, and asked why he did so. He,
+confident of being in the right, answered,
+
+"'Teacher, he didn't mind you; he spoke, and I licked him; and I'll do
+it again if he don't mind you.'
+
+"His services were of course no longer required, although he had done
+his duty according to his understanding of the case.
+
+"Thus it was at the beginning of this work nearly twenty years ago,"
+said the missionary. "Now we have an orderly school of over two hundred
+children, who, but for the opportunity here given, would grow up without
+even the rudiments of all education. Is not this a gain upon the enemy?
+Think of a school like this doing its work daily among these neglected
+little ones for nearly a score of years, and you will no longer feel as
+if nothing had been done--as if no headway had been gained. Think,
+too, of the Sabbath-school work in that time, and of the thousands of
+children who have had their memories filled with precious texts from the
+Bible, who have been told of the loving Saviour who came into the world
+and suffered and died for them, and of his tender love and perpetual
+care over his children, no matter how poor and vile and afar off
+from him they may be. It is impossible that the good seed of the word
+scattered here for so long a time should not have taken root in many
+hearts. We know that they have, and can point to scores of blessed
+instances--can take you to men and women, now good and virtuous
+people, who, but for our day-and Sabbath-schools, would, in all human
+probability, be now among the outcast, the vicious and the criminal.
+
+"So much for what has been done among the children. Our work with men
+and women has not been so fruitful as might well be supposed, and yet
+great good has been accomplished even among the hardened, the desperate
+and the miserably vile and besotted. Bad as things are to-day--awful
+to see and to contemplate, shocking and disgraceful to a Christian
+community--they were nearly as bad again at the time this mission set
+up the standard of God and made battle in his name. Our work began as a
+simple religious movement, with street preaching."
+
+"And with what effect?" asked Mr. Dinneford.
+
+"With good effect, in a limited number of cases, I trust. In a degraded
+community like this there will always be some who had a different
+childhood from that of the crowds of young heathen who swarm its courts
+and alleys; some who in early life had religious training, and in whose
+memories were stored up holy things from Scripture; some who have
+tender and sweet recollection of a mother and home and family prayer and
+service in God's temples. In the hearts of such God's Spirit in moving
+could touch and quicken and flush with reviving life these old memories,
+and through them bring conviction of sin, and an intense desire to rise
+out of the horrible pit into which they had fallen and the clay wherein
+their feet were mired. Angels could come near to these by what of good
+and true was to be found half hidden, but not erased from their book of
+life, and so help in the work of their recovery and salvation.
+
+"But, sir, beyond this class there is small hope, I fear, in preaching
+and praying. The great mass of these wretched beings have had little or
+no early religious instruction. There, are but few, if any, remains
+of things pure and good and holy stored away since childhood in their
+memories to be touched and quickened by the Spirit of God. And so we
+must approach them in another and more external way. We must begin with
+their physical evils, and lessen these as fast as possible; we must
+remove temptation from their doors, or get them as far as possible
+out of the reach of temptation, but in this work not neglecting the
+religious element as an agency, of untold power.
+
+"Christ fed the hungry, and healed the sick, and clothed the naked,
+and had no respect unto the persons of men. And we, if we would lift up
+fallen humanity, must learn by his example. It is not by preaching and
+prayer and revival meetings that the true Christian philanthropist can
+hope to accomplish any great good among the people here, but by doing
+all in his power to change their sad external condition and raise them
+out of their suffering and degradation. Without some degree of external
+order and obedience to the laws of natural life, it is, I hold, next to
+impossible, to plant in the mind any seeds of spiritual truth. There
+is no ground there. The parable of the sower that went forth to sow
+illustrates this law. Only the seed that fell on good ground brought
+forth fruit. Our true work, then, among this heathen people, of whom the
+churches take so little care, is first to get the ground in order for
+the planting, of heavenly seed. Failing in this, our hope is small."
+
+"This mission has changed its attitude since the beginning," said Mr.
+Dinneford.
+
+"Yes. Good and earnest men wrought for years with the evil elements
+around them, trusting in God's Spirit to change the hearts of the vile
+and abandoned sinners among whom they preached and prayed. But there was
+little preparation of the ground, and few seeds got lodgment except
+in stony places, by the wayside and among thorns. Our work now is to
+prepare the ground, and in this work, slowly as it is progressing,
+we have great encouragement. Every year we can mark the signs of
+advancement. Every year we make some head against the enemy. Every year
+our hearts take courage and are refreshed by the smell of grasses and
+the odor of flowers and the sight of fruit-bearing plants in once barren
+and desolate places. The ground is surely being made ready for the
+sower."
+
+"I am glad to hear you speak so encouragingly," returned Mr. Dinneford.
+"To me the case looked desperate--wellnigh hopeless. Anything worse than
+I have witnessed here seemed impossible."
+
+"It is only by comparisons, as I said before, that we can get at the
+true measure of change and progress," answered the missionary. "Since
+we have been at work in earnest to improve the external life of this
+region, we have had much to encourage us. True, what we have done has
+made only a small impression on the evil that exists here; but the value
+of this impression lies in the fact that it shows what can be done
+with larger agencies. Double our effective force, and we can double the
+result. Increase it tenfold, and ten times as much can be done."
+
+"What is your idea of this work?" said Mr. Dinneford. "In other words,
+what do you think the best practical way to purify this region?"
+
+"If you draw burning brands and embers close together, your fire grows
+stronger; if you scatter them apart, it will go out," answered the
+missionary. "Moral and physical laws correspond to each other. Crowd
+bad men and women together, and they corrupt and deprave each other.
+Separate them, and you limit their evil power and make more possible for
+good the influence of better conditions. Let me give you an instance: A
+man and his wife who had lived in a wretched way in one of the poorest
+hovels in Briar street for two years, and who had become idle and
+intemperate, disappeared from among us about six months ago. None of
+their neighbors knew or cared much what had become of them. They had
+two children. Last week, as I was passing the corner of a street in the
+south-western part of the city in which stood a row of small new houses,
+a neatly-dressed woman came out of a store with a basket in her hand. I
+did not know her, but by the brightening look in her face I saw that she
+knew me.
+
+"'Mr. Paulding,' she said, in a pleased way, holding out her hand; 'you
+don't know me,' she added, seeing the doubt in my face. 'I am Mrs.--.'
+
+"'Impossible!' I could not help exclaiming.
+
+"'But it's true, Mr. Paulding,' she averred, a glow of pleasure on her
+countenance. 'We've turned over a new leaf.'
+
+"'So I should think from your appearance,' I replied. 'Where do you
+live?'
+
+"'In the third house from the corner,' pointing to the neat row of small
+brick houses I have mentioned. 'Come and look at our new home. I want to
+tell you about it!'
+
+"I was too much pleased to need a second invitation.
+
+"'I've got as clean steps as my neighbors,' she said, with pride in her
+voice, 'and shades to my windows, and a bright door-knob. It wasn't so
+in Briar street. One had no heart there. Isn't this nice?'
+
+"And she glanced around the little parlor we had entered.
+
+"It was nice, compared to the dirty and disorderly place they had called
+their home in Briar street. The floor was covered with a new ingrain
+carpet. There were a small table and six cane-seat chairs in the room,
+shades at the windows, two or three small pictures on the walls and some
+trifling ornaments on the mantel. Everything was clean and the air of
+the room sweet.
+
+"'This is my little Emma,' she said as a cleanly-dressed child came into
+the room; 'You remember she was in the school.'
+
+"I did remember her as a ragged, dirty-faced child, forlorn and
+neglected, like most of the children about here. It was a wonderful
+transformation.
+
+"'And now,' I said, 'tell me how all this has come about.'
+
+"'Well, you see, Mr. Paulding,' she answered, 'there was no use in John
+and me trying to be anything down there. It was temptation on every
+hand, and we were weak and easily tempted. There was nothing to make us
+look up or to feel any pride. We lived like our neighbors, and you know
+what kind of a way that was.
+
+"'One day John said to me, "Emma," says he, "it's awful, the way we're
+living; we'd better be dead." His voice was shaky-like, and it kind of
+made me feel bad. "I know it, John," said I, "but what can we do?" "Go
+'way from here," he said. "But where?" I asked. "Anywhere. I'm not all
+played out yet;" and he held up his hand and shut it tight. "There's
+good stuff in me yet, and if you're willing to make a new start, I am."
+I put my hand in his, and said, "God helping me, I will try, John." He
+went off that very day and got a room in a decent neighborhood, and we
+moved in it before night. We had only one cart-load, and a wretched load
+of stuff it was. But I can't tell you how much better it looked when we
+got it into our new room, the walls of which were nicely papered, and
+the paint clean and white. I fixed up everything and made it as neat as
+possible. John was so pleased. "It feels something like old times," he
+said. He had been knocking about a good while, picking up odd jobs and
+not half working, but he took heart now, quit drinking and went to work
+in good earnest, and was soon making ten dollars a week, every cent of
+which he brought home. He now gets sixteen dollars. We haven't made a
+back step since. But it wouldn't have been any use trying if we'd stayed
+in Briar street. Pride helped us a good deal in the beginning, sir. I
+was ashamed not to have my children looking as clean as my neighbors,
+and ashamed not to keep things neat and tidy-like. I didn't care
+anything about it in Briar street.'
+
+"I give you this instance, true in nearly every particular," said the
+missionary, "in order to show you how incurable is the evil condition of
+the people here; unless we can get the burning brands apart, they help
+to consume each other."
+
+"But how to get them apart? that is the difficult question," said Mr.
+Dinneford.
+
+"There are two ways," was replied--"by forcing the human brands apart,
+and by interposing incombustible things between them. As we have no
+authority to apply force, and no means at hand for its exercise if we
+had the authority, our work has been in the other direction. We have
+been trying to get in among these burning brands elements that would
+stand the fire, and, so lessen the ardor of combustion."
+
+"How are you doing this?"
+
+"By getting better houses for the people to live in. Improve the house,
+make it more sightly and convenient, and in most cases you will improve
+the person who lives in it. He will not kindle so easily, though he yet
+remain close to the burning brands."
+
+"And are you doing this?"
+
+"A little has been done. Two or three years ago a building association
+was organized by a few gentlemen of means, with a view to the purchase
+of property in this district and the erection of small but good houses,
+to be rented at moderate cost to honest and industrious people. A number
+of such houses have already been built, and they are now occupied
+by tenants of a better class, whose influence on their neighbors is
+becoming more and more apparent every day. Brady street--once the worst
+place in all this district--has changed wonderfully. There is scarcely
+a house in the two blocks through which it runs that does not show some
+improvement since the association pulled down half a dozen of its worst
+frame tenements and put neat brick dwellings in their places. It is no
+uncommon thing now to see pavement sweeping and washing in front of
+some of the smallest and poorest of the houses in Brady street where two
+years ago the dirt would stick to your feet in passing. A clean muslin
+half curtain, a paper shade or a pot of growing plants will meet your
+eyes at a window here and there as you pass along. The thieves who once
+harbored in this street, and hid their plunder in cellars and garrets
+until it could be sold or pawned, have abandoned the locality. They
+could not live side by side with honest industry."
+
+"And all this change may be traced to the work of our building
+association, limited as are its means and half-hearted as are its
+operations. The worst of our population--the common herd of thieves,
+beggars and vile women who expose themselves shamelessly on the
+street--are beginning to feel less at home and more in danger of arrest
+and exposure. The burning brands are no longer in such close contact,
+and so the fires of evil are raging less fiercely. Let in the light, and
+the darkness flees. Establish the good, and evil shrinks away, weak and
+abashed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+
+_SO_ the morning found them fast asleep. The man awoke first and felt
+the child against his bosom, soft and warm. It was some moments ere he
+understood what it meant. It seemed as if the wretched life he had been
+leading was all a horrible dream out of which he had awakened, and that
+the child sleeping in his bosom was his own tenderly-loved baby. But
+the sweet illusions faded away, and the hard, sorrowful truth stood out
+sternly before him.
+
+Then Andy's eyes opened and looked into his face. There was nothing
+scared in the look-hardly an expression of surprise. But the man saw a
+mute appeal and a tender confidence that made his heart swell and yearn
+toward the homeless little one.
+
+"Had a nice sleep?" he asked, in a tone of friendly encouragement.
+
+Andy nodded his head, and then gazed curiously about the room.
+
+"Want some breakfast?"
+
+The hungry face lit up with a flash of pleasure.
+
+"Of course you do, little one."
+
+The man was on his feet by this time, with his hand in his pocket,
+from which he drew a number of pennies. These he counted over carefully
+twice. The number was just ten. If there had been only himself to
+provide for, it would not have taken long to settle the question of
+expenditure. Five cents at an eating-shop where the caterer supplied
+himself from the hodge-podge of beggars' baskets would have given him
+a breakfast fit for a dog or pig, while the remaining five cents would
+have gone for fiery liquor to quench a burning thirst.
+
+But another mouth had too be fed. All at once this poor degraded man
+had risen to a sense of responsibility, and was practicing the virtue of
+self-denial. A little child was leading him.
+
+He had no toilette to make, no ablutions to practice. There was neither
+pail nor wash-basin in his miserable kennel. So, without any delay of
+preparation, he caught up the broken mug and went out, as forlorn a
+looking wretch as was to be seen in all that region. Almost every house
+that he passed was a grog-shop, and his nerves were all unstrung and his
+mouth and throat dry from a night's abstinence. But he was able to go
+by without a pause. In a few minutes he returned with a loaf of bread, a
+pint of milk and a single dried sausage.
+
+What a good breakfast the two made. Not for a long time had the man so
+enjoyed a meal. The sight of little Andy, as he ate with the fine relish
+of a hungry child, made his dry bread and sausage taste sweeter than
+anything that had passed his lips for weeks.
+
+Something more than the food he had taken steadied the man's nerves and
+allayed his thirst. Love was beating back into his heart--love for this
+homeless wanderer, whose coming had supplied the lost links in the chain
+which bound him to the past and called up memories that had slept almost
+the sleep of death for years. Good resolutions began forming in his
+mind.
+
+"It may be," he said to himself as new and better impressions than he
+had known for a long time began to crowd upon him, "that God has led
+this baby here."
+
+The thought sent a strange thrill to his soul. He trembled with excess
+of feeling. He had once been a religious man; and with the old instinct
+of dependence on God, he clasped his hands together with a sudden,
+desperate energy, and looking up, cried, in a half-despairing,
+half-trustful voice,
+
+"Lord, help me!"
+
+No earnest cry like that ever goes up without an instant answer in the
+gift of divine strength. The man felt it in a stronger purpose and a
+quickening hope. He was conscious of a new power in himself.
+
+"God being my helper," he said in the silence of his heart, "I will be a
+man again."
+
+There was a long distance between him and a true manhood. The way
+back was over very rough and difficult places, and through dangers and
+temptations almost impossible to resist. Who would have faith in him?
+Who would help him in his great extremity? How was he to live? Not any
+longer by begging or petty theft. He must do honest work. There was no
+hope in anything else. If God were to be his helper, he must be honest,
+and work. To this conviction he had come.
+
+But what was to be done with Andy while he was away trying to earn
+something? The child might get hurt in the street or wander off in his
+absence and never find his way back. The care he felt for the little one
+was pleasure compared to the thought of losing him.
+
+As for Andy, the comfort of a good breakfast and the feeling that he
+had a home, mean as it was, and somebody to care for him, made his heart
+light and set his lips to music.
+
+When before had the dreary walls of that poor hovel echoed to the happy
+voice of a light-hearted child? But there was another echo to the voice,
+and from walls as long a stranger to such sounds as these--the walls in
+the chambers of that poor man's memory. A wellnigh lost and ruined soul
+was listening to the far-off voices of children. Sunny-haired little
+ones were thronging about him; he was looking into their tender eyes;
+their soft arms were clinging to his neck; he was holding them tightly
+clasped to his bosom.
+
+"Baby," he said. It was the word that came most naturally to his lips.
+
+Andy, who was sitting where a few sunbeams came in through a rent in
+the wall, with the warm light on his head, turned and looked into the
+bleared but friendly eyes gazing at him so earnestly.
+
+"I'm going out, baby. Will you stay here till I come back?"
+
+"Yes," answered the child, "I'll stay."
+
+"I won't be gone very long, and I'll bring you an apple and something
+good for dinner."
+
+Andy's face lit up and his eyes danced.
+
+"Don't go out until I come back. Somebody might carry you off, and then
+I couldn't give you the nice red apple."
+
+"I'll stay right here," said Andy, in a positive tone.
+
+"And won't go into the street till I come back?"
+
+"No, I won't." Andy knit his brows and closed his lips firmly.
+
+"All right, little one," answered the man, in a cheery sort of voice
+that was so strange to his own ears that it seemed like the voice of
+somebody else.
+
+Still, he could not feel satisfied. He was living in the midst of
+thieves to whom the most insignificant thing upon which they could lay
+their hands was booty. Children who had learned to be hard and cruel
+thronged the court, and he feared, if he left Andy alone in the hovel,
+that it would not only be robbed of its meagre furniture, but the child
+subjected to ill-treatment. He had always fastened the door on going
+out, but hesitated now about locking Andy in.
+
+All things considered, it was safest, he felt, to lock the door. There
+was nothing in the room that could bring harm to the child--no fire or
+matches, no stairs to climb or windows out of which he could fall.
+
+"I guess I'd better lock the door, hadn't I, so that nobody can carry
+off my little boy?" he asked of Andy.
+
+Andy made no objections. He was ready for anything his kind friend might
+propose.
+
+"And you mustn't cry or make a noise. The police might break in if you
+did."
+
+"All right," said Andy, with the self-assertion of a boy of ten.
+
+The man stroked the child's head and ran his fingers through his hair in
+a fond way; then, as one who tore himself from an object of attraction,
+went hastily out and locked the door.
+
+And now was to begin a new life. Friendless, debased, repulsive in
+appearance, everything about him denoting the abandoned drunkard, this
+man started forth to get honest bread. Where should he go? What could
+he do? Who would give employment to an object like him? The odds were
+fearfully against him--no, not that, either. In outward respects,
+fearful enough were the odds, but on the other side agencies invisible
+to mortal sight were organizing for his safety. In to his purpose
+to lead a new life and help a poor homeless child God's strength was
+flowing. Angels were drawing near to a miserable wreck of humanity with
+hands outstretched to save. All heaven was coming to the rescue.
+
+He was shuffling along in the direction of a market-house, hoping to
+earn a little by carrying home baskets, when he came face to face with
+an old friend of his better days, a man with whom he had once held close
+business relations.
+
+"Mr. Hall!" exclaimed this man in a tone of sorrowful surprise,
+stopping and looking at him with an expression of deepest pity on his
+countenance. "This is dreadful!"
+
+"You may well say that, Mr. Graham. It dreadful enough. No one knows
+that better than I do," was answered, with a bitterness that his old
+friend felt to be genuine.
+
+"Why, then, lead this terrible life a day longer?" asked the friend.
+
+"I shall not lead it a day longer if God will help me," was replied,
+with a genuineness of purpose that was felt by Mr. Graham.
+
+"Give me your hand on that, Andrew Hall," he exclaimed. Two hands closed
+in a tight grip.
+
+"Where are you going now?" inquired the friend.
+
+"I'm in search of something to do--something that will give me honest
+bread. Look at my hand."
+
+He held it up.
+
+"It shakes, you see. I have not tasted liquor this morning. I could have
+bought it, but I did not."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I said, 'God being my helper, I will be a man again,' and I am trying."
+
+"Andrew Hall," said his old friend, solemnly, as he laid his hand on his
+shoulder, "if you are really in earnest--if you do mean, in the help of
+God, to try--all will be well. But in his help alone is there any hope.
+Have you seen Mr. Paulding?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"He has no faith in me. I have deceived him too often."
+
+"What ground of faith is there now?" asked Mr. Graham.
+
+"This," was the firm but hastily spoken answer. "Last night as I sat in
+the gloom of my dreary hovel, feeling so wretched that I wished I could
+die, a little child came in--a poor, motherless, homeless wanderer,
+almost a baby--and crept down to my heart, and he is lying there still,
+Mr. Graham, soft, and warm and precious, a sweet burden to bear. I
+bought him a supper and a breakfast of bread and milk with the money,
+I had saved for drink, and now, both for his sake and mine, I am out
+seeking for work. I have locked him in, so that no one can harm or carry
+him away while I earn enough to buy him his dinner, and maybe something
+better to wear, poor little homeless thing!"
+
+There was a genuine earnestness and pathos about the man that could not
+be mistaken.
+
+"I think," said Mr. Graham, his voice not quite steady, "that God
+brought us together this morning. I know Mr. Paulding. Let us go first
+to the mission, and have some talk with him. You must have a bath
+and better, and cleaner clothes before you are in a condition to get
+employment."
+
+The bath and a suit of partly-worn but good clean clothes were supplied
+at the mission house.
+
+"Now come with me, and I will find you something to do," said the old
+friend.
+
+But Andrew Hall stood hesitating.
+
+"The little child--I told him I'd come back soon. He's locked up all
+alone, poor baby!"
+
+He spoke with a quiver in his voice.
+
+"Oh, true, true!" answered Mr. Graham; "the baby must be looked after;"
+and he explained to the missionary.
+
+"I will go round with you and get the child," said Mr. Paulding. "My
+wife will take care of him while you are away with Mr. Graham."
+
+They found little Andy sitting patiently on the floor. He did not know
+the friend who had given him a home and food and loving words, and
+looked at him half scared and doubting. But his voice made the child
+spring to his feet with a bound, and flushed his thin-face with the joy
+of a glad recognition.
+
+Mrs. Paulding received him with a true motherly kindness, and soon a
+bath and clean clothing wrought as great a change in the child as they
+had done in the man.
+
+"I want your help in saving him," said Mr. Graham, aside, to the
+missionary. "He was once among our most respectable citizens, a good
+church-member, a good husband and father, a man of ability and large
+influence. Society lost much when it lost him. He is well worth saving,
+and we must do it if possible. God sent him this little child to touch
+his heart and flood it with old memories, and then he led me to come
+down here that I might meet and help him just when his good purposes
+made help needful and salvation possible. It is all of his loving care
+and wise providence of his tender mercy, which is over the poorest
+and weakest and most degraded of his children. Will you give him your
+special care?"
+
+"It is the work I am here to do," answered the missionary. "The Master
+came to seek and to save that which was lost, and I am his humble
+follower."
+
+"The child will have to be provided for," said Mr. Graham. "It cannot,
+of course, be left with him. It needs a woman's care."
+
+"It will not do to separate them," returned the missionary. "As you
+remarked just now, God sent him this little child to touch his heart and
+lead him back from the wilderness in which he has strayed. His safety
+depends on the touch of that hand. So long as he feels its clasp and its
+pull, he will walk in the new way wherein God is setting his feet. No,
+no; the child must be left with him--at least for the present. We will
+take care of it while he is at work during the day, and at night it can
+sleep in his arms, a protecting angel."
+
+"What kind of a place does he live in?" asked Mr. Graham.
+
+"A dog might dwell there in comfort, but not a man," replied the
+missionary.
+
+Mr. Graham gave him money: "Provide a decent room. If more is required,
+let me know."
+
+He then went away, taking Mr. Hall with him.
+
+"You will find the little one here when you come back," said Mr.
+Paulding as he saw the anxious, questioning look that was cast toward
+Andy.
+
+Clothed and in his right mind, but in no condition for work, was Andrew
+Hall. Mr. Graham soon noticed, as he walked by his side, that he was in
+a very nervous condition.
+
+"What had you for breakfast this morning" he asked, the right thought
+coming into his mind.
+
+"Not much. Some bread and a dried sausage."
+
+"Oh dear! that will never do! You must have something more nutritious--a
+good beefsteak and a cup of coffee to steady your nerves. Come."
+
+And in a few minutes they were in an eating-house. When they came out,
+Hall was a different man. Mr. Graham then took him to his store and set
+him to work to arrange and file a number of letters and papers, which
+occupied him for several hours. He saw that he had a good dinner and at
+five o'clock gave him a couple of dollars for his day's work, aid after
+many kind words of advice and assurance told him to come back in the
+morning, and he would find something else for him to do.
+
+Swiftly as his feet would carry him, Andrew Hall made his way to the
+Briar street mission. He did not at first know the clean, handsome child
+that lifted his large brown eyes to his face as he came in, nor did the
+child know him until he spoke. Then a cry of pleasure broke from the
+baby's lips, and he ran to the arms reached out to clasp him.
+
+"We'll go home now," he said, as if anxious to regain possession of the
+child.
+
+"Not back to Grubb's court," was answered by Mr. Paulding. "If you are
+going to be a new man, you must have a new and better home, and I've
+found one for you just a little way from here. It's a nice clean room,
+and I'll take you there. The rent is six dollars a month, but you can
+easily pay that when you get fairly to work."
+
+The room was in the second story of a small house, better kept than most
+of its neighbors, and contained a comfortable bed, with other needed
+furniture, scanty, but clean and good. It was to Mr. Hall like the
+chamber of a prince compared with what he had known for a long time; and
+as he looked around him and comprehended something of the blessed change
+that was coming over his life, tears filled his eyes.
+
+"Bring Andy around in the morning," said the missionary as he turned to
+go. "Mrs. Paulding will take good care of him."
+
+That night, after undressing the child and putting on him the clean
+night-gown which good Mrs. Paulding had not forgotten, he said,
+
+"And now Andy will say his prayers."
+
+Andy looked at him with wide-open, questioning eyes. Mr. Hall saw that
+he was not understood.
+
+"You know, 'Now I lay me'?" he said.
+
+"No, don't know it," replied Andy.
+
+"'Our Father,' then?"
+
+The child knit his brow. It was plain that he did not understand what
+his good friend meant.
+
+"You've said your prayers?"
+
+Andy shook his head in a bewildered way.
+
+"Never said your prayers!" exclaimed Mr. Hall, in a voice so full of
+surprise and pain that Andy grew half frightened.
+
+"Poor baby!" was said, pityingly, a moment after. Then the question,
+"Wouldn't you like to say your prayers?" brought the quick answer,
+"Yes."
+
+"Kneel down, then, right here." Andy knelt, looking up almost
+wonderingly into the face that bent over him.
+
+"We have a good Father in heaven," said Mr. Hall, with tender reverence
+in his tone, pointing upward as he spoke, "He loves us and takes care of
+us. He brought you to me, and told me to love you and take care of you
+for him, and I'm going to do it. Now, I want you to say a little prayer
+to this good and kind Father before you go to bed. Will you?"
+
+"Yes, I will," came the ready answer.
+
+"Say it over after me. 'Now I lay me down to sleep.'"
+
+Andy repeated the words, his little hands clasped together, and followed
+through the verse which thousands of little children in thousands of
+Christian homes were saying at the very same hour.
+
+There was a subdued expression on the child's face as he rose from his
+knees; and when Mr. Hall lifted him from the floor to lay him in bed, he
+drew his arms about his neck and hugged him tightly.
+
+How beautiful the child looked as he lay with shut eyes, the long brown
+lashes fringing his flushed cheeks, that seemed already to have gained
+a healthy roundness! The soft breath came through his parted lips, about
+which still lingered the smile of peace that rested there after his
+first prayer was said; his little hands lay upon his breast.
+
+As Mr. Hall sat gazing at this picture there came a rap on his door.
+Then the missionary entered. Neither of the men spoke for some moments.
+Mr. Paulding comprehended the scene, and felt its sweet and holy
+influence.
+
+"Blessed childhood!" he said, breaking the silence. "Innocent childhood!
+The nearer we come to it, the nearer we get to heaven." Then, after a
+pause, he added, "And heaven is our only hope, Mr. Hall."
+
+"I have no hope but in God's strength," was answered, in a tone of
+solemn earnestness.
+
+"God is our refuge, our rock of defence, our hiding-place, our sure
+protector. If we trust in him, we shall dwell in safety," said the
+mission. "I am glad to hear you speak of hoping in God. He will give you
+strength if you lean upon him, and there is not power enough in all hell
+to drag you down if you put forth this God-given strength. But remember,
+my friend, that you must use it as if it were your own. You must resist.
+God's strength outside of our will and effort is of no use to any of us
+in temptation. But looking to our Lord and Saviour in humble yet earnest
+prayer for help in the hour of trial and need if we put forth our
+strength in resistance of evil, small though it be, then into our weak
+efforts will come an influx of divine power that shall surely give us
+the victory. Have you a Bible?"
+
+Mr. Hall shook his head.
+
+"I have brought you one;" and the missionary drew a small Bible from his
+pocket. "No man is safe without a Bible."
+
+"Oh, I am glad! I was just wishing for a Bible," said Hall as he reached
+out his hand to receive the precious book.
+
+"If you read it every night and morning--if you treasure its holy
+precepts in your memory, and call them up in times of trial, or when
+evil enticements are in your way--God can come near to your soul to
+succor and to save, for the words of the holy book are his words, and
+he is present in them. If we take them into our thoughts, reverently
+seeking to obey them, we make a dwelling-place for the Lord, so that he
+can abide with us; and in his presence there is safety."
+
+"And nowhere else," responded Hall, speaking from a deep sense of
+personal helplessness.
+
+"Nowhere else," echoed the missionary. "And herein lies the hope or the
+despair of men. It is pitiful, it is heart-aching, to see the vain but
+wild and earnest efforts made by the slaves of intemperance to get free
+from their cruel bondage. Thousands rend their fetters every year after
+some desperate struggle, and escape. But, alas! how many are captured
+and taken back into slavery! Appetite springs upon them in some
+unguarded moment, and in their weakness there is none to succor. They do
+not go to the Strong for strength, but trust in themselves, and are cast
+down. Few are ever redeemed from the slavery of intemperance but those
+who pray to God and humbly seek his aid. And so long as they depend on
+him, they are safe. He will be as a wall of fire about them."
+
+As the missionary talked, the face of Mr. Hall underwent a remarkable
+change. It grew solemn and very thoughtful. His hands drew together and
+the fingers clasped. At the last words of Mr. Paulding a deep groan came
+from his heart; and lifting his gaze upward, he cried out,
+
+"Lord, save me, or I perish!"
+
+"Let us pray," said the missionary, and the two men knelt together,
+one with bowed head and crouching body, the other with face uplifted,
+tenderly talking to Him who had come down to the lowliest and the vilest
+that he might make them pure as the angels, about the poor prodigal now
+coming back to his Father's house.
+
+After the prayer, Mr. paulding read a chapter from the Bible aloud, and
+then, after words of hope and comfort, went away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+
+"_I TAKE_ reproof to myself," said Mr. Dinneford. "As one of your board
+of managers, I ought to have regarded my position as more than a nominal
+one. I understand better now what you said about the ten or twenty of
+our rich and influential men who, if they could be induced to look away
+for a brief period from their great enterprises, and concentrate thought
+and effort upon the social evils, abuse of justice, violations of law,
+poverty and suffering that exist here and in other parts of our city,
+would inaugurate reforms and set beneficent agencies at work that would
+soon produce marvelous changes for good."
+
+"Ah, yes," sighed Mr. Paulding. "If we had for just a little while the
+help of our strong men--the men of brains and will and money, the men
+who are used to commanding success, whose business it is to organize
+forces and set impediments at defiance, the men whose word is a kind
+of law to the people--how quickly, and as if by magic, would all this
+change!
+
+"But we cannot now hope to get this great diversion in our favor. Until
+we do we must stand in the breach, small in numbers and weak though we
+are--must go on doing our best and helping when we may. Help is help and
+good is good, be it ever so small. If I am able to rescue but a single
+life where many are drowning, I make just so much head against death and
+destruction. Shall I stand off and refuse to put forth my hand because I
+cannot save a score?
+
+"Take heart, Mr. Dinneford. Our work is not in vain. Its fruits may be
+seen all around. Bad as you find everything, it is not so bad as it was.
+When our day-school was opened, the stench from the filthy children who
+were gathered in was so great that the teachers were nauseated. They
+were dirty in person as well as dirty in their clothing. This would
+not do. There was no hope of moral purity while such physical impurity
+existed. So the mission set up baths, and made every child go in and
+thoroughly wash his body. Then they got children's clothing--new and
+old--from all possible sources, and put clean garments on their little
+scholars. From the moment they were washed and cleanly clad, a new and
+better spirit came upon them. They were more orderly and obedient, and
+more teachable. There was, or seemed to be, a tenderer quality in their
+voices as they sang their hymns of praise."
+
+Just then there came a sudden outcry and a confusion of voices from
+the street. Mr. Dinneford arose quickly and went to the window. A man,
+apparently drunk and in a rage, was holding a boy tightly gripped by the
+collar with one hand and cuffing him about the head and face with the
+other.
+
+"It's that miserable Blind Jake!" said Mr. Paulding.
+
+In great excitement, Mr. Dinneford threw up the window and called for
+the police. At this the man stopped beating the boy, but swore at
+him terribly, his sightless eyes rolling and his face distorted in a
+frightful way. A policeman who was not far off came now upon the scene.
+
+"What's all this about?" he asked, sternly.
+
+"Jake's drunk again, that's the row," answered a voice.
+
+"Lock him up, lock him up!" cried two or three from the crowd.
+
+An expression of savage defiance came into the face of the blind man,
+and he moved his arms and clenched his fist like one who was bent on
+desperate resistance. He was large and muscular, and, now that he was
+excited by drink and bad passions, had a look that was dangerous.
+
+"Go home and behave yourself," said the policeman, not caring to have a
+single-handed tussle with the human savage, whose strength and desperate
+character he well knew.
+
+Blind Jake, as he was called, stood for a few moments half defiant,
+growling and distorting his face until it looked more like a wild
+animal's than a man's, then jerked out the words,
+
+"Where's that Pete?" with a sound like the crack of a whip.
+
+The boy he had been beating in his drunken fury, and who did not seem to
+be much hurt, came forward from the crowd, and taking him by the hand,
+led him away.
+
+"Who is this blind man? I have seen him before," said Mr. Dinneford.
+
+"You may see him any day standing at the street corners, begging, a
+miserable-looking object, exciting the pity of the humane, and gathering
+in money to spend in drunken debauchery at night. He has been known to
+bring in some days as high as ten and some fifteen dollars, all of which
+is wasted in riot before the next morning. He lives just over the way,
+and night after night I can hear his howls and curses and laughter
+mingled with those of the vile women with whom he herds."
+
+"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,
+
+"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.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cast Adrift, by T. S. Arthur
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