OUTPOST.

BY J. G. AUSTIN,

AUTHOR OF "DORA DARLING, OR THE DAUGHTER
OF THE REGIMENT," &C.

BOSTON:

1867.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. SUNSHINE CHAPTER II. THE LITTLE WIFE CHAPTER III. CHERRYTOE CHAPTER IV. THE CHILDREN OF MERRIGOLAND CHAPTER V. THE RUNAWAY CHAPTER VI. MOTHER WINCH CHAPTER VII. TEDDY'S LITTLE SISTER CHAPTER VIII. THE FAYVER CHAPTER IX. THE NIGHT-WATCH CHAPTER X. THE EMPTY NEST CHAPTER XI. A TRACE AND A SEARCH CHAPTER XII. TEDDY'S TEMPTATION CHAPTER XIII. THE CACHUCA CHAPTER XIV. GIOVANNI AND PANTALON CHAPTER XV. THE PINK-SILK DRESS CHAPTER XVI. BEGINNING A NEW LIFE CHAPTER XVII. WHOLESALE MURDER CHAPTER XVIII. DORA DARLING CHAPTER XIX. A CHAMBER OF MEMORIES CHAPTER XX. A LETTER AND AN OFFER CHAPTER XXI. GIOVANNI'S ROOM CHAPTER XXII. THE CONFESSION CHAPTER XXIII. TEDDY LOSES AND FINDS HIS HOME CHAPTER XXIV. MR. BURROUGHS'S BUSINESS CHAPTER XXV. MAN VERSUS DOG CHAPTER XXVI. MRS. GINNISS HAS A VISITOR CHAPTER XXVII. TEDDY FINDS A NEW PATRON CHAPTER XXVIII. WELCOME HOME CHAPTER XXIX. LIFE AT OUTPOST CHAPTER XXX. KITTY IN THE WOODS CHAPTER XXXI. THE FOX UNDER THE ROBE CHAPTER XXXII. THE PAINTER AND UNCLE 'SIAH'S HARNAH CHAPTER XXXIII. A GLEAM OF DAWN CHAPTER XXXIV. THE FIRST CHANCE CHAPTER XXXV. THE SECOND CHANCE CHAPTER XXXVI. TREASURE-TROVE CHAPTER XXXVII. TEDDY'S PRIVILEGE CHAPTER XXXVIII. WHAT DORA SAID CHAPTER XXXIX. A SURPRISE FOR MRS. GINNISS CHAPTER XL. THE WEDDING-DAY CHAPTER XLI. KARL TO DORA

OUTPOST.

CHAPTER I.

SUNSHINE.

"The last day of October!" said the Sun to himself,—"the last day of my favorite month, and the birthday of my little namesake! See if I don't make the most of it!"

So the Sun called to all the winds and all the breezes, who, poor things! had but just gone to bed after a terrible night's work, ordering them to get up directly, and sweep the sky as clear as a bell; and bid all the clouds, whether big white mountains, little pinky islands, sweeping mares'-tails, or freckled mackerel-back, to put themselves out of the way, and keep out of it until November; when, as the Sun remarked with a sigh, they would have it all their own way.

"And as soon as that job's done," continued he, "you may go to bed again in the Mountains of the Moon; for you will only disturb me if you are about."

So the winds, grumbling and sighing a little, went to their work; and the Sun, after a good dip in the Atlantic Ocean, began to roll up the eastern sky, flecking the waves with diamond spray, touching up the gay-colored leaves still clinging to the forest-trees, blazing on the town and city clocks to let every one know how late it was, and finally thrusting his saucy glances into all the windows to see how many persons had needed him.

"Come, come, you city-folks!" cried the Sun. "Your neighbors in the country were up before I was, and have eaten their breakfasts, and half cleared it away by this time; and here are you just beginning to dress yourselves! Hurry up, I say! hurry up! It is the last day of October, don't you know? and to-morrow will be November.

"But, at the corner house of a handsome square, the Sun found himself better satisfied; for through the windows of the dining-room he saw a lady and gentleman seated at the table, having apparently almost finished their breakfast.

"That is better," remarked the Sun: and, thrusting one of his slender golden fingers through the window, he touched the stag's head upon the cover of the silver coffee-pot; glanced off, and sparkled in the cut glass of the goblets and egg-glasses; flickered across the white and gilt china; pierced the fiery heart of the diamond upon the first finger of the lady's left hand, and then, creeping swiftly up her white throat, played joyously in her golden curls, and even darted into her soft blue eyes, making them sparkle as brilliantly as the diamond.

"The sun shines directly in your face, Fanny," said Mr. Legrange, admiring the color in his wife's hair. "Shall I lower the shade?"

"Oh, no! thank you. I never want the sunshine shut out," replied she, moving her chair a little.

"Not to-day of all days in the year, I suppose; not on the birthday of our little Sunshine. And where is she?" asked Mr. Legrange, half turning his chair from the table to the fire, and unfolding the damp newspaper beside his plate.

"I told Susan to send her down as soon as she had done her breakfast. Hark! I hear her." And the Sun, drawing his finger across the mother's lips, helped them to so bright a smile, that her husband said,—

"I am afraid we have more than our share of Sunshine, or at least that I have, little wife."

The bright smile grew so bright as the lady bent a little toward her husband, that the Sun whispered,—

"There's no need of sun here, I plainly see," but, for all that, crept farther into the room; while the door opened, and in skipped a little girl, who might have been taken for the beautiful lady at the head of the table suddenly diminished to childish proportions, and dressed in childish costume, but with all her beauty intensified by the condensation: for the blue eyes were as large and clear, and even deeper in their tint; the clustering hair was of a brighter gold; and the fair skin pearlier in its whiteness, and richer in its rosiness; while the gay exuberance of life, glowing and sparkling from every curve and dimple of the child's face and figure, was, even in the happy mother's face, somewhat dimmed by the shadows that still must fall upon every life past its morning, be it never so happy, or never so prosperous.

"Morning, mamma and papa. It's my birthday; and I'm six years old,—six, six years old! One, two, three, four, five, six years old! Susan told them all to me, and Susan said she guessed papa didn't forgotten it. She didn't forgotten it; and see!"

The child held up a gay horn of sugar-plums fluttering with ribbons, and then, hugging it to her breast with one hand, plunged the other in, and offered a little fistful of the comfits, first to her father, and then to her mother. Both smilingly declined the treat, explaining that they had but just done breakfast: and the young lady, dropping some back into the horn, thrust the rest into her own mouth, saying, "So has I; but I like candy all the day."

"Come here, you little Sunshine," said Mr. Legrange, drawing her toward him. "So Susie thought I hadn't forgotten your birthday, eh? Well, do you know what they always do to people on their birthdays?"

"Give 'em presents," replied the child promptly, as she desperately swallowed the mouthful of candy.

"Ho, ho! that's it is it? No; but, besides that, they always pull their ears as many times as they are years old. Now, then, don't you wish I had forgotten it?"

Sunshine's eyes grew a little larger, and travelled swiftly toward her mother's face, coming back to her father's with a smile.

"I don't believe you'd hurt me much, papa," said she, nestling close to his side.

The father folded her tightly in his arms, lifting her to a seat upon his knee.

"I don't believe I would, little Sunshine. Well, then, sometimes, instead of pinches, they give little girls as many kisses as they are years old. How will that do?"

The rosy mouth, gathering for a kiss, answered without words; but
Mr. Legrange, taking the dimpled face between his hands, said,—

"No, no! we must go on deliberately. One for the forehead, two for the eyes,—that makes three; one for each cheek makes five; and now the last and best for the lips makes six. Next year, there will be another for the chin, and, after that, one in each ear: won't that be nice?"

"And mamma? Hasn't Sunshine any kisses for her this morning?" asked
Mrs. Legrange.

The child slid from her father's knee to the floor, and, with her arms round her mother's neck, whispered,—

"I'll give mamma all these kisses papa just gave me, and some more too."

And for a minute or two it would have been hard to say to which head the showery golden curls belonged, or which pair of lips was the kisser's, and which the kissed; while the Sun fairly danced with delight as he wrapped the two in a beautiful golden mantle woven of his choicest beams.

Mr. Legrange looked on, laughing, for a moment, and then said,—

"So Susan told you people get presents on their birthdays, did she,
'Toinette?"

"Yes, papa;" and the child, half turning from her mother, but still clinging round her neck, looked at her father roguishly.

"And I guess you knew it before, and didn't forgotten about it, did you, papa?" asked she.

"Well, yes, I believe I have heard something of the kind," said Mr. Legrange, gravely considering; "but, dear me! did you expect me to make you a present?"

'Toinette's face grew rather blank; and a sudden impulse turned down the corners of her mouth with a little tremble across the lips. But the instinct of native refinement and delicacy overcame the disappointment; and, coming to her father's side, the child put her hand in his with a brave little smile, saying,—

"It's no matter, papa dear. I've got ever so many pretty things up in the nursery; and Susan gave me the candy."

Mr. Legrange looked at his wife.

"Your own child, Fanny. O Sunshine, Sunshine! what are you coming to by and by? But bless me! what is this in the pocket of my dressing-gown? Let me take it out, lest it should hurt you when I set you in my lap again. Funny-looking little box, isn't it?"

As he spoke, Mr. Legrange laid upon the table a long, flat box of red morocco, with some gilt letters upon the top.

"Yes, papa. What's in the box?" asked 'Toinette, still with a little effort.

"What do you think, Sunshine?"

"I guess it's some cigars, papa."

"It would make a good cigar-case, to be sure; but you know I have one already, and mamma says I ought not to have any. Let us peep in, and see what else the box would be good for besides cigars."

He unfastened the little hooks holding down the cover as he spoke, and placed the casket in 'Toinette's hands. She raised the lid, and uttered a low cry; while her face flushed scarlet with surprise and pleasure.

Upon the white satin lining, lay two bracelets of coral cameos, linked with gold, and fastened by a broad golden clasp.

"Are they pretty?" asked Mr. Legrange, smiling at the eager little face upraised to his.

"Oh! they are lovely pretty. O papa! oh! is they?"—

"Yes they are yours, Sunshine. Mamma said you had been begging for some bracelets like Minnie Wall's; and so, as I had heard that people sometimes liked presents on their birthdays, and as I had not forgotten when Sunshine's came, I thought I would bring her a pair."

The excess of 'Toinette's rapture would not allow of speech; but
Mrs. Legrange, peeping over her shoulder, exclaimed,—

"Why, Paul! those are not what I asked you to get. I told you common coral beads, strung on elastic, and fastened with a little snap."

"But these were so much prettier, my dear, and will be of some value when she grows up, as the others would not. At any rate, they are marked: so we must keep them now. See!"

Mr. Legrange touched a tiny spring; and the upper part of the clasp, opening upon a hinge, showed a plate beneath, engraved with the name, "Antoinette Legrange."

"Yes: they are certainly very handsome; and 'Toinette must be as careful of them as possible. They will be just right to loop up her sleeves while she is so little, and, when she is older, to wear as bracelets," said Mrs. Legrange admiringly.

"I may wear them this afternoon at my party, mayn't I, mamma?" asked
'Toinette, trying to clasp one upon her little arm.

"Oh, we are to have a party, are we!" exclaimed Mr. Legrange raising his eyebrows in dismay.

"Just half a dozen children to play with 'Toinette, and to go home after a nursery-tea," explained his wife.

"Oh, well! I shall be a little late to dinner, very likely: so it will all be over when I arrive. Shall I bring Tom Burroughs home with me to dine?"

"I want Cousin Tommy to come to my party, papa. Tell him to come, please, and Sunshine's love."

"Your party, chick? Why! he would be Gulliver among the Liliputians. He would tread on a dozen of the guests at the first step, and never know it."

"I don't think he would, papa; and he's my little wife, and I want him," persisted 'Toinette.

"No, no, dear," interposed Mrs. Legrange. "Cousin Tom wouldn't want to come, and my little girl mustn't tease."

"No, mamma; but he's my little wife," murmured 'Toinette, going back to her bracelets with a shadow of disappointment in the curve of her pretty mouth.

"If mamma is willing, I will ask Cousin Tom, and he can do as he likes about accepting," said the fond father, watching his Sunshine's face.

Mamma smiled roguishly, murmuring,—"'So long as a woman's possessed of a tear, She'll always have her own way;'" and then, added aloud,—

"Just as you like, of course, papa; but here is Susan, ready to take
'Toinette for her walk."

The dining-room door opened softly, and a fresh, pretty-looking nursery-maid stepped in, saying

"Is Miss 'Toinette ready to come up stairs, ma'am?"

Yes, Susan. You may take the bracelets, pet; but, when you go out, leave them in the drawer of your bureau."

"Yes, mamma. Good-by, mamma and papa; and don't forget my little wife, papa."

"I won't forget, Sunshine," said Mr. Legrange, laughing, as he followed the child and nurse to the door, and watched them up stairs.

CHAPTER II.

THE LITTLE WIFE.

THREE o'clock came at last, although 'Toinette had become fully persuaded it never would; and the little guests arrived as punctually as juvenile guests are apt to arrive. Later on in life, people either expect less pleasure from meeting each other, or are more willing to defer securing it; or perhaps it is that they are willing to allow their friends the first chance of appropriating the happiness in store for all. If none of these, what is the reason, children, that, at grown parties, the struggle is to see who shall arrive last, while at ours it is to see who shall come first?

'Toinette was dressed, and in the drawing-room ready to receive her little friends, by half-past two; and very nice she looked in her light-blue merino frock, with its pretty embroideries, her long golden hair curled in the feathery ringlets Susan was so proud of making, her sleeves looped up with new bracelets, and a little embroidered handkerchief just peeping out of her pockets

Mrs. Legrange, who sat reading by the fire, watched with some amusement and more anxiety the movements of the little beauty, who walked slowly up and down the room, twisting her head to look now at one shoulder and now at the other, now at the flow of her skirts behind, and now at the dainty fit of her bronze cloth gaiter-boots. At last, stopping before the long mirror, Miss 'Toinette began practicing the courtesy she had learned at dancing-school, finishing by throwing a kiss from the tips of her fingers to the graceful little shadow in the mirror.

"She will be spoiled, entirely spoiled, before she is a year older," thought the mother anxiously. "She is so beautiful! and every one tells her of it. What shall I do?"

But sometimes, when our task seems too difficult for us, God takes it into his own hand, and does it in his own way, though that way to us be strange and painful.

While Mrs. Legrange still hesitated whether to speak, and what to say, the doorbell rang, and 'Toinette rushed away to meet her friends, and take them to the dressing room, where they were to leave their outside garments; and the mother laid aside her book, and prepared to help in entertaining the little people.

Another ring at the bell; another troop of little feet, and peal of merry voices; another and another; and, following the last, a firmer step upon the stair, and the appearance in the drawing-room of a tall, fine-looking young man, of twenty two or three years old, who came forward, offering his hand to Mrs. Legrange.

"Why, Tom," said she, "did you really come?"

"As you see, Cousin Fanny. Paul gave me the invitation, with my little wife's love; and how could I decline?"

"I am sure it is very good of you to come and help entertain; but I am afraid it will be a sad bore. Miss Minnie Wall, the oldest of the young ladies, is but just fourteen; and Bessie Rider, the youngest, is not yet six."

"But I came to visit my little wife," persisted Mr. Burroughs, laughing gayly.

"Here she is, then, with all the rest behind her;" and, as the little hostess caught sight of her new guest, she flew toward him, crying,—

"Oh, my little wife has come!—my little, wife!"

Every one laughed, except the young man thus oddly addressed, who gravely extended his hand, saying,—

"Miss 'Toinette, allow me to wish you many happy returns of this fortunate day."

'Toinette looked at him a moment in surprise, then, glancing at the other guests, said innocently,—

"I guess you talk that way because the girls are here; but I like the way you are always, best."

This time Tom laughed as loud as the rest, and, catching the child in his arms, kissed her a dozen times, saying,—

"That is it, Sunshine. Let us be natural, and have a good time. Get the table-cloth, and make an elephant of me."

CHAPTER III.

CHERRYTOE.

"LET us have a dance!" exclaimed Minnie Wall, when all the games had been played, and the little people stood for a moment, wondering what they should do next.

"O Mrs. Legrange! will you play for us?"

"Certainly. What will you have, Minnie? But, in the first place, can you all dance?"

"Yes'm, every one of us. Even 'Toinette and Bessie have learned at their Kindergarten; and the rest of us all go to Mr. Papanti. O Mrs. Legrange! last Saturday, when you let Susan bring 'Toinette to dancing-school, I told Mr. Papanti what a pretty little dancer she was; and he made her stand up, and she learned the cachuca with half a dozen others of us; and he did laugh and bow so at her, you never saw; and he called her enfant Cherrytoe, or something like that"—

"Cerito," suggested Mrs. Legrange, smiling.

"Yes'm, I guess that was it; and she learned it beautifully. Have you seen her dance it?"

"Yes, the old gentleman called me Cherrytoe; and you must, mamma, and every one, because I dance so pretty, with my little toes. Will you call me Cherrytoe always, mamma?" asked 'Toinette, with such a complacent delight in her own accomplishments, that her mother's smile was sad as it was tender. But she felt that this was not the time or place to reprove the vanity so rankly springing in the child's heart; so she only said,—

"Mr. Papanti was in fun when he called you Cherrytoe, darling. She was a woman who danced better than I hope you ever will. Now, who is ready for Virginia reel?"

Tom Burroughs led Minnie Wall to the head of the set, other children rushed for places, Mrs. Legrange seated herself at the piano, and the merry dance went on; but, when it was over, Minnie Wall returned to Mrs. Legrange's side, followed by two or three more, begging her to play the cachuca, and see how nicely 'Toinette could dance it. Half unwillingly the mother complied, and found really astonished as she noticed the graceful evolutions and accurate time of the child, who went through the intricate motions of the dance without a single mistake, and, at the close, dropped her little courtesy, and kissed her little hand, with the grace and self-possession of a danseuse.

The children crowded around her with a clamor of delight and surprise; but the mother, anxiously watching her darling's flushed face and sparkling eyes, whispered to her cousin, as he playfully applauded,—

"Oh, don't, Tom! The child will be utterly ruined by so much flattery and admiration. I feel very badly about it, I assure you."

"But she is absolutely so bewitching! How can we help admiring her?" replied he, laughing.

"No: but it is wrong; it won't do," persisted Mrs. Legrange. "Just see how excited and happy she looks because they are all admiring her! You must help me to check it, Tom. Come, you are so famous for stories, tell them one about a peacock, or something,—a story with a moral about being vain, you know, only not too pointed."

"A pill with a very thick sugar-coat," suggested Mr. Burroughs, and, as his cousin nodded, continued, in a louder voice,—

"A story, ladies and gentlemen! Who will listen to the humble attempts of an unfortunate improvisator?"

"Yes, yes, a story; let us have a story!" shouted with one accord both girls and boys; and with 'Toinette perched upon his knee, and the rest grouped about him, Cousin Tom began the story of THE CHILDREN OF MERRIGOLAND.

CHAPTER IV.

THE CHILDREN OF MERRIGOLAND.

ONCE upon a time, in the pleasant country of Merrigoland, all the fathers and mothers, the uncles and aunts, the grandpas and grandmas, in fact, all the grown-up people of every sort, were invited to the governor's house to spend a week; and all the cooks and chambermaids, and nurses and waiters, and coachmen and gardeners, in Merrigoland, were invited to go and wait upon them: so there was nobody left at home in any of the houses but the children; not even the babies; for their mothers had carried them in their arms to the governor's house.

"What fun!" shouted the children. "We can do every thing we have a mind to now."

"We'll eat all the cake and pies and preserves and candies in the country," said Patty Pettitoes.

"We'll swing on all the gates, and climb all the cherry-trees, and chase all the roosters, and play ball against the parlor-windows," said Tom Tearcoat.

"We'll lie down on the sofas, and read stories all day, and go to sleep before the fire at night," said Dowsabelle Dormouse.

"We'll dress up in all our mothers' clothes, and put on their rings and breastpins," said little Finnikin Fine, pushing a chair in front of the looking-glass, and climbing up to look at herself.

"We'll get our stockings dirty, and tear our frocks, and tumble our hair, and not wash our hands at dinner-time, nor put on our eating-aprons," said Georgie Tearcoat, Tom's younger sister.

"Yes, yes: we'll all do just as we like best for a whole week; for father and mother said we might!" shouted all the children in Merrigoland, and then laughed so loud, that the mice ran out of their holes to see what was the matter; and the cats never noticed them, they were so busy sticking the hair straight up on their backs, and making their tails look like chimney-brushes; while all the birds in the pleasant gardens of Merrigoland fluttered their wings, and sung,—

"Only listen to the row!
What in the world's the matter now?
Tweet, tweet! Can't sing a note;
My heart's just jumping out of my throat.
Bobolink, bobolink,
What do you think?
Is the world very glad,
Or has it gone mad?"

So the children all did what they liked best, and frolicked in the sunshine like a swarm of butterflies, or like several hundred little kittens, until it came night; and then they went into the houses, and put themselves to bed. But some of them, I am afraid, forgot to say their prayers when their mammas were not there to remind them of it.

The next morning they all jumped up, and dressed very gayly (for children do not often lie in bed), and came down to breakfast: but, lo and behold! there was no breakfast ready, nor even any fire in the ranges and cooking-stoves, and in some houses not even any shavings and kindling wood to make a fire; and the cows, who were mostly of a Scotch breed, came to the bars, calling,—

"Moo, moo, moo!
Who'll milk us noo?"

and the hens all stuck their heads through the bars of the poultry-yard fence, and cried,—

"Kah-dah-cut, kah-dah-cut!
Are you having your hair cut?
Can you give us some corn
This beautiful morn?"

and the pigeons came flying down to the back door, murmuring,—

"Coo, coo, coo!
Must we breakfast on dew?"

and all the little children began to cry as loud as they could, and call,—

"Mamma, mamma, mamma!
I want you and papa!"

So, altogether, the older children were just about crazy, and felt as if they'd like to cry too. But that never would do, of course; for nobody cries when old enough to know better: so after running round to each others' houses, and talking a little, they agreed they would all work together, and that every one should do what he could do best. So Tom Tearcoat, instead of climbing trees, and smashing the furniture with his hatchet, went and split kindlings in all the wood-houses; and his sister Georgie, who never wanted to be in the house, carried them into the kitchens; and Patty Pettitoes tried her hand at cooking, instead of eating; and Dowsabelle Dormouse made the beds, and beat up the sofa-pillows; and Mattie Motherly, whose chief delight was playing at housekeeping in her baby-house, set the tables, and put the parlors to rights. But there seemed to be nothing that Finnikin Fine could do; for she had never thought of any thing but dressing, in all the gay clothes she could get, and looking into the mirror until she had worn quite a place in the carpet before it. But, at last, someone said,—

"Oh! Finnikin may dress the little children: that will suit her best."

So Finnikin tried to do that. But she spent so much time tying up the little girls' sleeves with ribbons, and parting the little boys' hair behind, that, when breakfast-time came, they were not half ready, and began to cry,—

"O Finnikin, O!
Don't spend your time so,
But put on our dresses,
And smooth out our tresses;
We don't care for curls,
Either boys or girls,
If we are but neat,
And may sit down to eat."

So at last Finnikin followed their advice, and, when she had dressed all the children, was so tired and hungry, that she was glad to sit down and eat her breakfast without even looking in the mirror once while she was at table.

But nobody knew how to milk the cows; and, although Tom and Georgie Tearcoat tried with all their might, they could not manage to get a drop of milk from one of them, and no one else even tried. But, just as the children were all wondering what they should do, little Peter Phinn, who had been listening and looking, with his hands in the pockets of his ragged trousers, and a broad grin on his freckled face, said slowly,—

"I know how to milk."

"You do! Why didn't you say so, Peter Phinn?" cried all the children angrily.

"Oh! I didn't know as you'd want me and Merry amongst you," said
Peter.

"Why not? Of course we do," said Patty Pettitoes, who was a very good-natured little girl.

"Because Finnikin Fine told Merry once she wasn't fit to play with her, when her clothes was so poor," said Peter.

"Did Finnikin say that?" asked Patty.

"Yes, she did, sure; and she called her a little Paddy, and said, if she wore such an old, mean gown and bonnet, she'd ought to keep out of the way of folks that dressed nicer, as she did."

Then all the children turned and looked at Finnikin Fine, and said,—

"Oh, shame, Finnikin! for shame to talk so to good little Merry
Phinn!"

Then Finnikin hung down her head, and blushed very much, and began to cry; but Merry Phinn went close to her, and whispered,—

"Never mind them, honey. I'll forget it sooner than you will, and
I'll come and help you dress the children tomorrow morning."

"And I'll give you my new pink muslin, and my white beads, and my bronze slippers with pink rosettes, and, and," began Finnikin; but Merry put her little brown hand over her mouth, and said, laughing,—

"And, if I get all these fine things, I'd be as bad as yourself, Finny darling. No: I'll wear my calico gown, and my sun-bonnet, and my strong shoes; and you'll see I can get to my work or my play without half the bother you'd make in your finery."

So Finnikin, still blushing, and crying a little, put her arm round Merry's neck, and kissed her; and then she ran and took off the rinses and pins and ribbons and flowers she had found time since breakfast to put on, and changed her blue silk dress for a neat gingham and a white apron, and put her hair into a net, instead of the wreath and curls it had cost her so much trouble to arrange. And, when she came down stairs again, all the children cried,—

"Only see how pretty Finnikin Fine is in her plain dress! She looks like a little girl now, instead of a wax doll in a toy-shop window."

"Yes," said Tom Tearcoat; "and a fellow could play with her now in some comfort. It used to be,—

"'Dear me, you rude boy! you've gone and torn my flounce!' or, 'You've spoilt my bow!' or, 'Dear me, you troublesome creature! you've made me so nervous!'"

Every one laughed to hear Tom mimic Finnikin, he did it so well; but, when they saw that the little girl herself was troubled by it, they left off directly, and began to talk of other things; and Tom came and tucked a big green apple into her pocket, and a lump of maple-sugar into her hand.

Then Peter and Merry, who had always been used to waiting upon themselves, and doing all the work they were able to do, showed the other children many things which they needed to know, and helped them in so many ways, that the troubles of the morning were soon forgotten; and when, after clearing away the dinner, the little people all came out to play upon the green, they agreed to crown Peter and Merry King, and Queen of Merrigoland from three o'clock in the afternoon until sunset, because they were the only boy and girl in all the land who knew how to do the work that must every day be done to make us all comfortable. But Peter and Merry, who were very sensible as well as very good-natured children, said,—

"No, no, no! There shall be no kings or queens in Merrigoland. We will teach you all that we know, and you shall teach us all that you know, and so we will help each other; and no one shall think himself better than any one else, or forget that none of us can do well without the help of all the rest."

So the children shouted,—

"Hurrah for Peter and Merry, and down with fine ways and fine clothes!"

And then they gave three cheers so loud, that the fathers and mothers, and grandpas and grandmas, and uncles and aunts, and brothers and sisters, heard them, as they sat at dinner in the governor's house; and all came trooping home in a great hurry to see what was the matter.

But when they heard the story, and found how well the children were going on, they said,—

"We could teach them nothing better than what they are learning for themselves. We may let them alone."

So they all went back to the governor's house, and spent the rest of the week, and"—

"Tea is ready, Mrs. Legrange," said James at the parlor-door.

CHAPTER V.

THE RUNAWAY.

TEA was over, and the little guests made ready to go home. Cousin Tom, declining Mrs. Legrange's invitation to dinner on plea of another engagement, delighted Miss Minnie Wall's heart by offering to wait upon her home, but rather injured the effect of his politeness by taking Willy and Jerry Noble upon the other side, and talking pegtop with them as glibly as he talked opera with the young lady.

As for the rest, some went alone, some with their nurses, some with each other. Little Bessie Rider was the last; and, when the nurse did not come for her as had been promised, Mrs. Legrange bid Susan lead her home, leaving 'Toinette in the drawing-room till her return.

"And I must go and lie down a little before I dress for dinner," continued she to 'Toinette. "So, Sunshine, I shall leave you here alone, if you will promise not to touch anything you should not, or to go too near the fire."

The little girl promised; and, with a lingering kiss, her mother left her.

Alone in the twilight, 'Toinette sat for a while upon the rug, watching the bright coals as they tinkled through the grate, or rushed in roaring flame up the chimney.

"I wish I was a fire-fairy, and lived in that big red hole right in the middle of the fire," thought 'Toinette. "Then I would wear such a beautiful dress just like gold, and a wreath on my head all blazing with fire; and I would dance a-tiptoe away up the chimney and into the sky: and perhaps I should come to heaven; no, to the sun. I wonder if the sun is heaven for the fire-fairies, and I wonder if they dance in the sunset."

So 'Toinette jumped up, and, running to one of the long windows, put her little eager face close to the glass, and looked far away across the square, and down the long street beyond, to the beautiful western sky, all rosy and golden and purple with the sunset-clouds; while just above them a great white star stood trembling in the deep blue, as if frightened at finding itself out all alone in the night.

"No," thought 'Toinette; "I don't want to be a fire-fairy, and dance in the sunset: I want to be a—a angel, I guess, and live in that beautiful star. Then I'd have a dress all white and shining like mamma's that she wore to the ball. But mamma said the little girl in the story was naughty to like her pretty dress, and she weared a gingham one when she was good. Guess I won't be any fairy. I'll be Finnikin Fine, and wear a gingham gown and apron. I'll tell papa to carry away the bracelets too. I'm going to be good like Merry that weared a sun-bonnet."

Eager to commence the proposed reform, 'Toinette tugged at the bracelet upon her left shoulder until she broke the clasp and tore the pretty lace of her under-sleeve.

"Dear, dear, what a careless child!" exclaimed the little girl, remembering the phrase so often repeated to her. "But it ain't any matter, I guess," added she, brightening up; "for I shan't have any under-sleeve to my gingham dress. Susan's aunt doesn't."

'Toinette paused, with her hand upon the other bracelet trying to remember whether Susan, or the little girl who came to see her, was the aunt. The question was not settled, when the sound of music in the street below attracted 'Toinette's attention. Clinging to the window-ledge so as to see over the iron railing of the balcony, she peeped down, and saw a small dark man walking slowly by the house, turning the crank of a hand-organ which he carried at his side. Upon the organ was perched a monkey, dressed in a red coat with gilt buttons, a little cocked hat, and blue trousers. He was busily eating a seed-cake; pausing now and then to look about him in a sort of anxious way, chattering all the while as if he thought some one wanted to take it away from him.

'Toinette had never before seen a monkey; and she stared at this one in great surprise and delight, taking him for a little man, and his inarticulate chattering for words in some foreign language such as she had sometimes heard spoken.

The music also suited the little girl's ear better than the best strains of the Italian opera would have done; and altogether she was resolved to see and hear more both of the monkey and the music.

"Mamma's asleep, and Susan gone out; so I can't ask leave, but I'll only stay a little tiny minute, and tell the little man what is his name, and what he is saying," reasoned the pretty runaway, primly wrapping herself in her mother's breakfast-shawl left lying upon the sofa, and tying her handkerchief over her head.

"Now I's decent, and the cold won't catch me," murmured she, regarding herself in the mirror with much satisfaction, and then running softly down stairs. Susan, thinking she should be back directly, had left the catch-latch of the front-door fastened up: so 'Toinette had only to turn the great silver handle of the other latch; and this, by putting both hands to it and using all her strength, she finally succeeded in doing, although she could not close the door behind her. Leaving it ajar, 'Toinette ran down the steps, and looked eagerly along the square until she discovered the hand-organ man with his monkey just turning the corner, and flew after him as fast as her little feet would carry her. But, with all her haste, the man had already turned another corner before she overtook him, and was walking, more quickly than he had yet done, down a narrow street. He was not playing now; but the monkey, who had finished his cake, was climbing over his master's shoulders, running down his arms and back, chattering, grinning, making faces, and evidently having a little game of romps on his own account.

'Toinette, very much amused, tripped along behind, talking as fast as the monkey, and asking all manner of questions, to none of which either monkey or man made any reply; while all the time the beautiful rosy light was fading out of the west, and the streets were growing dark and crowded; and as the organ-grinder, followed by 'Toinette, turned from one into another, each was dirtier and narrower and more disagreeable than the last.

All at once, the man, after hesitating for a moment, dashed across the street, and into a narrow alley opposite. Two or three dirt-carts were passing at the same time; and 'Toinette, afraid to follow, stood upon the edge of the sidewalk, looking wistfully after him, and beginning to wonder if she ought not to be going home.

While she wondered, a number of rude boys came rushing by; and, either by accident or malice, the largest one, in passing the little girl, pushed her so roughly, that she stumbled off the sidewalk altogether, and fell into the gutter.

A little hurt, a good deal frightened, and still more indignant, 'Toinette picked herself up, and looked ruefully at the mud upon her pretty dress, but would not allow herself to cry, as she longed to do.

"If I'd got my gingham dress on, it wouldn't do so much harm," thought she, her mind returning to the story she had that afternoon heard; and then all at once an anxious longing for home and mother seized the little heart, and sent the tiny feet flying up the narrow street as fast as they could move. But, at the corner, 'Toinette, who never had seen the street before, took the wrong turn; and, although she ran as fast as she could, every step now led her farther from home, and deeper into the squalid by-streets and alleys, among which she was lost.

CHAPTER VI.

MOTHER WINCH.

IN a narrow court, hardly lighted by the one gas-light flaring at its entrance, 'Toinette stopped, and, looking dismally about her, began at last to cry. At the sound, a crooked old woman, with a great bag on her back, who had been resting upon the step of a door close by, although the little girl had not noticed her, rose, and came toward her.

"What's the matter, young one?" asked the old woman harshly.

"I don't know the way home, and I'm lost!" said 'Toinette, wiping her eyes, and looking doubtfully at the old woman, who was very dark and hairy as to the face, very blinking and wicked as to the eyes, and very crooked and warped as to figure, while her dress seemed to be a mass of rags held together by dirt.

"Lost, be you?" asked this unpleasant old woman, seizing Mrs. Legrange's beautiful breakfast-shawl, and twitching it off the child's shoulders. "And where'd you git this 'ere pretty shawl?"

"It's my mamma's, and you'd better not touch it; you might soil it, you know," said 'Toinette anxiously.

"Heh! Why, I guess you're a little lady, ain't you? B'long to the big-bugs, don't you?"

"I don't know. I want to go home," stammered 'Toinette, perplexed and frightened.

"Well, you come right in here along o' me, and wait till I get my pack off; then I'll show you the way home," said the woman, as, seizing the little girl's hand, she led her to the bottom of the court, and down some steps into a foul-smelling cellar-room, perfectly dark, and very cold.

"You stop right there till I get a light," said the woman, letting go the child's hand when they reached the middle of the room. "Don't ye budge now."

Too much frightened to speak, or even cry, 'Toinette did as she was bid, and stood perfectly still until the old woman had found a match, and, drawing it across the rusty stove, lighted a tallow candle, and stuck it into the mouth of a junk-bottle. This she set upon the table; and, sinking into a chair beside it, stretched out a skinny hand, and, seizing 'Toinette by the arm, dragged her close to her.

"Yes, you kin let me have that pooty shawl, little gal, cause—Eh, what fine clo'es we've got on!" exclaimed the hag, as, pulling off the shawl 'Toinette had again wrapped about her, she examined her dress attentively for a moment, and then, fixing her eyes sternly upon the child, continued angrily,—

"Now look at here, young un. Them ain't your clo'es; you know they ain't. You stole 'em."

"Stealed my clothes!" exclaimed 'Toinette in great indignation.
"Why, no, I didn't. Mamma gave them to me, and Susan sewed them."

"No sech a thing, you young liar!" returned the old woman, shaking her roughly by one arm. "You stole 'em; and I'm a-going to take 'em off, and give you back your own, or some jist like 'em. Then I'll carry these fine fixings to the one they b'long to. Come, now, no blubbering. Strip off, I tell yer."

As she spoke, she twirled the little girl round, and began to pull open the buttons of her dress. In doing this, her attention was attracted by the bracelet looping up the right sleeve; 'Toinette having, it will be remembered, pulled off the other, and left it at home.

"Hi, hi! What sort o' gimcrack you got here?" exclaimed she, pulling at it, until, as 'Toinette had done with the other, she broke the links between two of the cameos, without unclasping the bracelet.

"Hi! that's pooty! Now, what a young wretch you be for to go and say that ere's yourn!" added she severely, as she held the trinket out of reach of the little girl, who eagerly cried,—

"It is, it is mine! Papa gave me both of them, 'cause it's my birthday. They're my bracelets; only mamma said I was too little to wear them on my arms like she does, and she tied up my sleeves with them."

"Where's t'other one, then?"

"It's at home. I pulled it off 'cause I was going to be like Merry, that weared a sun-bonnet, and didn't have any bracelets."

"Sun-bonnet! What d'ye want of a sun-bonnet, weather like this? I'll give you my old hood; that's more like it, I reckon," replied the hag, amused, in spite of herself, by the prattle of the child. 'Toinette hesitated.

"No," said she at last: "I guess you'd better give me my own very clo'ses, and carry me home. Then mamma will give me a gingham dress and a sun-bonnet; and maybe she'll give you my pretty things, if you want them."

"Thanky for nothing, miss. I reckon it'll be a saving of trouble to take em now. I don't b'lieve a word about your ma'am giving 'em to you; and, more'n all, I don't b'lieve you've got no ma'am."

So saying, she rudely stripped off, first the dress, then the underclothes, and finally even the, stockings and pretty gaiter-boots; so that the poor child, frightened, ashamed, and angry, stood at last with no covering but the long ringlets of her golden hair, which, as she, sobbing, hid her face in her hands, fell about her like a veil.

Leaving her thus, the old woman rummaged for a few moments in a heap of clothes thrown into the corner of the room,—the result, apparently, of many a day's begging or theft. From them she presently produced a child's nightgown, petticoat, and woollen skirt, a pair of coarse shoes much worn, and an old plaid shawl: with these she approached 'Toinette.

"See! I've got your own clo'es here all ready for you. Ain't I good?"

"They ain't my clothes: I won't have 'em on. Go away, you naughty lady, you ain't good a bit!" screamed 'Toinette, passionately striking at the clothes and the hand that held them.

"Come, come, miss, none o' them airs! Take that, now, and mend your manners!" exclaimed the old woman with a blow upon the bare white shoulder, which left the print of all her horny fingers. It was the first time in all her life that 'Toinette had been struck; and the blood rushed to her face, and then away, leaving her as white as marble. She cried no more, but, fixing her eyes upon the face of the old woman, said solemnly,—

"Now the Lord doesn't love you. Did you know it was the bad spirits that made you strike me? Mamma said so when I struck Susan."

"Shut up! I don't want none of your preaching, miss," replied the woman angrily. "Here, put on these duds about the quickest, or I'll give you worse than that. Lor, what a mess of hair! What's the good on't? Maybe, though, they'd give some'at for it to the store."

She took a large pair of shears from the table-drawer as she spoke, and, grasping the shining, curls in her left hand, rapidly snipped them from the head, leaving it rough, tangled, and hardly to be recognized.

'Toinette no longer resisted, or even cried. The blow of that rough hand seemed to have stunned or stupefied her, and she stood perfectly quiet, her face pale, her eyes fixed, and her trembling lips a little apart; while the old woman, after laying the handful of curls carefully aside, dragged on the clothes she had selected, in place of those she was stealing, and finished by trying the plaid shawl around the child's shoulders, fastening it in a great knot behind, and placing a dirty old hood upon the shorn head.

"There, now, you'll do, I guess; and we'll go take you home: only mind you don't speak a word to man, woman, nor child, as we go; for, if you do, I'll fetch you right back here, and shut you up with Old Bogy in that closet."

So saying, she bundled up 'Toinette's own clothes, slipped the bracelet into her pocket, then, with the parcel in one hand, grasped the child's arm with the other, and led her out into the street.

"Will you really take me home?" asked 'Toinette piteously, as they climbed the broken steps leading from the cellar to the pavement.

"There, now! What did I tell yer?" exclaimed the woman angrily, and turning as if to go back. "Now come along, and I will give you to Old Bogy."

"No, no! oh, please, don't! I will be good. I won't say a word any more. I forgotten that time, I did;" and the timid child, pale and trembling, clung to the wretch beside her as if she had been her dearest friend.

"Well, then, don't go into fits, and I'll let you off this time; but see that you don't open your head agin, or it'll be all up with yer."

"Yes'm," said the poor child submissively; and, taking her once more by the hand, the old woman led her rapidly along the filthy street, now entirely dark except for the gaslights, and more strange to 'Toinette's eyes than Fairy-land would have been. As they turned the corner, a tall, broad-shouldered man, dressed in a blue coat with brass buttons, and a glazed cap, who stood leaning against the wall, looked sharply at them, and called out,

"Hullo, Mother Winch! What's up to-night?"

"Nothing, yer honor,—nothing at all. Me and little Biddy Mahoney's going to leave some duds at the pawnbroker's for her mother, who's most dead with the fever."

"Well, well, go along; only look out you carry no more than you honestly come by," said the policeman, walking leisurely up the street.

Mother Winch turned in the opposite direction, and, still tightly grasping 'Toinette's arm, led her through one street after another, until, tired and bewildered, the poor child clung with half-closed eyes to the filthy skirts of the old woman, and stumbled along, neither seeing nor knowing which way they went.

"Hold up, can't ye, gal!" exclaimed Mother Winch, as the child tripped, and nearly fell. "Or, if you're so tired as all that, set down on that door-stone, and wait for me a minute." Pushing her down upon the step as she spoke, Mother Winch hurried away so fast, that, before 'Toinette's tired little brain could fairly understand what was said, she found herself alone, with no creature in sight all up and down the narrow street, except a cross-looking dog walking slowly along the pavement toward her. For one moment, she sat wondering what she had better do; and then, as the cross-looking dog fixed his eyes upon her with a sullen growl, she started to her feet, and ran as fast as she could in the direction taken by Mother Winch. Just at the corner of the alley, something glittering upon the sidewalk attracted her attention; and, stooping to pick it up, she uttered a little cry of surprise and pleasure. It was her own coral bracelet, which had traveled round in Mother Winch's pocket until it came to a hole in the bottom, and quietly slipping out, and down her skirts to the pavement, lay waiting for its little mistress to pick it up.

'Toinette kissed it again and again, not because it was a bracelet but because her father had given it to her; and it seemed somehow to take her back a little way toward him and home. It must have been this she meant, in saying as she did,—

"I guess you have come after me, pretty bracelet, hasn't you? and we'll go home together."

And so, hugging the toy as close to her heart as she would have liked herself to be hugged to her mother's heart, 'Toinette wandered on and on through the dark and lonely streets, her little face growing paler and paler, her little feet more and more weary, her heart swelling fuller and fuller with fright and desolation; until at last, stopping suddenly, she looked up at the sky, all alive now with the crowding stars, and with a great sob whispered,—

"Pretty stars, please tell God I'm lost. I think he doesn't know about it, or he'd send me home."

And then, as the wild sob brought another and another, 'Toinette sank down in the doorway of a deserted house, and, covering her face with her hands, cried as she had never cried in all her little life.

CHAPTER VII.

TEDDY'S LITTLE SISTER.

"THERE, honey!" said Mrs. Ginniss, giving the last rub to the shirt-bosom she was polishing, and setting her flat-iron back on the stove with a smack,—"there, honey; and I couldn't have done better by that buzzum if ye'd been the Prisidint."

Mrs. Ginniss was alone, so that one might at first have been a little puzzled to know whom she addressed as "honey;" but as she continued to talk while unfolding another shirt, and laying it upon her ironing-board, it became evident that she was addressing the absent owner of the garments.

"And sure it's many a maner man they've made their prisidints out on, and sorra a better one they'd find betune here and Canady. It's yees that have the free hand and the kind way wid yees, for all your grand looks. The good Lord save and keep ye all the days of yer life!"

A wrinkle in the wristband here absorbed the attention of the laundress; and, while smoothing it out, she forgot to continue what she had been saying, but, as she once more ironed briskly upon the sleeve, began upon a new subject.

"And it's late ye're agin, Teddy Ginniss, bad 'cess to yees! And thin it's mesilf that should take shame for saying it; for niver a b'y of them all is so good to his ould mother, and niver a one of 'em all that his mother's got so good a right to be proud on, as Ted. But where is the cratur? His supper's cowld as charity wid stannin."

At this moment a heavy step was heard upon the stairs, as of some one climbing slowly up with a heavy burden in his arms. Mrs. Ginniss paused to listen, holding the iron suspended over the collar she had just smoothed ready for it.

"Murther an' all!" muttered she. "And what's the crather got wid him anyhow? Shure an it's him; for, if it wor Jovarny with his orgin, he'd ha' stopped below."

The heavy steps reached the top of the stairs as she spoke, and clumped along the narrow passage to the door of Mrs. Ginniss's garret. She was already holding it open.

"Teddy, b'y, an' is it yersilf?" asked she, peering out into the darkness.

"Yes, mother, its meself," panted a boy's voice, as a stout young fellow, about fifteen years old, staggered into the room, and sank upon a chair.

"Saints an' angels, child! and what have ye got there?" exclaimed his mother, bending over the something that filled Teddy's arms and lap.

"It's a little girl, mother; and I'm feared she's dead!" panted
Teddy.

"A little girl, an' she's dead! Oh, wurra, wurra, Teddy Ginniss, that iver I should be own mother to a murderer! An' is it yersilf that kilt the purty darlint?"

"Meself, mother!" exclaimed the boy indignantly. "Sure and it wasn't; and I wouldn't 'a thought you'd have needed to ask. I found her on a doorstep in Tanner's Court: and first I thought she was asleep, and so I shook her to tell her to go home before the Charley got her; and then, when she wouldn't wake up, I saw she was either fainted or dead; and I fetched her home to you,—and it's you that go for to call me a murtherer! Oh, oh!"

As he uttered these last sounds, the boy's wide mouth puckered up in a comical look of distress, and he rubbed the cuff of his jacket across his blinking eyes. Mrs. Ginniss gave him a slap, on the shoulder, intended to be playful, but actually heavy enough to have thrown a slighter person out of the chair.

"Whisht, honey, whisht!" said she. "And it's an ould fool I am wid me fancies an' me frights. But let us looks at the poor little crather ye've brought home to me. Sure and it was like yees, Teddy, b'y."

As she spoke, she took from Teddy's arms the little lifeless form, with its pale, still face, and laid it gently upon her own bed.

"Oh thin! an' it's a shame to see the party darlint lay like that and I'm 'feared, unless the breath's in her yet, she's dead intirely," muttered the good woman, rubbing the little hands in her own, and gently feeling for the beating of the heart.

"Maybe it's only the cold and the hunger that's ailing her, and she'll come to with the fire and vittels. She can have my supper and my breakfast too, and a welcome with it," said Teddy eagerly.

"The cowld, maybe, it is; for her clothes is nixt to nothing, an' the flesh of her's like a stone wid the freezing: but she's got enough to ate, or she never'd be so round an' plump. It's like she's the child of some beggar-woman that's fed her on broken vittels, an', whin she got tired ov trampin' wid her, jist dropped her on the doorstep where yees got her.—Howly mother! what's this?"

Mrs. Ginniss, as she spoke, had taken the little lifeless form upon her lap close to the stove, and was undressing it, when, among the folds of the old shawl crossed over the bosom, she found a bracelet of coral cameos, set in gold, and fastened with a handsome clasp.

She held it up, stared at it a moment, and then looked anxiously at
Teddy.

"An' where did this splindid armlit come from, Teddy Ginniss?" asked she sharply.

"Sorra a bit of me knows, thin; an' is it a thafe ye'll be callin' me as well as a murtherer!" exclaimed the boy, falling, in his agitation, into the Irish brogue he was generally so careful to avoid.

"Whisht, ye spalpeen! an' lave it on the mantletry till we see if the breath's in her yit. Sure an' sich a little crather niver could have stole it."

Teddy, with an air of dignified resentment, took the bracelet from his mother's hand, and laid it upon the mantlepiece; while Mrs. Ginniss, with a troubled look upon her broad face, finished stripping the little form, and began rubbing it all over with her warm hands.

"Power some warm wather into the biggest wash-tub, Teddy, an' I'll thry puttin' her in it. It's what the Yankee doctor said to do wid yees, whin yees had fits; an' it niver did no harm, anyways."

"Is it a fit she's got?" asked Teddy, with a look of awe upon his face.

"The good Lord knows what's she's got, or who she is. Mabbe the good folk put her where yees got her. Niver a beggar-brat before had a skin so satin-smooth, an' hands an' feet like rose-leaves and milk. An' look how clane she is from head to heel! Niver a corpse ready for the wakin' was nater."

"The water's ready now," said Teddy, pushing the tub close to his mother's side, and then walking away to the window. For some moments, the gentle plashing of the water was the only sound he heard; but then his mother hastily exclaimed,—

"Glory be to God an' to his saints! The purty crather's alive, and lookin' at me wid the two blue eyes av her like a little angel! Han' me the big tow'l till I rub her dhry."

Teddy ran with the towel; and as his mother hastily wrapped her little charge in her apron, and reseated herself before the fire, he caught sight of two great bright eyes staring up at him, and joyfully cried,—

"She's alive, she's alive! and she'll be my little sister, and we'll keep her always, won't we, mother?"

"Wait, thin, till we see if it's here she is in the morning, said his mother mysteriously.

"And where else would she be, if not here?" asked Teddy in surprise.

"If it war the good folks, Meaning the fairies, whom the Irish people call by this name. that browt her, it's they that will fetch her away agin 'fore the daylight. Wait till mornin', Teddy darlint."

But, in spite of her suspicions, Mrs. Ginniss did all for the little stranger that she could have done for her own child, even to heating and giving to her the cupful of milk reserved for her own "tay" during the next day, and warming her in her own bosom all through the long, cold night.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FAYVER.

"AND is she here, mother?" asked Teddy, rushing into his mother's room next morning as soon as there was light enough to see.

"Yis, b'y, she's here; but it's not long she'll be, savin' the mercy o' God. It's the heavy sickness that's on her the morn."

"And will she die, mother?"

"The good Lord knows, not the likes of me, Teddy darlint."

"And you'll keep her, and do for her, mother, won't you?" asked the boy anxiously.

"Sure and it wouldn't be Judy Ginniss that'd turn out a dying child, let alone sending her to the poor'us. Thim that sint her to us will sind us the manes to kape her," said the Irish woman confidently; and leaving her little moaning, feverish charge dozing uneasily, she rose, and went about the labors of the day.

"Here's the masther's shirts done, Teddy; and ye'd betther take thim to his lodgings before yees go to the office. More by token, it's him as u'd tell us what we'd ought to be doin' wid the darlint, if she lives, or if she dies. Tell the masther all ye know uv her, Teddy; an' ax him to set us sthraight."

"No, no, mother!" exclaimed Teddy eagerly; "I'll be doing no such thing: for it's ourselves wants her, and any thing the master would say would take her away from us. Sure and how often I've said I'd give all ever I had for a little sister to be my own, and love me, and go walking with me, and be took care by me; and, now one is sent, if it's the good folks or if it's the good God sent her, I'm going to keep her all myself. Sure, mother, you'll never be crossing me in this, when it's yourself never crossed me yet; and more by token, it'll keep me out of the streets, and such."

"Thrue for ye, Teddy; though it's you was alluz the good b'y to shtop at home, an' niver ax fur coompany savin' yer poor owld mother," said the washerwoman, looking fondly at her son.

"And you'll keep the child, and say nothing to nobody but she's our own; won't you, mother?" persisted Teddy.

"Yis, b'y, if it's yer heart is set on it."

"It is that, mother; and you're the good mother, and it's I always knowed, I mean knew it. And will I bring home a doctor to the little sister?"

"No, Teddy; not yit. Faix, an' it's hard enough to live when we're well; but it's too poor intirely we are to be sick. Whin the time cooms to die, it's no doctherin' 'll kape us."

Teddy looked wistfully at the little burning face upon the coarse, clean pillow: but he knew that what his mother said was true; and, without reply, he took up the parcel of clothes, and left the room.

All through the long day, Mrs. Ginniss, toiling at her wash-tubs, found a moment here and another there to sit upon the edge of the bed, and smooth her little patient's hair, or moisten her glowing lips and burning forehead, trying at intervals to induce her to speak, if even but one word, in answer to her tender inquiries; but all in vain: for the child already lay in the stupor preceding the delirium of a violent fever, and an occasional moan or sigh was the only sound that escaped her lips.

Toward night, Teddy, returning home an hour earlier than usual, came bounding up the stairs, two at a time, but, pausing at the door, entered as softly as a cat.

"How is the little sister now, mother?" asked he anxiously.

"Purty nigh as bad as bad can be, Teddy," said his mother sorrowfully, standing aside as she spoke that the boy might see the burning face, dull, half-closed eyes, and blackening lips of the sick child, and touch the little hands feebly plucking at the blanket with fingers that seemed to scorch the boy's healthy skin as he closed them in his palm.

Teddy looked long and earnestly,—looked up at his mother's sad face, and down again at the "little sister" whom he had taken to his heart when he first took her to his arms; and then, shutting his lips close together, and swallowing hard to keep down the great sob that seemed like to strangle him, he turned, and rushed out of the room. Mrs. Ginniss looked after him, and wiped her eyes.

"It's the luvin' heart he has, the crather," murmured she. "An' if the baby wor his own sisther, it's no more he could care for her. Sure an' if the Lord spares her to us, it's Teddy's sisther she shall be, forever an' aye, while me two fists hoold out to work fer 'em."

An hour later, Teddy returned, conducting a stranger. Rushing into the room before him, the boy threw his arms around his mother's neck, and whispered hastily, in his broadest brogue,—

"It's a docther; an' he'll cure the sisther; an' it's not a cint he'll be afther axin' us: but don't let on that she's not our own."

Mrs. Ginniss rose, and courtesied to the young man, who now followed
Teddy into the room, saying pleasantly,—

"Good evening, ma'am. I am Dr. Wentworth; and I came to see your little girl by request of Teddy here, who said you would like a doctor if you could have one without paying him."

Mrs. Ginniss courtesied again, but with rather a wrathful look at
Teddy, as she said,—

"And it's sorry I am the b'y should be afther beggin' of yees, docther. I thought he'd more sinse than to be axin' yees to give away yer time, that's as good as money to yees."

"But my time is not as good as money by any means," said Dr. Wentworth, laughing as he took off his hat and coat; "for I have very little to do except to attend patients who cannot give more than their thanks in payment. That is the way we young doctors begin."

"An' is that so indade! Sure an' 'Meriky's the place fur poor folks quite an' intirely," said Mrs. Ginniss admiringly.

"For some sorts of poor people, and not for others. Unfortunately, bakers, butchers, and tailors do not practise gratuitously; so we poor doctors, lawyers, and parsons have to play give without take," said the young man, warming his hands a moment over the cooking-stove.

"An' sure it was out of a Protistint Bible that I heard wonst, 'Him as gives to the poor linds to the Lord:' so, in the ind, it's yees that'll come in wid your pockets full, if ye belave yer own Scripter," said Mrs. Ginniss shrewdly.

The young doctor gave her a sharp glance out of his merry brown eyes, but only answered, as he walked on to the bedside,—

"You have it there, my friend."

For several moments, there was silence in the little room while Dr. Wentworth felt his patient's pulse, looked at her tongue, examined her eyes, and passed his hand over the burning skin.

"H'm! Typhoid, without doubt," said he to himself, and then to Mrs.
Ginniss,—

"Can you tell the probable cause of the child's illness, ma'am? Has she been exposed to any sudden chill, or any long-continued cold or fatigue?"

Mrs. Ginniss was about to reply by telling all she knew of the little stranger; but catching Teddy's imploring look, and the gesture with which he seemed to beg her to keep the secret of his "little sister's" sudden adoption, she only answered,—

"Sure an' it's the cowld she took last night but one is workin' in her."

"She took cold night before last? How was it?" pursued the doctor.

"She was out late in the street, sure, an' the clothes she'd got wasn't warm enough," said the washwoman, her eyes still fixed on Teddy, who, from behind the doctor, was making every imploring gesture he could invent to prevent her from telling the whole truth. The doctor did not fail to notice the hesitation and embarrassment of the woman's manner, but remembering what Teddy had told him of his mother's poverty, and her own little betrayal of pride when he first entered, naturally concluded that she was annoyed at having to say that the child had been sent into the street without proper clothing, and forbore to press the question.

Ah Teddy and Teddy's mother! if you had loved the truth as well as you loved little lost 'Toinette, how much suffering, anxiety, and anguish you would have saved to her and her's!

But the doctor asked no more questions, except such as Mrs. Ginniss could answer without hesitation; and pretty soon went away, promising to come again next day, and taking Teddy with him to the infirmary where medicine is furnished without charge to those unable to pay for it.

Before the boy returned, 'Toinette had passed from the stupid to the delirious stage of her fever; and all that night, as he woke or dozed in his little closet close beside his mother's door, poor Teddy's heart ached to hear the wild tones of entreaty, of terror, or of anger, proving to his mind that the delicate child he already loved so well had suffered much and deeply, and that at no distant period.

Toward morning, he dressed, and crept into his mother's room. The washerwoman sat in the clothes she had worn at bed-time, patiently fanning her little charge, and, half asleep herself, murmuring constantly,—

"Ah thin, honey, whisht, whisht! It's nothin' shall harm ye now, darlint! Asy, now, asy, mavourneen! Whisht, honey, whisht!"

"Lie down and sleep, mother, and let me sit by her," whispered Teddy in his mother's ear; and, with a nod, the weary woman crept across the foot of the bed, and was asleep in a moment.

CHAPTER IX.

THE NIGHT-WATCH.

TEDDY, waving the old palm-leaf fan up and down with as much care as if it had carried the breath of life to his poor little charge, sat for some time very quiet, listening to her wild prattle without trying to interrupt it; until, after lying still for a few moments, she suddenly fixed her eyes upon him, and said,—

"Oh! you're Peter Phinn, sister to Merry that weared a sun-bonnet, ain't you?"

The question seemed so conscious and rational, that Teddy answered eagerly,—

"No, honey; but I'm Teddy Ginniss; and I'm going to be your brother forever and always. What's your name, sissy?"

"I'm Finny; no, I'm Cherrytoe,—I'm Cherrytoe, that dances. Want to see me dance, Peter?"

As she spoke, she started up, and would have jumped out of bed; but
Teddy laid his hand upon her arm, and said soothingly,—

"No, no, sissy; not now. Another day you shall dance for Teddy, when you're all well. And you mustn't call me Peter, 'cause I'm Teddy."

"Teddy, Teddy," repeated 'Toinette vaguely, and then, with a sudden
shrill laugh, shouted,—"'Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief;
Taffy came to my house and stole a piece of beef.' Guess you're
Taffy, ain't you?"

"No: I'm Teddy. I'm your brother Teddy," repeated the boy patiently; and then, to change the subject, added coaxingly, "And what's the pretty name you called yourself, darlint?"

"I'm Cherrytoe,—Cherrytoe that dances so pretty. Don't you hear, you great naughty lady?—Cherrytoe, Cherrytoe, Cherrytoe!"

The wild scream in which the name was repeated woke even tired Mrs.
Ginniss, who started upright, crying,—

"What's it, what's it, Teddy? Ochone! what ails the crather?"

"It's only her name she's telling, mother; and sure it's a pretty one. It's Cherrytoe."

"And what sort of a quare name is that for a christened child? Sure we'll call it Cherry; for wunst I heerd of a lady as was called that way," said Mrs. Ginniss.

"Yes, we'll call her Cherry, little sister Cherry," said Teddy, delighted with the promise implied in his mother's words of keeping the child for her own. "And, mother," added he, "mind you don't be telling the doctor nor any one that she ain't your own, or maybe they'll take her away to the 'sylum or somewheres, whether we'd like it or not: and, if they do, I'll run off to sea; I will, by ginger!"

"Whisht, thin, with your naughty words, Teddy Ginniss! Didn't I bate ye enough whin ye wor little to shtop ye from swearin'?"

"Ginger ain't swearing," replied Teddy positively. "I asked the master if it wor, and he said it worn't."

"Faith, thin, and he says it hisself, I'm thinkin'," half asked the mother, with a shrewd twinkle of her gray eyes. Teddy faltered and blushed, but answered manfully,—

"No, he don't; and he said it was low and vulgar to talk that way; and I don't, only by times."

"Well, thin, Teddy, see that yer don't, only thim times whin yer hears the masther do it forninst ye: thin it'll be time enough for ye. And don't ye be forgettin', b'y, that ye're bound to be a gintleman afore ye die. It was what yer poor daddy said when yer wor born, a twelvemonth arter we landed here. 'There, Judy,' says he, 'there's a native-born 'Merican for yees, wid as good a right to be Prisidint as the best ov 'em. Now, don't yer let him grow up a Paddy, wid no more brains nor a cow or a horse. Make a gintleman, an' a 'Merican gintleman, of the spalpeen; an' shtrike hands on it now.'

"'Troth, thin, Michael alanna, an' it's a bargain,' says I, an', wake as I wor, give him me fist out ov the bed; an' he shuk it hearty. An', though Michael died afore the year wor out, the promise I'd made him stood; an' it's more ways than iver ye'll know, Teddy Ginniss, I've turned an' twisted to kape ye dacent, an' kape ye out ov the streets, niver forgittin' for one minute that Michael had towld me there was the makin's of a gintleman in yees, an' that he'd left it to me to work it out."

To this story, familiar as it was, Teddy listened with as much attention as if he had never heard it before, and, when it was ended, said,—

"And tell about your putting me to the squire, mother."

"Yis, b'y; an' that wor the biggest bit of loock that iver I wor in yet. Two twelvemonth ago come Christmas it wor, an' iver an' always I had been thinkin' what 'ud I do wid ye nixt, when Ann Dolan towld me how her sisther's son had got a chance wid a lawyer to clane out his bit ov an office, and run wid arrants an' sich, an' wor to have fifty dollars a year, wid the chance ov larnin' what he could out ov all thim big books as does be in sich places. Thin it somehow kim inter my head so sudden like, that it's sartain sure I am it was Michael come out ov glory to whishper it in my ear: 'There's Misther Booros'll mebbe do as much for your Teddy.' I niver spoke the first word to Ann Dolan, but lapped my shawl about me, an' wint out ov her house with no more than, 'God save ye, Ann!' an' twenty minutes later I wor in Misther Booros's office.

"'Good-evenin', Mrs. Ginniss,' says he, as ginteel as yer plaze.
'An' how is yer health?'

"'Purty good, thank ye kindly, sir,' says I; 'an' its hopin' you have yours the same, I am.'

"'Thank you, I am very well; and what can I do for you this evening? Pray, be sated,' says he, laning back in his chair wid sech a rale good-natured smile on the handsome face of him, that I says to myself, 'It's the lucky woman you are, Judy Ginniss, to put yer b'y wid sech a dacent gintleman: an' I smiled to him agin, an' begun to the beginnin', and towld him the whole story,—what Michael said to me, an' what I said to Michael; an' how Mike died wid the faver; an' how I'd worked an 'saved, an' wouldn't marry Tom Murphy when he axed me, an' all so as I could kape my b'y dacent, an' sind him to the school, an' give him his books an' his joggerphy-picters"—

"Them's maps, mother," interposed Teddy.

"Niver yer mind, b'y, what they be. Yer had 'em along wid the best of yer schoolmates; an' so I towld the squire. 'An' now,' says I, 'he's owld enough to be settlin' to a thrade; an' I likes the lawyer thrade the best, an' so I've coom to git yer honor to take him 'printice.'

"At that he stared like as he'd been moonsthruck; an' thin he laughed a little to hisself; and thin he axed mighty quite like, 'How do you mane, Mrs. Ginniss?' So I towld him about Ann Dolan's sisther's son, an' what wor the chance he'd got; an' thin I made bowld to ax him would he take my b'y the same way, on'y I'd like he'd larn more, an' I wouldn't mind the fifty dollars a year, but 'ud kape him mesilf, as I had kep' him since his daddy died, if the wuth uv it might be give him in larnin'."

"And what did the master say to that, mother?" asked Teddy, with a bright look that showed he foresaw and was pleased with the answer.

"Sure and he said what a gintleman the likes uv him should say, and said with his own hearty smile that's as good as the goold dollar uv another man,—

"'My good 'oman,' says he, 'sind along your b'y as soon as you plaze; an' if he's as—as'—what's that agin, Teddy, darlint?"

"Amberitious," pronounced Teddy with a grand sort of air; "and it means, he told me, wanting to be something more than you wor by nater."

"Faith, and that's it, Teddy: that's the very moral uv what I wants to see in yees. Well, the masther said if the b'y was as amberitious an' as 'anest as his mother afore him (that's me, yer see, Teddy),"—

"Yes, yes, mother, I know. Well?"

"That he'd make a man uv him that should be a pride an' a support to the owld age uv me, an' a blissin' to the day I med up my mind to eddicate him. That wor two year ago, Teddy Ginniss; an', so far, hasn' the gintleman done by yees as niver yer own daddy could? Hasn' he put yees to the readin' an' the writin' an' the joggerphy— picters, an' the nate figgers that yees puts on me washin'—bills, till it's proud I am to hand 'em to the gintlefolks, an' say, 'If ye plaze, the figgers is pooty plain. It's me b'y made 'em'? Now till me, Teddy, hasn' the shquire done all this by yees, an' give yees the fifty dollars by the year, all the same as if he give ye nothin' else?"

"He has so, mother."

"An' whin I wanted to wash for him widout a cint uv charge, an' towld him it was jist foon to rinshe out his bit things, bekase he is that good—natered an' quite that there's niver the fust roobin' to do to 'em, he says,—

"'An' if I let yees do 'em widout charge, I'd as lieve wear the shirt of Misther Nessus;' an' more by token, Teddy Ginniss, I told ye iver and oft to look in the big books an' see who was Misther Nessus, an' what about his shirt."

"Faith and ye did, mother; but I never could find him yet. Some day
I'll ask the master," said Teddy with a puzzled look.

"An' so he pays me what I ax, an' it isn' for the likes uv him to be knowin' what the others ud charge; an', whin he gives me forty cints the dozen, he thinks, the poor innercint! that it's mooch as I would ax uv any one. Now, Teddy b'y, isn' all I've towld ye God's truth? and haven't ye heerd it as many times as yees are days owld out uv yer own moother's lips?"

"Faith and I have, mother."

"An' wud yer moother till yees a lie, or bid yees do what wasn't plazin' to God, Teddy?"

"Sure she wouldn't; and I'll lick the first fellow that'll say she would, if he was as big as Goliah in the Bible," said Teddy, doubling up his fist, and nodding fiercely.

"Thin, Teddy Ginniss, we cooms to this; an' it's not the first time, nor yet the last, we'll coom to it. If iver ye can do yer masther a service, be it big or be it little; if iver the stringth, or the coorage, or the life itself, of yees, or thim as is dear to yees, ud sarve him or plaze him,—I bid yees now to give it him free an' willin' as ye'd give it to God. An' so ye mind me, it's my blissin' an' the blissin' uv yer dead father that's iver wid ye; an' so ye fail me, it's the black curse uv disobedience, an' yer moother's brukken heart, that shall cling to yees for iver and iver, while life shall last. Do ye mind that, b'y?"

"I mind it, and I'll heed it, mother, as I've promised you before," said Teddy solemnly; and mother and son exchanged as tender and as true a kiss as young Bayard and his lady-mother could have done when she gave him to be a knight and chevalier.

All through this long conversation, which had been carried on in a low tone of voice, and frequently interrupted when it seemed to disturb her, 'Toinette had slept feverish and restlessly; but as the washwoman crept away to begin her daily labors, and Teddy lingered for a moment more to look at the poor little sister whose beauty was to him an ever-new delight, her great blue eyes suddenly opened, and fixed upon him, while with an airy little laugh she said,—

"We're King and Queen of Merrigoland, Peter; isn't we? Does you love me, Peter?"

"I couldn't tell how well I love you, Cherry dear; but it's Teddy I am, and not Peter," said the boy, bashfully kissing the little hot hand upon the outside of the bed.

To his dismay, the delirious child snatched it from him with a wild cry, and burst into a storm of tears and sobs, crying,—

"Go away, wicked lady! go away, I say! God won't love you when you strike me, you know. He won't: my mamma said so. Oh, oh, oh!"

Her cries brought Mrs. Ginniss to her side in a moment, who, tenderly soothing her, turned upon Teddy.

"Bad 'cess to yees, ye spalpeen! An' what ud ye be afther vexin' her for, an' her in a faver? What did yees say to her?"

"I said my name was Teddy, and not Peter; and then she said I was a lady, and struck her," replied the boy, bewildered, and a little indignant.

"And sure ye'r Peter or Paul, or Judas hissilf, if so be she likes to call ye so while she's this way; an', if ye shtrike her, it's the weight uv my fist ye'll feel; mind that, young man!—Whisht, thin, darlint! asy, mavourneen!"

'Toinette, hushed upon the motherly bosom of the good woman, soon ceased her cries, and presently fell again to sleep; while Teddy, with rather an injured look upon his uncouth face, and yet pleased to see the little sister in his mother's arms, crept softly from the room, with his breakfast in his hand.

CHAPTER X.

THE EMPTY NEST.

WHEN Susan returned from carrying Bessie Rider home, she was quite surprised to find the front-door ajar, as she thought she had been sure of latching it in going out; but, without stopping to make any inquiries of the other servants, she ran up the stairs, took off her shawl and hood, and then went to the drawing-room for 'Toinette. The room was empty; and Susan at once concluded that Mrs. Legrange had taken the child to her own chamber while she dressed for dinner, as 'Toinette often begged to be present at this ceremony, and was often indulged.

"I'll just ready up the nursery a bit before I fetch her," said
Susan, looking round the littered room; and so it was half an
hour before she knocked at Mrs. Legrange's chamber-door with,
"I came for Miss 'Toinette, ma'am."

"Come in, Susan. Miss 'Toinette, did you say? She is down in the drawing-room by herself, and you had better put her to bed at once. She must be very tired."

Alas! the tender mother little guessed how tired!

Without reply, Susan closed the door, and ran down stairs; an uneasy feeling creeping over her, although she would not yet confess it even to herself.

The drawing-room was still empty; but James had lighted the gas and stirred the fire, so that every corner was as light as day. In every window-recess, under every couch and sofa, behind every large chair, even in the closet of the tagre, Susan searched for her little charge, hoping, praying to find her asleep, or roguishly hiding, as she had known her to do before. But all in vain: no merry face, no sunny curls, no laughing eyes, peeped out from recess or corner or hiding place; and Susan's ruddy face grew pale even to the lips.

She flew to the dining-room, and searched it as narrowly as she had done the drawing-room.

No: she was not there!

The library, the bath-room, the chambers, the nursery again, the servants' chambers, the kitchen, laundry, pantries, the very cellar!

No, no, no! 'Toinette was in none of them. 'Toinette was not in any nook of the whole wide house, that, without her, seemed so empty and desolate. Standing in one of the upper entries, mute and bewildered, Susan heard a latch-key turn in the front-door lock, and presently Mr. Legrange's pleasant voice speaking in the hall. A sudden hope rushed into Susan's heart. The child might possibly have gone to meet her father, and was now returned with him. She rushed down stairs as fast as her feet could carry her; but in the hall stood only Mr. Legrange, talking to James, who had some message to deliver to him.

As Susan flew down the stairs, the master turned and looked at her in some surprise.

"Be careful, Susan: you nearly fell then. Is any thing the matter?"

"Miss 'Toinette, sir: I can't find her, high nor low!" gasped Susan.

"Can't find her! Good heavens! you don't mean to say she's lost!" exclaimed the father, turning, and staring at the nurse in dismay.

"Oh! I don't know, sir, I'm sure; but I can't find her," cried
Susan, wildly bursting into tears.

"Where is her mother? Where is Mrs. Legrange, James?"

"I don't know, sir, I'm sure," said the footman blankly.

"She's in her own room, sir; and I'm afraid to go to tell her, she'll feel that bad. And indeed it wasn't any fault of mine: I only went"—

"Hush!" exclaimed Mr. Legrange, who had heard his wife close her chamber-door and begin to descend the stairs, and did not wish her to be frightened.

"Wait here a moment, Susan," added he, and, running up stairs, entered the drawing-room just after his wife, who stood before the fire, looking so pretty and so gay in her blue silk-dress, with a ribbon of the same shade twisted among her golden curls, that her husband shrunk back, dreading to ask the question that must so shock and startle her. But Mrs. Legrange had caught sight of him, and, running to the door, opened it suddenly, crying,—

"Come in, you silly boy! Are you playing bo-beep? I don't do such things since my daughter is six years old, I would have you to understand."

Mr. Legrange, forcing a laugh and a careless tone, came forward as she spoke, and, stooping to kiss her, asked,—

"And where is your daughter, my love?"

"'Toinette? Oh! I suppose she is with Susan," began Mrs. Legrange carelessly; and then, as something in her husband's voice or manner attracted her attention, she drew back, and hurriedly looked into his face, crying,—

"O Paul! what is it? What has happened? Is 'Toinette hurt? Where is she?"

"Be quiet, darling; don't be alarmed. Wait till we know more.—Susan, come up here," called Mr. Legrange; and Susan, with her face buried in her apron, and sobbing as if her heart would break, crept timidly up the stairs and into the room.

At sight of her, Mrs. Legrange turned pale, and clung to her husband for support.

"O Susan! what is it? Tell me quick!"

"She's gone, ma'am, and I don't know where!" sobbed the nurse.

"Gone! What, 'Toinette gone! Lost, do you mean?" cried the mother wildly, while her pale cheeks flushed scarlet, and her soft eyes glittered with terror.

"Oh! I don't know, ma'am; but I can't find her."

"Lost! What, 'Toinette lost!" repeated the mother in the same wild tone, and trying to tear herself away from her husband's detaining arms. But, soothing her as he would a child, Mr. Legrange, by a few calm and well-directed questions, drew from both mistress and maid all that was to be known of 'Toinette's disappearance, and, when the whole was told, said,—

"Well, Susan, you are not to blame. You merely obeyed your mistress's directions, and need not feel that this misfortune is at all your fault. No doubt 'Toinette has gone out by herself, and is, for the moment, lost, but, I trust, will soon be found. You may go at once to the houses of the neighbors whose children she has been in the habit of visiting. Be as quick as you can about it; and, if you do not find her, come directly home, and I will warn the police. Send James up to me as you go down."

"Yes, sir," said Susan, a little comforted; and, as she closed the door, Mr. Legrange returned to his wife, and, clasping her tenderly in his arms, kissed the burning cheeks and glittering eyes that frightened him, until the dangerous calm broke up in a gracious flood of tears and wild sobs of, "My child!—O my little child!"

"Hush, darling, hush! You must be calm, or I cannot leave you,—cannot go to look for her. I will not leave you so, even to search for her."

"Yes, yes, go! I will try—O Paul, Paul! do go and look for her!"

"When I see you calmer, love; not till then;" and the tender-hearted man could himself have wept to see the heroic efforts of that delicate nature to control itself and put his fears to rest. He still was soothing her, when, with a tap at the door, entered James, followed by Susan, who hurriedly announced that 'Toinette was not to be heard of at any of the neighbors, and asked where she should go next.

"Nowhere! Stay here and attend to Mrs. Legrange until I return. I shall go at once to the police-station. James, you know where Mr. Burroughs lives?"

"Yes, sir."

"Go to him. Or stay: he is dining with a friend to-day. Here is the direction. Go to this house at once; see Mr. Burroughs; tell him that 'Toinette is lost, and beg him to come up here directly. Keep your eyes open as you go: you may possibly meet her yourself. Hurry, man; hurry for your life!"

"Yes, sir," replied the man heartily; and Mr. Legrange returned to his wife, who was walking quickly up and down the room, her hands clasped tight before her, her lips rigid, and her eyes set.

"There, darling, I have sent for Tom to help us; and no one could do it better than he will. I am going to the police myself. Take courage, dearest, and hope, as I do, that, before morning, we shall have our pet back, safe and sound. But you—O Fanny! how can I leave you so? Try, try, for my sake, for 'Toinette's sake, to be calm and hopeful."

"Yes—I—will—try!" sobbed the poor mother; and Mr. Legrange, not daring to trust himself to look at her again, lest he also should break down, hastened from the room.

But morning came, and night, and yet another morning and as the father, the mother, the cousin who was almost brother to both, the assistants, and poor broken-hearted Susan, looked into each other's wan, worn faces, they found nothing there but discouragement, and almost hopeless despair.

Mrs. Legrange who had not eaten or slept since 'Toinette's disappearance, was already too ill to sit up, but insisted upon remaining dressed, and waiting in the drawing-room for the reports that some one of those engaged in the search brought almost hourly to the house. Her husband, looking like the ghost of his former self, wandered incessantly from his own home to the police-office and back again, each time through some new street, and peering curiously into the face of every child he met, that more than one of them ran frightened home to tell their mothers that they had met a crazy man, who stared at them as if he would eat them up.

And yet no clew, no faintest trace, of the little 'Toinette, who lay tossing in her fever-dreams upon good Mrs. Ginniss's humble bed, while the young doctor day by day shook his head more sadly over her, and said to his own heart that it was only by God's special mercy she could ever rise from that cruel illness.

CHAPTER XI.

A TRACE AND A SEARCH.

THREE weary nights and two days had passed, when as Mr. Legrange, bending over his wife's sofa, entreated her to take the food and drink he had himself prepared for her, a sharp peal at the bell, followed by a bounding step upon the stair, startled them both.

"It is Tom, and he has news!" exclaimed Mrs. Legrange in a low voice, as she pushed away the tray and rose to her feet.

The door opened, and the young man entered, his tired face glowing with hope and satisfaction. In his hand he held a little bundle; and sitting down, with no more than word of greeting, he hastily untied it upon his knee.

"Aren't these her clothes?" asked he breathlessly, as he held up by one sleeve a little sky-blue merino-dress, with a torn lace undersleeve hanging from the shoulder, and in the other hand a pair of dainty little boots of bronze cloth.

Mrs. Legrange, with a wild cry, darted forward, and, grasping the pretty dress, buried her face in it, covering it with kisses, while she cried,—

"Yes, yes! O Tom! where is she? Tell me quick, before my poor heart breaks with joy!"

Mr. Burroughs remained silent. How could he say that he knew as little as ever how to answer this appeal?

"Where did you get them, Tom?" asked Mr. Legrange hurriedly.

"Billings found them in a pawn-broker's shop. You know we gave all the detectives a list of the clothing, and full description of the child. Billings has been all over the city, examining at every pawn-broker's shop all the children's clothes brought in since we lost her, you know"—

"Yes, yes! And when"—

"Last night he found this in a little out-of-the-way place (I didn't stop to ask where), and, thinking they looked like the right thing, brought them to me. I was asleep, and the people stupidly would not wake me: so he waited; and this morning, when I rose, there he was. I snatched the bundle, and came right along with it. Now, of course, they'll soon find who left them: only, unluckily, they weren't pawned, but sold outright; so they didn't take the name; but the man thinks it was an old woman who sold them to him. He is in custody; and we will go down and hear the examination, Paul."

"Certainly, at once." And Mr. Legrange nervously buttoned his coat, and moved toward the door.

"It is to be at ten, and it is now half-past nine. I suppose we had better go at once. Good-by, dear cousin Fanny!" said Mr. Burroughs, looking sorrowfully at the wan face upraised to his, as the poor mother replied,—

"Good-by, Tom! and oh, pray, do every thing, every thing, that can be done! I cannot tell"—

She was unable to finish, and the two men hurried away from the sight of a sorrow as yet without remedy.

The examination of the blear-eyed and stupid old pawn-broker resulted in very little satisfaction. He believed that it was a woman who had sold him the bundle of child's clothing. He was not sure if it were an old or a young woman, but rather thought it was an old woman. It might have been a week ago that he bought them; it might have been more, or it might have been less: he didn't set it down, and couldn't say.

This was all; and, as nothing could be proved or even suspected of him in connection with 'Toinette's disappearance, he was discharged from custody, although warned to hold himself in readiness to appear at any moment when he should be summoned.

He had not yet, however, left the room, when one of the audience, a policeman off duty, stepped forward, and, intimating that he had something to say, was sworn, and went on to tell how he had been leaning against a lamp-post at the extreme of his beat, just resting a bit, in the edge of evening before last, when he saw an old woman that they call Mother Winch come up the street, carrying a bundle, and leading a little girl. He knew she hadn't any child of her own; and the child was dressed very poor; and Mother Winch called her Judy or Biddy, or some Paddy-name or other; and maybe it was all right, and maybe it wasn't. It could be worked up easy enough, he supposed.

So supposed the detective in whose hands the clew was immediately placed; but when, an hour later, he descended the steps into Mother Winch's cellar, he found that a keener and a swifter messenger than himself had already called the wretched old woman to account; and she lay across the rusty old stove, quite dead, with a broken bottle of spirit upon the floor beside her, and all the front of her body shockingly burned. The coroner who was called to see her decided that she had fallen across the stove, either in a fit, or too much intoxicated to move, and had died unconscious of her situation. She was buried by public charity, and in her grave seemed hidden every hope of tracing the lost child.

"She must have been carried from the city," said the detectives; and the search was extended into the country, and to other towns and cities, although not neglected at home.

CHAPTER XII.

TEDDY'S TEMPTATION.

TEDDY GINNISS sat alone in his master's office, feeling very sad and forlorn: for Dr. Wentworth had that morning said that the chance of life for his little patient was very, very small; and it seemed to Teddy heavier news than human heart had ever borne before. His morning duties over, he had seated himself at his little table, and tried to study the lesson given him by Mr. Burroughs upon the previous day; but a heavy heart makes dim eyes, and the page where Teddy's were fixed seemed to him no better than a crowd of disjointed letters swimming in a blinding mist.

A hasty step was heard upon the stair; and, passing the sleeve of his jacket across his eyes, the boy bent closer over the book as his master entered the room.

"Any one been in this morning, Teddy?" asked Mr. Burroughs, passing into the inner office.

"No, sir."

"I am going out of town for a day or two, Teddy,—going to New York; and Mr. Barlow will be here to attend to the business. You will do whatever he wishes as you would for me. You understand?"

"Yes, sir."

The good-natured young man, struck by the mournful tone of Teddy's usually hearty voice, turned and looked sharply at him.

"Aren't you well, Teddy?"

"Yes sir, thank your honor."

"Not 'your honor' until I'm a judge, Teddy. But what's amiss with you, my boy?"

"I wouldn't be troubling your—you with it, sir. It's nothing as can be helped."

"No, no; but what is it, Teddy?" insisted the lawyer, who saw that
Teddy could hardly restrain his tears.

"Nothing, sir; but the little sister is mortal sick, and the doctor says he's afeard she won't stand it."

"Your little sister, Teddy?"

"Yes, sir."

"I didn't know you had one. You never spoke of her before, did you?"

"Maybe not, sir."

"What is the matter with her?"

"The faver, sir."

Mr. Burroughs knew that this phrase in an Irish mouth means but one disease, and replied, in a sympathizing voice,—

"Typhus! I'm sorry for you, Teddy, and sorry, too, for your mother, who is an excellent woman; but the little girl may yet recover: while there is life, there is hope, you know. Even if she dies, it is not so bad as—I am going to New York, Teddy, to look for a little cousin of mine whose parents do not know if she is living or dead, suffering or safe: that is worse than to have her ill, but under their care and protection, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir, perhaps. Is the little girl in New York, sir, do you think?"

"We hear of a child found astray there, who answers to the description; and I am going to see her before we mention the report to her mother. Have you never seen Mr. Legrange here, Teddy? It is his little girl. I wonder you haven't heard us talking of the matter."

"I don't mind the name, sir; and I haven't heard of the little girl before. Is she long lost?"

"Ten days yesterday. I have been busy all the week in the search for her. The clothes she had on when lost were found in a pawn-broker's shop; but we have no trace of her yet."

"What looking child was she, if you please, sir?" asked Teddy after a short pause, in which he seemed to study intently; while Mr. Burroughs went on glancing at the newspapers in his hand.

"'Toinette? Here is a description of her in 'The Journal,' and I have a photograph in my pocket-book. Here it is. It is well for you to study them both; for possibly you may discover her. I didn't think of it before; but you are just the boy to put upon the search. If you should find her, Teddy, Mr. Legrange will make your fortune. He is rich and generous, and this is his only child. Eleven o'clock. Shall be in at one."

As he spoke, Mr. Burroughs threw the paper and photograph upon
Teddy's table, and hastily left the office. The boy took up "The
Journal," and read the following advertisement:—

"Lost, upon the evening of Oct. 31, a little girl, six years of age, named Antoinette Legrange; of slight figure, round face, delicate color, large blue eyes, long curled hair of a bright-yellow color, small mouth, and regular teeth. She was dressed, at the time of her disappearance, in a blue frock and brown boots, with a lady's breakfast-shawl; and wore upon the sleeve of her dress a bracelet of coral cameos engraved under the clasp with her name in full. A liberal reward will be paid for information concerning her. Apply at the police-station."

When he had studied this, Teddy took up the photograph, and examined it earnestly. The dress, the long curled hair, the joyous expression, were very different from the pale face, wild eyes, and cropped head of the little sister at home; but Teddy's heart sank within him as he traced the delicate features, the curved lips, and trim little figure. He dropped the picture, and, leaning his face upon his arm, sobbed aloud.

"I'll lose her anyway, if she dies or if she lives; and it's all the little sister ever I got."

But presently another thought made Teddy lift his head, and look anxiously about him to make sure that his emotion had not been seen by any one. He was still alone; and, with a sigh of relief, he dashed away the tears from his eyes, muttering,—

"It's the big fool I am, entirely! Sure and mightn't she have picked up the bracelet in the street, where maybe the little lady they've lost dropped it? And, if she looks like the picture, so does many a one beside; and it's no call I have to be troubling the master with telling him about her anyway. She's my own little sister, and I'll keep her to myself."

A sudden sharp recollection darted through the boy's mind, and he grew a little pale as he added,—

"Leastways, I'll keep her if God will let me; and sure isn't he stronger nor me? If it isn't for me to have her, can't he take her, if it's by death, or if it's by leading them that's searching for her to where she is? And more by token, that's the way I'll try it. If God means she shall stay and be my little sister, she'll live, and I'll take her, and say nothing to nobody about it: but, if it's displasin' to him, she'll die; and then I'll tell the master all about it, and he may do what he's a mind to with me. That's the way I'll fix it."

And Teddy, well satisfied with his own bad argument, took comfort, and went back to his books.

When Mr. Burroughs returned to the office, he was accompanied by Mr. Barlow, the gentleman who was to occupy it during his absence; and he did not speak to Teddy, except to give him a few directions, and bid him a kind good-by. The paper and picture he found lying upon his desk, and hastily put in his pocket without remark or question.

For the first time in his life, Teddy avoided meeting his master's eye, but watched him furtively over the top of his book, raising it so as to screen his face whenever Mr. Burroughs looked his way, and trembling whenever he spoke to him; and, for the first time in his life, he secretly rejoiced at seeing him leave the office, knowing that he was to be gone for some time.

The long day was over at last; and, so soon as the hour for closing the office had begun to strike, Teddy locked the door, sprang down stairs, and ran like a deer towards home, feeling as if in some manner the little sister was about to be taken away from him, and he must hasten to prevent it.

At the foot of the stairs, however, he checked himself, creeping up as silently and cautiously as possible, and stopping at the head to listen for the clear voice, frightfully clear and shrill, of the delirious child, which usually met him there. No sound was to be heard except the deep voice of the Italian organ-grinder in the room below, talking to himself or his monkey as he prepared supper; and Teddy, creeping along the entry to his mother's door, softly opened it, and went in.

At one side of the bed stood Mrs. Ginniss; at the other, Dr. Wentworth: but Teddy saw only the little waxen face upon the pillow between them,—the little face so strange and lovely now; for all the fever flush had passed away, the babbling lips were folded white and still, the glittering eyes were closed, and the long dark lashes lay motionless upon the cheek,—the little face so strange and terrible in its sudden, peaceful beauty.

As Teddy softly entered, Dr. Wentworth turned and held a warning finger up; then bent again above the little child, his hand upon her heart.

The boy crept close to his mother, down whose honest face the tears ran like rain; although she heeded the earnest warning of the physician, and was almost as still as she little form she watched.

"Is she dead, mother?" whispered Teddy.

"Whisht, darlint! wait till we know," whispered she in return; and the young doctor glanced impatiently at both out of his strained and eager eyes. Had it been his own and only child, he could not have hung more earnestly about her: and here was the strange, sweet charm of this little life,—that all who came within its influence felt themselves drawn toward it, and opened wide their hearts to allow its entrance; feeling not alone that they loved the lovely child, but that she was or should be their very own, to cherish and fondle and bind to them forever.

So the coarse, hard-working woman, who two weeks before had never seen her face, now wept as true and bitter tears as she had done beside the death-bed of the child she had lost when Teddy was a baby; and the young doctor, who had watched the passage of a hundred souls from time to eternity, hung over this little dying form as if all life for him were held within it, and to lose it were to lose all. And Teddy-ah! poor Teddy; for upon his young heart lay not only the bitterness of the death busy with his "little sister's" life, but the heavy burden of wrong and deception, and the proof, as he thought, of God's displeasure in taking from him at last what he had tried so hard to keep.

He sank upon his knees beside the bed, and hid his face, whispering,—

"O God! let her live, and I will give her back to them as I kept her from."

Over and over and over again, he whispered just these words, clinching tight his boy-hands to keep down the agony of the sacrifice; while in the very centre of his heart throbbed a hard, dull pain, that seemed as if it would rend it asunder.

His face was still hidden, when, like an answer to his petition, came the softest of whispers from the doctor's lips,—

"She will live, with God's help, and the best of care from you."

"An' it's the bist uv care she'll git, I'll pass me word for that," whispered back Teddy's mother, so earnestly, that the doctor answered,—

"Hush! She is falling asleep. Do not wake her, for her life!"

He sank into a chair as he spoke. Mrs. Ginniss crept round to the stove, and, crouching beside it, covered her head with her apron, and remained motionless. As for Teddy, he never stirred or looked up, but with his face hidden upon the bed, repeated again and again those words, to him so solemn and so full of meaning, until in the silence and the waiting he fell asleep, and gradually sank upon the floor.

And so the night went on: and the careful eyes of the young physician marked how a faint tinge of color crept into the death-white cheek upon the pillow; and how the still lips lost their hard, cold line, and grew human once more, though so pale; and how the eyelids stirred, moving the heavy lashes; and a faint pulse fluttered in the slender throat.

At last, with a long, soft sigh, the lips lightly parted; the eyelids opened slowly, showing for a moment the blue eyes, dim and languid, but no longer wild with delirium; and then they slowly closed, and the breath came softly and regularly from the parted lips.

Dr. Wentworth heaved an answering sigh of mingled weariness and relief, and, rising, went to Mrs. Ginniss's side, touching her upon the shoulder, and whispering,—

"She is doing well. Keep her as quiet as possible. I will be in at nine."

Hushing the murmured blessings she would have poured upon his head, the young man stole softly from the room and down the stairs into the street, where already the first gray of dawn struggled with the flaring gas-lights.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE CACHUCA.

TEN days more, and beside the fire in Mrs. Ginniss's attic-room sat a little figure, propped in the wooden rocking-chair with pillows and comfortables; while upon a small stand close beside her were arranged a few cheap toys, a plate with some pieces of orange upon it, a sprig of geranium in a broken-nosed pitcher of water, and a cup of beef-tea.

But for none of these did the languid little invalid seem to care; and lying back in the chair, her head nestled into the pillow, her parched lips open, and her eyes half closed, she looked so little like the bright and glowing 'Toinette who had danced at her birthday-party not a month before, that it is a question if any one but her own mother would have believed her to be the same.

Mrs. Ginniss, hard at work upon the frills of a fashionable lady's skirt, paused every few moments to look over her shoulder at the little wasted face with the wistful look of some dumb creature who sees its offspring suffering, and cannot tell how to relieve it.

Suddenly setting the flat-iron she had just taken back upon the stove, the washwoman came and bent over the child, looking earnestly into her face.

"An' it's waker an' whiter she gits every day. Sure and I'm afther seeing the daylight through the little hands uv her; and her eyes is that big, they take the breath uv me whin I mate 'em. See, darlint!-see the purty skip-jack Teddy brought ye!"

She took from the table the toy she named, and, pulling the string, made the figure of the man vault over the top of the stick and back several times, crying at the same time,—

"Hi, thin!-hi, thin! See how the crather joomps, honey!"

But, although the languid eyes of the child followed her motions for a moment, no shadow of a smile stirred the parched lips; and presently the eyes closed, as if the effort were too much for them.

Mrs. Ginniss laid the toy upon the table, and took up the cup of beef-tea.

"Have a soop of yer dhrink, darlint?" said she, tenderly holding the cup to the child's lips, and raising her head with the other hand; but, with a moan of impatience or distress, the weary head turned itself upon the pillow, and the little wasted hand half rose to push away the cup.

"An' what is it I'll plaze ye wid, mavourneen? Do yees want Teddy to coom home?" asked the poor woman in despair.

A faint murmur of assent crept from between the parched lips; and the eyes, slowly opening, glanced toward the door.

"It's this minute he'll be here, thin," said the washwoman joyfully. "An' faith yees ought to love him, honey; for he'd give the two eyes out of his head to plaze yees, an' git down on his knees to thank yees for takin' 'em. Now, thin, don't ye hear his fut upon the stair?"

But the heavy steps coming up the stairs were not Teddy's, as his mother well knew; and although, when they stopped upon the landing below her own, she pretended to be much surprised, she would, in reality, have been much more so if they had not stopped.

"And it's Jovarny it wor that time, honey," said she soothingly: "but Teddy'll coom nixt; see if he doun't, Cherry darlint."

But Cherry, closing her eyes, with no effort at reply, lay as motionless upon her pillow as if she had been asleep or in a swoon.

Suddenly, from the room below, was heard a strain of plaintive music. The organ-grinder, for some reason or other, was trying his instrument in his own room; although, remembering the sick child above, he played as softly and slowly as he could. It was the first time he had done so since Cherry had been ill; and Mrs. Ginniss anxiously watched her face to see what effect the sounds would have.

The air was "Kathleen Mavourneen;" and, as one tender strain succeeded another, the watchful nurse could see a faint color stealing into the child's face, while from between the half-closed lids her eyes shone brighter than they had for many a day.

"If it plazes her, I'll pay him to grind away all day, the crather," murmured she joyfully.

The song ended, and, after a little pause, was succeeded by a lively dancing-tune.

"She'll not like that so well, thought Mrs. Ginniss; but, to her great astonishment, the child, after listening a moment, started upright in her chair, her eyes wide open and shining with excitement, her cheeks glowing, and her little hands fluttering.

"Mamma, mamma! I'm Cherritoe! and I can dance with that music, and mamma can play it more"—

The words faltered upon her lips, and she sank suddenly back upon the pillows in a death-faint. At the same moment, Teddy came bounding up the stairs and into the room.

"Go an' shtop that fool's noise if yees brain him, an' ax him what's the name o' that divil's jig he's playing!" exclaimed Mrs. Ginniss as she caught sight of the boy; and Teddy, without stopping for a question, hastily obeyed.

In a moment he was back.

"It's the cachuca, mother; but what's the matter with the little sister?"

"Whist! She's swounded wid the noise he's afther making," replied his mother angrily, as she laid the wasted little figure upon her bed, and bathed the temples with cold water.

Teddy stood anxiously looking on. Ever since the night when the little sister's fever had turned, and the doctor had promised that she should live, a struggle had been going on in the boy's heart. He could not but believe that God had given back the almost-departed life in answer to his earnest prayer and promise; and he had no intention of breaking the promise, or withholding the price he felt himself to have offered for that life. But, like many older and better taught persons, Teddy did not see clearly enough how little difference there is between doing right and failing to do right, or how much difference between promising with the lips and promising with the heart.

While his little sister, as he still called her, lay between life and death, Teddy said to himself that the excitement of seeing her friends might be fatal to her, and that, if she should die, their grief in this second loss would be greater than what they were now suffering.

When she began slowly to recover, he said that they would only be frightened at seeing her so wasted and weak, and that he would keep her until she had recovered something of her good looks; and, finally, he had begun to think that it would be no more than fair that he should repay himself for all the sorrow and anxiety her illness had given him by keeping her a little while after she was quite well and strong, and could go for a walk with him, and see the beautiful shops, with their Christmas-wares displayed.

"New Year's will be soon enough. I'll take her to the master for a New-Year's gift," Teddy had said to himself that very night as he came up the stairs; and a sort of satisfaction crept into his heart in thinking that he had at least fixed a date for fulfilling his promise.

But New-Year's Day found 'Toinette, or Cherry as we must learn to call her, more unlike her former self than she had been when he formed the resolution. The strange emotion that had overcome her in listening to the organ-grinder's music had caused a relapse into fever, followed by other troubles; and spite of Dr. Wentworth's constant care, Mrs. Ginniss's patient and tender nursing, and Teddy's devotion, the child seemed pining away without hope or remedy.

"I'll wait till the spring comes, anyway," said Teddy to himself.
"Maybe the warm weather will bring her round, and I'll hear her
laugh out once, and take her for just one walk on the Commons before
I carry her to the master."

CHAPTER XIV.

GIOVANNI AND PANTALON.

IT was April; and the bit of sky to be seen between two tall roofs, from the window of Mrs. Ginniss's attic, had suddenly grown of a deeper blue, and was sometimes crossed by a great white, glittering cloud, such as is never seen in winter; and, when the window was raised for a few moments, the air came in soft and mild, and with a fresh smell to it, as if it had blown through budding trees and over fresh-ploughed earth.

Cherry was now well enough to be dressed, and to play about the room, or sew a little, or look at pictures in the gaudily painted books Teddy anxiously saved his coppers to buy for her: but, more than once in the day, she would push a chair to the bed, and climb up to lie upon it; or would come and cling to her foster-mother, moaning,—

"I'm tired now, mammy. Hold me in your lap."

And very seldom was the petition refused, although the wash-tub or the ironing-table stood idle that it might be granted; for so well had great-hearted Mrs. Ginniss come to love the child, that she would have been as unwilling as Teddy himself to remember that she had not always been her own.

Sitting thus in her mammy's lap one day, Cherry suddenly asked,—

"Where's the music, mammy?"

"The music, darlint? And what music do ye be manin'?"

"The music I heard one day before I went to heaven. Didn't you hear it?"

"An' whin did ye go to hivin, ye quare child?"

"Oh! I don't know. When I came back, I was sick in the bed. I want the music, mammy."

"It's Jovarny she manes, the little crather," said Mrs. Ginniss, and promised, that if Cherry would lie on the bed, and let her "finish ironing the lady's clothes all so pretty," she should hear the music as soon as Teddy and the organ-grinder came home.

To this proposal, Cherry consented more willingly than her mammy had dared to expect; and when, after finishing the ironing of some intricate embroideries, the laundress turned to look, she found the child had dropped quietly asleep.

"An' all the betther fur yees, darlint," said she. "Whin ye waken, ye'll think no more uv the music that well-nigh kilt yees afore."

An hour later, Teddy's entrance aroused the sleeper, who, rolling over upon the bed with a pretty little gape, smiled upon him, saying,—

"Where's the music, Teddy? Mammy said you'd get it for me."

"It's Jovarny she's afther wantin' to hear play on his grind-orgin; an' I towld her he'd coom whin yees did," explained Mrs. Ginniss: and Teddy, delighted to be asked to do any thing for his little sister, lost no time in running down stairs, and begging the Italian, who had just returned home, to play one of the prettiest tunes in his list, but on no account to touch the one that had so strangely affected the little invalid upon a former occasion.

The Italian very willingly complied, and was already in the midst of a pretty waltz when Teddy re-appeared in his mother's room. Cherry's delight was unbounded; and when the whole list of tunes, with the exception of the cachuca, had been exhausted, she put her arms round Teddy's neck, and kissed him, saying,—

"Thank you, little brother. I'll eat my supper for you now."

And this, as Cherry had hardly been willing to eat any thing since her illness, was considered, both by Teddy and herself, as a remarkable proof of amiability and affection.

The next day, before Teddy went away in the morning, he was obliged to promise that he would bring the music at night; and, as he ran down stairs, he stopped to beg the organ-grinder to come home as early as possible, and to come prepared to play for the little sister's benefit.

"Let her come down and see the organ and Pantalon," said the Italian in his broken English; and Teddy eagerly cried,—

"Oh! may she?" and ran up stairs again with the invitation. But Mrs. Ginniss prudently declared that Cherry must not think of leaving her own room at present, while the stairs and entries were so cold; and "Thin agin," said she, "maybe the bit moonkey ud scare her back into the fayver as bad as iver."

So, for a week or two longer, Cherry was obliged to content herself with an evening-concert through the floor; and upon these concerts the whole of the day seemed to depend. Very soon the little girl began to have her favorites among the half-dozen airs she so often heard, and, little by little, learned to hum them all, giving them names of her own. "Kathleen Mavourneen" she always called "Susan," although quite unable to give any reason for so doing; and Teddy, who watched her constantly, noticed that she always remained very thoughtful, wearing a puzzled, anxious look, while hearing it. After a time, however, this dim association with the almost-forgotten past wore away; and although Cherry still called the air "Susan," and liked it better than any of the rest, it seemed to have become a thing of the present instead of the past.

At last, one warm day in April, when Giovanni had returned home earlier than usual, and Teddy again brought an invitation to the bamb¡na, as he called Cherry, to visit him, Mrs. Ginniss reluctantly consented; and the little girl, wrapped in shawls and hood, with warm stockings pulled over her shoes, was carried in Teddy's arms down the stairs as she had been brought up in them six months before. The boy himself was the first to think of it, and, as he stooped to take the little figure in his arms, said,—

"You haven't been over the stairs, sissy, since Teddy brought you up last fall."

"Teddy didn't bring me up. I never came up, 'cause I never was down," said Cherry resolutely; and the boy, who dreaded above all things to awaken in her mind any recollection of the past, said no more, but carefully wrapping the shawl about her, and promising his mother not to stay too long, carried her gently down the stairs, and to the door Giovanni opened as he heard them approach.

"Welcome, little one!" said the Italian in his own language as they entered; and Cherry smiled at the sound, and then looked troubled and thoughtful.

The truth was, that 'Toinette's father and mother had often spoken both Italian and French in her presence; and although the terrible fever had destroyed her memory of home and parents, and all that went before, the things that she had known in those forgotten days still awoke in her heart a vague sense of pain and loss,—an effort to recall something that seemed just vanishing away, as through the strings of a broken and forsaken harp will sweep some vagrant breeze, wakening the ghosts of its forgotten melodies to a brief and shadowy life, again to pass and be forgotten.

So 'Toinette, still clinging to Teddy's neck, turned, and fixed her great eyes upon the Italian's dark face so earnestly and so piteously, that he smiled, showing all his white teeth, and asked,—

"Does the little one know the language of my country?"

"No: of course she don't. I don't," said Teddy, looking a little anxiously into Cherry's face, and wondering in his own heart if she might not have known Italian in that former life, of whose loves and interests he had always been so jealous.

Giovanni looked curiously at the two children. Cherry, in recovering from her illness, was regaining the wonderful beauty, that, for a time, had seemed lost. The remnant of her golden hair spared by Mother Winch's shears had fallen off after the first attack of fever, and was now replaced by thick, short curls of a sunny brown, clustering about her white forehead with a careless grace far more bewitching than the elaborate ringlets Susan had been so proud of manufacturing; while long confinement to the house had rendered the delicate complexion so pearly in its whiteness, so exquisite in its rose-tints, that one could hardly believe it possible that flesh and blood should become so etherealized even while gaining health and strength.

The subtle eye of the Italian marked every point of this exquisite loveliness, ran admiringly over the outlines of the graceful figure, the delicate hands and little feet, the classic curve of the lips, the thin nostrils and tiny ears; then returned to the clear, full eyes, with their pencilled brows and heavy lashes, and smiled at the earnestness of the gaze that met his own. Then, from this lovely and patrician face, the Italian's eyes wandered to Teddy's coarse and unformed features, and figure of uncouth strength.

"Nightingales are not hatched from hens' eggs," muttered Giovanni in his native tongue.

"Speak that some more; I like it," said Cherry softly.

"Yes; and you are like it, and, like all that belongs to my Italian, beautiful and graceful," said Giovanni, dropping the liquid accents as lovingly from his lips as if they had been a kiss. Then, in the imperfect English he generally spoke, he asked of Teddy,—

"Where did the child come from?"

"She's my little sister," replied the boy doggedly.

The Italian shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows, muttering in his own tongue,—

"I never heard or saw any child above there in the first weeks of my living here. But what affair is it of mine? The child I have lost is safe with the Holy Mother!"

He crossed himself, and muttered a prayer; then from behind the stove, where he lay warming himself, pulled a little creature, at sight of whom Cherry uttered a scream, and clung to Teddy.

"It's the monkey, sissy; it's Jovarny's monkey; and his name is
Pantaloons," explained Teddy.

"Pantalon," corrected the monkey's master; and snapping his fingers, and whistling to the monkey, he called him to his shoulder, and made him go through a number of tricks and gestures,—some of them so droll, that Cherry's terror ended in peals of laughter; and she soon left Teddy's side to run and caper about the room in imitation of the monkey's antics.

"Does she dance, the little one?" asked Giovanni, watching the child's lithe movements admiringly.

"Sure, and every step she takes is as good as dancing," said Teddy evasively.

"Let us see, then."

And the Italian, arranging the stops of his organ, played the pretty waltz Cherry had so often heard from it, and liked so well.

The child continued her frolicsome motions, unconsciously adapting them to the music, until she was moving in perfect harmony with it, although not in the step or figure of a waltz.

"She was born to dance!" exclaimed Giovanni with enthusiasm; and, moving the stops of the organ, he passed, without pause, into the gay and airy movement of the cachuca.

As the first tones struck the child's ear, she faltered; then stopped, turned pale, and listened intently.

"Whisht! That's the tune I told you not to play!" exclaimed Teddy. But Giovanni, his eyes fixed upon the child, did not hear or did not heed him, but played on; while Cherry, trembling, pale, her hands clasped, lips apart, and eyes fixed intently upon the musician, seemed shaken to the very soul by some strange and undefined emotion. Suddenly a scarlet flush mounted to the roots of her hair, her eyes grew bright, her parted lips curved to a roguish smile; and, pointing her little foot, she spun away in the graceful movements of the dance, and continued it to the close, finishing with a courtesy, and kiss of the hand, that made Giovanni drop the handle of his organ, clasp his hands, and cry in Italian,—

"Bravo, bravo, picciola! Truly you were born to dance!"

But the child, suddenly losing the life and color that had sparkled through every line of face and figure, ran with a wild cry to Teddy, and, clasping him tight round the neck, burst into a flood of tears, crying,—

"Take me home, Teddy!-quick, quick! I want mamma!"

Mrs. Ginniss had taught her to say "mammy;" and Teddy remembered with dismay that she had never used the name "mamma," except in the delirium of her fever, when she was evidently addressing some distant and beloved object. But still he chose to understand the appeal in his own way; and, hastily wrapping the shawls about the little figure, he raised it in his arms, saying soothingly,—

"Come, then; come to mammy, little sister. You didn't ought to have danced and get all tired."

"Good-by, little one," said Giovanni somewhat ruefully. The child raised her head from Teddy's shoulder, and, smiling through her tears, said sweetly,—

"Good-by, 'Varny. It wasn't you made me cry, but because"—

"'Cause you was tired, little sister," interposed Teddy hastily; and
Giovanni looked at him craftily.

"I'll come and see you another day, 'Varny; but I must go lie down now," continued Cherry, anxious to remove any wound her new friend's feelings might have received. And the organ-grinder smiled until he showed all his white teeth, as he replied,—"Yes, and again and again,—as often as you will, picciola."

But Teddy, shaking his head disapprovingly, muttered, as he carried his little sister away,—

"No: it isn't good for you, sissy, to get so tired and worried."

CHAPTER XV.

THE PINK-SILK DRESS.

BUT, spite of Teddy's disapproval and his mother's doubts, neither of them could resist the earnestness of Cherry's entreaties, day after day, to be allowed to "go down and see the music in 'Varny's room;" and it finally became quite a regular thing for Teddy, upon his return home, to find his little sister ready shawled and hooded, and waiting for him to accompany her.

As the summer came on, and whole streets-full of his patrons left the city, Giovanni became less regular in his hours of leavings or returning home; often remaining in his room several hours of the day, smoking, sleeping, or training Pantalon in new accomplishments.

So sure as she knew him to be at home, Cherry gave her foster-mother no peace until she had consented to allow her to visit him; and Mrs. Ginniss said to herself, "Sure, and it's no harm the little crather can git uv man nor monkey nor music; an' what's the good uv crossin' her?"

So it finally came about that Cherry spent many more hours in the company of Giovanni, Pantalon, and the organ, than Teddy either knew, or would have liked, had his mother thought fit to tell him.

At first, the conversation between the new friends was carried on in the imperfect English used by both; but, very soon, Giovanni, noticing the facility with which the child adopted an occasional word of Italian, set himself to teach her the language, and succeeded beyond his expectations. Indeed it seemed to him that the soft and liquid accents of the beloved tongue had never sounded to him so sweet beneath Italian skies as now, when they fell from the rosy lips and pure tones of the charming child whom he, with all who approached her, was learning to love with the best love of his nature.

Besides the Italian lessons, Giovanni taught his little pupil to sing several of the popular songs of his native city of Naples, and to perform several of his national dances; watching with an ever-new delight the grace and ease of her movements, and the quickness with which she caught at his every hint and gesture.

Occasionally, Cherry insisted upon making Pantalon join in the dance; and the somewhat sombre face of the Italian would ripple all over with laughter as he watched her efforts to subdue the creature's motions to grace and harmony, and to cultivate in his bestial brain her own innate love of those divine gifts.

"You will never make him dance as if of heaven, as you do, picciola," said he one day; and Cherry suddenly stood still, and, dropping the monkey's paws, came to her teacher's side, asking eagerly,—

"Have you been to heaven too? and did you see me dance there?"

"Padre Johannes says we all came from heaven; so I suppose I did, and perhaps Pantalon also," said the Italian with a comical grimace: "but, if so, I have long forgotten what I saw there. Do you remember heaven, picciola?"

"Yes; I don't now," slowly replied the child with the weary and puzzled look she so often wore. "Sometimes I do. I used to dance; and mamma-that wasn't mammy-was there: but there was a naughty lady that slapped me; and there was a little man-why, it was Pantalon, wasn't it? Did Pantalon eat some cake that I-no, that some one gave him? Oh! I don't know; and I am so tired! I guess I'll go see mammy now, and lie down on the bed."

Giovanni did not try to detain the child, but, after closing the door behind her, remained looking at it as if he still saw the object of his thoughts, while an expression of perplexity and doubt clouded the careless good-humor of his face. Presently, however, it cleared; and, with a significant gesture of the head, he muttered,—

"What then? Is it my business or my fault? Come, Pantalon: we shall sup."

When Cherry appeared the next day in Giovanni's room, it was with as gay and untroubled a face as if no haunting memories had ever vexed her; and Giovanni, who liked her sunny mood much the best, was careful not to awaken any other. He played for her to dance; he sang with her; he told her stories of Italy, and the merry life he had lived there with his wife and child.

"And my little Julietta, like you, loved music and dancing, and sang like the angels," said he, smoothing Cherry's shining curls.

"Did she? Then she sings in heaven, and is happy: and by and by, when we go there, we'll see her; won't we?"

The Italian shook his head.

"You may, picciola; but the good God, if he takes me to heaven, must make me so changed, that Julietta could no longer know me, or I her. We men are not as little maidens."

Then, with a sudden change of mood, the Italian snatched from its case his cherished violin, and drew from it such joyous strains, that the child, clapping her hands, and skipping round the room, cried,—

"It laughs! the music laughs, and makes me laugh too! And
Pantalon-see poor Pantalon try to laugh, and he can't!"

Giovanni stopped suddenly, and laid down his violin. A new thought, a sudden plan, had entered his head, and made his breath come quick, and his eyes grow bright. He looked attentively at the child for a moment, and then said,—

"Julietta used to wear such a beautiful dress, and go with me to the houses of rich people to dance; but you dance better than she did, picciola."

"Oh! let me go, and wear a beautiful dress. I don't like this dress a bit!" said Cherry, plucking nervously at the coarse and tawdry calico frock Mrs. Ginniss had thought it quite a triumph to obtain and to make up.

"I have saved two of Julietta's dresses for love of her. You shall see them," said the Italian; and from the box where he kept his clothes he presently brought a small bundle, and, unfolding it, shook out two little frocks,—one of pink silk, covered with spangles; the other a gay brocade, upon whose white ground tiny rosebuds were dotted in a graceful pattern. Some long silk stockings, and white satin boots with red heels, and blue tassels at the ankle, dropped from the bundle; and from one of the latter Giovanni drew a wreath of crushed and faded artificial roses.

"All these were given her by the beautiful marchsa for whom she was named. Many times we have been to play and dance before her pal zzo; and she, sending for us in, has given the little one a dress or a wreath, or a handful of confetti, or a silver-piece in her hand. It was when the marchsa died that our troubles began; and in three months more the little Julietta followed her, and Steph na (that was my wife) went from me, and—But see, picciola! is it not a pretty dress? Let us put it upon you, and it shall dance the Romaika with you as it once did with her."

Nothing loath, Cherry hastened, with the help of the Italian, to array herself in the pink-silk frock, and to exchange her coarse shoes for the silken hose and satin boots of the little lost Julietta. Although somewhat large, the clothes fitted better than those Cherry had taken off; and when, seizing the violin, Giovanni drew a long, warning note, the little dancer took her position, and pointed her tiny foot with so assured and graceful an air, that the Italian, nodding and smiling, cried with enthusiasm,—

"Ah, ah! See the little Taglioni! Why is she not upon the boards of
La Sc la?"

What this might mean Cherry could not guess, nor greatly cared to know. She understood that her friend was pleased, and her little heart beat high with vanity and excitement. She danced as she had never danced before; and at the end, while Giovanni still applauded, and before she had regained her breath, the child was panting,—

"I want to go and dance for the rich ladies, like Julietta used to do, and wear her beautiful dresses, and have a wreath."

"Why not, then?" exclaimed the Italian eagerly. "Only you must never say so to the woman above there or the boy: they will not allow it."

"Won't mammy and Teddy like it? Then I can't go. Oh, dear! Why won't they like it, 'Varny?"

"Because they can't dance, and they don't want you to be different from them; and they will be afraid you will tire yourself. They don't know that it makes you well and happy to dance, and hear music, as it does me to make it. They are not like us, these people above there."

Cherry looked earnestly in his face, and her own suddenly flushed while she replied indignantly,—

"They're real good, 'Varny; and I love them same as I do you and
Pantalon. Don't you love them?"

"Oh! but I adore them, picciola; and I like well that you should place me and Pantalon beside them. But surely they do not dance, or love music, as we do."

Cherry shut tight her lips, and shook her head with an uneasy expression.

"Mammy says she don't believe they dance in heaven: and Teddy says it wasn't there I used to learn; for I never went anywhere but to mammy's room since I was borned."

"But they do dance in heaven, and sing, and listen to music; and it is because you came from heaven so little while ago that you remember, and they have forgotten," said Giovanni positively. "And it is right that you should love these things; and it is right that you should go with me, and say nothing to them till we come back. I will ask the good woman that I may take you for a walk in a day or two and I will carry the pretty dress and the violin; and, when we are away from the house, you shall put it on, and we will go and dance for the rich people a little while; and some one shall give you beautiful things, and much money, as they did Julietta; and then we will come home, and bring it all to the mammy, and she will be so happy, and see that it is a good thing, after all, to dance."

"Yes, yes; that will be splendid!" cried Cherry, clapping her hands and jumping up and down. "I will save every bit of the candy, and all the beautiful dresses, and the roses, and every thing, and bring them to mammy."

"And the money, that she may buy bread and clothes and wood, and not have to work so hard for them herself," suggested Giovanni artfully.

"Yes, Teddy gives her money; and she calls him her brave, good boy.
So she'll call me too, pretty soon; won't she?"

"Truly will she; but remember always, picciola, that she nor Teddy must know any thing of this, or they will prevent it all. You won't tell them?"

"No; I won't tell," said Cherry, shuttling her lips very tight, and shaking her head a great many times. "Only we must go very quick, or else I might forget; and, when I opened my mouth, it might jump out before I knew."

"We will go to-morrow if it is fine," said Giovanni, after a moment of consideration; and Cherry, after changing her clothes, returned home so full of mystery and importance, that unless Mrs. Ginniss had been more than usually busy, and Teddy obliged to hurry with his supper and go directly out again, one or the other must have suspected that something very mysterious was working in the mind of their little pet.

CHAPTER XVI.

BEGINNING A NEW LIFE.

As if to favor Giovanni's plot, it chanced, that, in the morning of the next day, Mrs. Ginniss received a sudden summons to the bedside of Ann Dolan, the friend whose advice had led to Teddy's being placed in his present situation.

The messenger had reported that Ann was "very bad wid her heart, an' the life was knocked out intirely, sure:" and Mrs. Ginniss felt herself bound to hasten to the help of her friend, should she still be alive; or to see that she was "waked dacent" if dead. Just as she was wondering if it was best to take Cherry with her, or to leave her locked up alone until her return, Giovanni appeared at the door, his face disposed in its most winning smile, and his manner as respectful as if he had been addressing the marchsa who had been his own and his daughter's patron.

"Will my good neighbor allow that the little girl go for a walk with me this fine morning?" asked he. "I would like to show her the flowers and the swans in the gardens of the city."

"An' will you take the monkey an' the grind-orgin the day?" asked
Mrs. Ginniss doubtfully.

"Indeed, no! I go to a walk to enjoy the fine time, and to see the flowers and the swans," explained Giovanni in his best English, and with a proportion of bows and smiles; while Cherry stood by, her little face full of surprise and mystery, not unmingled with a little shame as she felt that her good mammy was being deceived and misled by the wily Italian.

"Faith, thin, Mr. Jovarny, it's very perlite ye are iver an' always; but I don't jist feel aisy wid the child out uv my sight. Mabbe she'd better wait till night, when Teddy can take her out."

"Oh, let me go, mammy! I want to go with 'Varny, and I'll bring you"—

"Yes; we'll get the pretty flowers to bring to mammy, she would say," interrupted the Italian hastily; and Mrs. Ginniss, looking down at the little anxious face and pleading eyes, found her better judgment suddenly converted into a desire to please her little darling at any rate, and to see her smile again in her own sunny fashion.

"Sure, an' ye shall go, 'vourneen, if it's that bad ye're wantin' it," said she, stooping to take the child in her arms; and, as Cherry kissed her again and again, she added,—

"An' it's well ye don't ask the heart out uv me body; for it's inter yer hand I'd have to give it, colleen bawn."

Giovanni looked on, his half-shut, black eyes glittering, and a wily smile wrinkling his sallow cheek.

"Every one has his day," muttered he in Italian, "Your's to-day, good woman; mine to-morrow."

Half an hour later, Cherry, dressed as neatly as her foster-mother's humble means and taste would allow, and her face glowing with pleasure and excitement, skipped out of the door of the tenement-house, looking like the fairy princess in a pantomime as she suddenly emerges from the hovel where she has been hidden.

Giovanni followed, carrying a bundle, and his violin wrapped in papers. These, he explained to Mrs. Ginniss, were only some matters he had to leave with a friend as he went along; but he should not go into any house, or take the little girl anywhere but for the walk he had mentioned.

"Faix, an' it's mighty ginteel ye are, anyway, Misther Jovarny," said the Irishwoman, watching the pair from the window of her attic as they walked slowly up the street. "But I'm afther wishin' I'd said no whin I said yis. Nor yet I couldn't tell why, more than that Teddy'll be mad to hear she's been wid him. But the b'y hasn't sinse whin it's about the little sisther he's talkin'. He thinks the ground isn't good enough for her to walk on, nor goold bright enough for her to wear."

So saying, Mrs. Ginniss closed the window, and, throwing a little shawl over her head, locked the door, leaving the key underneath, and hurried away to her sick friend, with whom she staid till nearly night.

Giovanni and Cherry, meantime, walked gayly on, chatting, now of the wonderful things about them, now of the yet more wonderful scenes they were to visit. At a confectioner's shop, in a shady by-street, they stopped to rest for a while; and the Italian provided his little guest with ice-creams, cakes, and candies, to her heart's content.

"I like these better than potatoes and pork-meat. I used to eat these in heaven," said the little girl, pausing to look at a macaroon, and then finishing it with a relish.

The Italian laughed.

"Canary-birds do not feed with crows," said he. "When we are rich, picciola, you shall never eat worse than this."

"Shall we be rich soon, 'Varny?" asked the child eagerly.

"Upon the moment almost, if you will dance and laugh, and look so pretty as you can, always."

"But we needn't stop to be very rich before we go and carry some of the nice things to mammy," rejoined Cherry anxiously.

"No, no, indeed! We will but make a little turn in the country, and come back princes. But mind you this, picciola: I am to be your father now, or all the same; and I shall tell every one that you are my own little girl: so you must never say, 'Not so.'"

"But mammy said my father was dead, and Teddy said so too. He was
Michael darlint."

"I doubt not that Signor Michaelli died, and has gone to glory; but I strangely doubt if he were thy father, picciola," said the Italian with a grave smile. "However that may be, forget that you have ever had other father than me, and call me so always: 'Mio padre,' you must say, and no more 'Varny. Also, too, you must speak in Italian, as I shall to you; and never, as you do now, in English."

"But mammy and Teddy don't know Italian," said Cherry, beginning to look a little troubled.

"'In Rome, do as the Romans do.' When you are again with the woman and boy, speak as they speak: with me, speak as I speak."

Giovanni said this more decidedly than he had ever spoken before, and Cherry looked quickly up at him.

"Is that the way you talk because you want to make believe you are my father?" asked she.

A sudden smile shot across the Italian's face, lighting its dark features like a gleam of sunshine sweeping across a pine-clad mountain-land.

"Shame were it to me, dear little heart, if to be thy father were to make thee less happy than thou hast been with those others," said he softly in Italian, and using the form of address, which, in almost every language but the English, marks a different and more tender relation from that indicated by the more formal plural pronoun.

"You will be happy with me if we do not soon revisit these people we leave behind?" asked he.

The child's eyes grew large and deep as she fixed them upon his face, and presently asked,—

"Are you going with me to try to find heaven again?"

"Perhaps: who knows, picciola? The heaven you miss may come to you more easily if you go to seek it. At any rate, I will carry thee no farther from it. But come: we must get to our journey."

Leaving the confectioner's shop, Giovanni lingered no longer in the gay streets, or even upon the fresh green grass of the Common, where Cherry would have staid to play all day. Hurrying across it, and through some crowded streets, the Italian entered a large station-house, where stood the train of cars, already half filled with passengers; while the engine, puffing and panting with impatience, seemed unwilling to wait a moment longer.

Leaving Cherry in the ladies' room, the Italian bought his tickets, and reclaimed from the baggage-room, where he had left it, his organ, with Pantalon chained to the top of it. Then, calling the child, he hurried with her into the cars, and selected a seat behind the door, in the evident wish of being seen as little as possible.

"Now, then, Ciriegia mia, we go to seek our fortune," said he, as the train left the station, and began to rush through the suburbs of the city, scattering little dirty children, vagrant dogs, leisurely pigs, and dawdling carriages driven by honest old ladies, from its track.

Cherry never had ridden in the cars before; and she clung tight to the sleeve of her companion, afraid to move, or even to speak, until he laughingly asked,—

"It does not fear, the poor little one, does it?"

"No, I guess not, 'Varny," replied the child doubtfully; but the
Italian sharply said,—

"What is this 'Varny you say? I am mio padre."

"I forgot. Won't I tumble out of this carriage, my father, it goes so quick?"

"Fear nothing, figlia mia. You are safe with me and with Pantalon," said the Italian, drawing the little girl close to his side; while the monkey, crouching upon the organ at their feet, chattered his own promises of protection and comfort.

With 'Toinette, to live was to love and trust; and, clinging close to her new guardian's side, she laid her little shining head upon his breast, clinging with one hand to the lappet of his coat; and, laughing down at Pantalon, she fell presently asleep.

At night the Italian left the train, and took lodgings at a hotel near the centre of a large town. His little charge-tired, hungry, and sleepy-was very glad to have supper, and to be allowed to go to bed, where she slept soundly until summoned the next morning by Giovanni, who brought her some breakfast with his own hands, and, placing it upon the table, laid a bundle of clothes beside it.

"Rise and eat, carissima," said be gayly; "and then make thyself as beautiful as the morning with these fine clothes. See, here are roses from the garden for a wreath! They are better than the others. When thou art ready, come out to me."

He left the room; and 'Toinette, rising, made a hasty breakfast; and then, putting on the brocade-silk dress, and placing upon her head the wreath Giovanni had twisted of natural flowers for her, she peeped into the glass, and laughed aloud at the fanciful and beautiful image that met her eyes.

"I am glad I look so pretty," murmured she, with an innocent delight at her own beauty, that was not vanity, although, it might, if untrained, lead to it.

"Come, Ciriegia, are you never ready?" called Giovanni from the other side of the door; and Cherry, running to open it, exclaimed in Italian,—

"Oh, see, my father! am I not beautiful?"

"Truly so; but you should not say it, bamb¡na. The charm of a maiden is her modesty," said the Italian gravely.

"But, if it is true, why mustn't I say so?" asked Cherry positively.

"Many things that we know are never to be said, Ciriega. But come, now: you are to dance first for these people, and they will make no charge for our beds and the miserable provender they have given us."

As he spoke, Giovanni led the way to the lower hall of the hotel, where a number of men were lounging, smoking, or talking; while through the open doors of the parlor and office were to be seen some ladies and gentlemen, idling away the hour after breakfast, before proceeding to their business, their journey, or their amusement.

Placing himself in the centre of the hall, Giovanni, with a bow to the company, played a little prelude, and then struck into the lively strains of the cachuca.

Cherry, who had stood looking at him, her head slightly bent, her lips apart, eyes and ears alert to catch the signal to begin, pointed her little foot at the precise moment, and, holding her dress in the tips of her slender fingers, slid into the movement with a grace and accuracy never to be attained except by vigorous practice, or a temperament as sensitive to time and tune, limbs as supple, and impulses as graceful, as were those of this gifted and unfortunate child.

"See there!-the poor little thing!" exclaimed one of the ladies, who came to the door of the drawing-room to see the performance.

"How can you say poor little thing?" asked another. "Don't you see how she enjoys it herself? That smile is not the artificial grimace of a ballet-dancer; and no eyes ever sparkled so joyously to order."

"Perhaps she does enjoy it; but all the more 'Poor little thing!' say I," rejoined the first speaker, adding thoughtfully, "What sort of training for a woman is that?"

"Oh, well! but it is very pretty to see her; and she would probably be running in the streets, or doing worse, if she did not dance; and so little as she is! It is equal to the theatre."

The speaker drew out her purse as she spoke, and carelessly threw a dollar-bill towards the child, who had finished her dance, and stood looking round with an innocent smile, as if asking for applause rather than reward.

"Go and take it, carissima; and then hold your hand to the others; each will give you something," said Giovanni in a low voice.

"How much we shall have to carry to mammy!" exclaimed the child eagerly; and, as she gathered in her harvest, she chattered away, always in Italian,—

"And more, and more, and more! O my father! how many cents they give me! What nice people they are! Let me dance some more for them; and let Pantalon come down, and let them see him."

" No, no, child! These are not of those who would care for Pantalon. While you rest by and by, I shall take him and the organ, and go about the streets; but your little feet are worth many Pantalons to me. Come, we will give them the tarantella as they have done so well."

Skipping to his side, with a childish grace more attractive than the studied movements of the most accomplished actress, Cherry stuffed the proceeds of her first attempt into the pocket of her guardian, and then, throwing herself into position, went through the wild and grotesque movements of the tarantella, with a life and freshness that drew from the spectators a burst of applause and surprise.

"That will do. We must not give them too much at once, lest the wonder come to an end. Make the pretty kiss of the hand, figlia mia, and run up the stairs to your own little room."

Cherry obeyed, calling back, as she disappeared, "Tell them I will dance some more for them by and by if they want me to."

CHAPTER XVII.

WHOLESALE MURDER.

IN the course of that day, Giovanni and his little danseuse visited all the principal public places in the town, and also several of the best private houses; and, at all, the performances of the child called forth the surprise, delight, and admiration of those who witnessed them. Nor were more substantial proofs of their approval wanting; so that at night, when Giovanni counted up his gains, he found them so large, that he cried, while embracing poor weary little Cherry,—

"O blessed, blessed moment when thou didst cross my path, Ciriegia carissima!"

"Now can't we go home to mammy? I am so tired, and my head feels sick!" moaned the child, laying the poor aching little head upon his shoulder.

Giovanni looked down at the pale face, and, meeting the languid eyes, felt a pang of conscience and pity.

"Thou art tired, bamb¡na povera mia," said he kindly. "Another day, we will be more careful. Lie down now, and sleep for a while. We go again in the steam-carriage to-night."

Cherry climbed upon the bed without reply, and in a moment was fast asleep. The Italian drew the coverings about her, and stooped to kiss the pale cheek, where showed already a dark circle beneath the eye, and a painful contraction at the corner of the mouth.

"Poveracita!" murmured he. "But soon we will have money enough to go home to the father-land, and then all will be well with her as with me."

Three hours later, he came to arouse the child, and prepare her to renew the journey.

"Oh, I am so tired! I want to sleep some more so bad, 'Varny!-no, my father, I mean. I don't want to go somewhere," said she piteously, closing her eyes, and struggling to lay her head again upon the pillow. Giovanni hesitated for a moment; and then, never knowing that the decision was one of life and death, the question of a whole future career, he determined to pursue his plan in spite of that plaintive entreaty, and, hastily wrapping a shawl about the child, took her in his arms, and carried her down stairs. The organ and Pantalon waited in the hall below; and Giovanni, setting Cherry upon her feet, shouldered the organ and, taking the little girl by the hand, led her out into the quiet street, where lay the light of a full moon, making the night more beautiful than day. Cherry's drowsy eyes flew wide open; and, looking up in Giovanni's face with eager joy, she cried,—

"Oh! now we're going back to heaven; aren't we, my father? It was bright and still like this in heaven; and I saw a star, and-and then the naughty lady struck me"—

"Peace, little one! I know not of what you speak, nor any thing of heaven," said the Italian in a troubled voice; and the child, hurrying along at his side, raised her face silently to the summer sky, seeking there, perhaps, the answer to the questions forever stirring in her struggling soul.

A little later, and the swift train, flying through the sleeping land, bore away the travellers; while Giovanni, settling himself as easily as possible, laid the head of his little Ciriegia upon his breast, tenderly smoothed down her silky curls, and laid his hand upon the bright eyes, that frightened him with the intensity of their gaze.

"Sleep, carissima mia, sleep," murmured he soothingly; "sleep, and forget thy weariness and thy memories."

"I can't sleep now, my father. It seems to me that we are going to heaven; and I want to be awake to see-the lady"—

The words faltered, and died upon her lips. The beautiful image of her mother, fading slowly from her memory, seemed already a vision so vague, that to name it were to lose it,—an idea too precious and too impalpable to put in words. The past, with all its love and joy and beauty, was becoming for our 'Toinette what we may fancy heaven is to a little baby, whose solemn eyes and earnest gaze seem forever attempting to recall the visions of celestial beauty it has left for the pale, sad skies, and mournful sounds of earth.

On rushed the train through the quiet night, waking wild echoes in the woods, and leaving them to whisper themselves again to sleep when it had passed; lighting dark valleys that the moonlight left unlighted, with its whirling banner of flame and sparks, and its hundred blazing windows; moving across the holy calm of midnight like some strange and troubled vision, some ugly nightmare, that for the moment changes peace and rest to horror and affright, and then passes again to the dim and ghostly Dreamland, whose frontier crowds our daily life on every hand, and whence forever peep and beckon the mysteries that perplex and haunt the human mind.

On and on and on, through misty lowland and shadowy wood, and over shining rivers, and through sleeping hamlets, and winding, snake-like, between great round hills and along deep mountain-gorges, until the wild, bright eyes that watched beneath Cherry's matted curls grew soft and dim; and at last the white lids fell, and the curve of the sad lips relaxed beneath the kiss of God's mildest messenger to man,—the spirit of sleep.

As for Giovanni, he long had slumbered heavily; and even Pantalon, whose bright eyes were seldom known to close, was now curled up beneath the organ-covering, dreaming, perhaps, of the nut-groves and spice-islands where he had once known liberty and youth.

Just then it came,—a crash as if heaven and earth had met; a wild, deep cry, made up of all tones of human agony and fright; the shriek of escaping steam; the rending and splintering of wood and iron; destruction, terror, pain, and death, all mingled in one awful moment. Then those who had escaped unhurt began the sad and terrible task of withdrawing from the ruin the maimed and bleeding bodies of those who yet lived, the crushed remains and fragments of those who had been killed in the moment of the encounter: and, in all the bewildering confusion of the scene, none had eyes for the little childish figure, that, hurled from the splintered car, lay for a while stunned and shaken among the soft grass where it had fallen, and then, staggering to its feet, fled wildly away into the dim forest-land.

CHAPTER XVIII.

DORA DARLING.

THE sun was setting upon the day succeeding that of the great railroad accident, that, for weeks, filled the whole land with horror and indignation, when a young girl, driving rapidly along a country-road at a point about five miles distant from the scene of the disaster, met a child walking slowly toward her, whose disordered dress, bare head, and wild, sweet face, attracted her attention and curiosity.

Checking her spirited horse with some difficulty, the young girl looked back, and found that the child had stopped, and stood watching her.

"See here, little girl!" called she. "Are you lost? Is any thing the matter with you?"

The child fixed her solemn eyes upon the face of the questioner, but made no answer.

"Come here, sissy! I want to talk to you; and I can't turn round to come to you. Come here!"

The little girl slowly obeyed the kind command, and stood presently beside the wagon, her pale face upraised, her startled eyes intently fixed upon the clear and honest ones bent to meet them.

"What is your name, little girl?"

"Sunshine," said the child vaguely; and her eyes dropped from the face of her questioner to fix themselves upon the far horizon, where hung already the evening-star, pale and trembling, as it had hung upon the evening of 'Toinette Legrange's birthday ten months before. Was it a sudden association with the star and the hour that had suggested to the heart of the desolate child this name, so long forgotten, once so appropriate, now so strange and sad?

"Sunshine?" replied the young girl wonderingly. "You don't look like it a bit. Where do you belong? and where are you going?"

The child's eyes travelled back from Dreamland, and rested wistfully upon the kind face above her.

"I don't know," said she sadly. "I want to go to heaven; but I've forgot the way."

"To heaven! You poor little thing, have you no home short of that?"

"I don't know. I wish I had some water."

"You had better jump into the wagon, and come home with me, Sunshine, if that is your name. Something has got to be done for you right away."

The child, still looking at her in that strange and solemn manner, asked suddenly,—

"Who are you?"

"I? Oh! I'm Dora Darling; and I live about five miles from here. Jump in quick; for it is growing dark, and we must be at home for supper."

As she spoke, she leaned down, and gave a hand to the little girl, who mechanically took it, and clambered into the carriage. Dora lifted her to the seat, and held her there, with one arm about her waist, saying kindly,—

"Hug right up to me, you poor little thing! and hold on tight. We'll be at home in half an hour, or less.-Now, Pope!"

The impatient horse, feeling the loosened rein, and hearing his own name, darted away at speed; whirling the light wagon along so rapidly, that the child clung convulsively to her new protector, murmuring,—

"I guess I shall spill out of this, and get kilt."

"Oh, no, you won't, Sunshine! I shall hold you in. You're not Irish, are you?"

"What's that?"

"Why, Irish, you know. You said 'kilt' just now, instead of 'killed,' as we do."

The child made no reply; but her head drooped upon Dora's shoulder yet more heavily, and her eyes closed.

"Are you sick, little girl? or only tired?" asked Dora, looking anxiously down into the colorless face, over which the evening breeze was gently strewing the tangled curls, as if to hide it from mortal view, while the poor, worn, spirit fled away to peace and rest.

"Sunshine!" exclaimed Dora, gently moving the heavy head that still drooped lower and lower, until now the face was hidden from view.

"She has fainted!" said Dora, looking anxiously about her. No house and no person were in sight, nor any stream or pond of water; and the young girl decided that the wisest course would be to drive home as rapidly as possible, postponing all attempt to revive her little patient until her arrival there.

Without checking the horse, she dragged from under the seat a quilted carriage-robe, and spread it in the bottom of the wagon, arranging a paper parcel as a pillow. Then, laying poor Sunshine upon this extemporized couch, she took off her own light shawl, and covered her; leaving exposed only the face, white and lovely as the marble statue recumbent upon a little maiden's tomb.

"Now, Pope!" cried Dora, with one touch of the whip upon the glossy haunch of the powerful beast, who, at sound of that clear voice, neighed reply, and darted forward at the rate of twelve good miles an hour; so that, in considerably less than the promised time, Dora skilfully turned the corner from the road into a green country lane, and, a few moments after, stopped before the door of an old-fashioned one-story farm-house, painted red, with a long roof sloping to the ground at the back, an open well with a sweep and bucket, and a diamond-paned dairy-window swinging to and fro in the faint breeze. Around the irregular door-stone, the grass grew close and green; while nodding in at the window, and waving from the low eaves, and clambering upon the roof, a tangle of white and sweet-brier roses, of woodbine and maiden's-bower, lent a rare grace to the simple home, and loaded the air with a cloud of delicate perfume.

A young man, lounging upon the doorstep, started to his feet as the wagon came dashing up the lane, and was going to open the gate of the barn-yard; but Dora stopped before the open door, and called to him,—

"Karl! Come here, please."

"Certainly. I was running out of the way for fear of being ground to powder beneath your chariot-wheels; for I said to myself, 'Surely the driving is as the driving of Jehu, the son of Nimshi.'"

"I shouldn't have driven so fast; but-see here!"

She pulled away the shawl as she spoke, and showed to the young man, who now stood beside the carriage, the still inanimate form of the little waif at her feet.

"Phew! What's that? and where did you get it?"

"A little girl that I met; lost, I think. I took her into the buggy, and then she fainted, and I laid her down," rapidly explained Dora; adding, as she raised the little figure in her arms,—

"Take her in, and lay her on the bed in the rosy-room."

"Poor little thing! She's not dead, is she, Dora?" asked the young man softly, as he took the child in his arms and entered the house, followed by Dora.

"Oh, no! I think not; only fainted. I suppose there's hot water, for a bath, in the kitchen."

As she spoke, they entered the sitting-room,—a cool, shady apartment, with a great beam crossing the ceilings, and deep recesses to the windows, with seats in them.

At the farther side, Dora threw open the door of a little bedroom, whose gay-papered walls and flowered chintz furniture, not to speak of a great sweet-brier bush tapping and scratching at the window, with all its thousand sharp little fingers, gave it a good right to be called the rosy-room. Dora hastily drew away the bright counterpane, and nodded to Karl, who laid the little form he carried tenderly upon the bed.

At this moment, another door into the sitting-room opened; and a girl, somewhat older than Dora, put in her head, looked about for a moment, and then came curiously toward the door of the rosy-room.

"I thought I heard you, Dora," said she. "What are you doing in here? Why!-who's that?"

"O Kitty! can you warm a little of that broth we had for dinner, to give her? She's just starved, I really believe. And is there any ammonia in the house?-smelling-salts, you know. Didn't aunt have some?" asked Dora rapidly.

"I believe so. But where did you get this child? Who is she?"

"Run, Kitty, and get the salts first. We'll tell you afterward."

"What shall I do, Dora?" interposed the young man; and Kitty ran upon her errand, while Dora promptly replied,—

"Open the window, and bring some cold water; and then a little wine or brandy, if we have any."

"Enough for this time, at any rate," said Karl, hurrying away, and returning with both water and wine just as Kitty appeared with the salts; but it was Dora who applied the remedies, and with a skill and steadiness that would have seemed absolutely marvellous to one unacquainted with the young girl's previous history and training.

"She's coming to herself. You'd better both go out of sight, and let her see only me. Kitty, will you look to the broth?" whispered Dora; and Karl, taking his sister by the sleeve, led her out, softly closing the door after them.

"Dora does like to manage, I must say. Now, do tell me at last who this child is, and where she came from, and what's going to be done with her," said Kitty as they reached the kitchen. "Why shouldn't she like to manage, when she can do it so well? I can tell you, Miss Kitty, if she hadn't man aged to some purpose on one occasion, you wouldn't have had a brother to-day to plague you."

The girl's dark eyes grew moist as she turned them upon him, saying warmly,—

"I know it, Charley; and I would love her for that, if nothing else: but I can't forget she's almost a year younger than I am, and ought not to expect to take the lead in every thing."

"Pooh, Kit-cat, don't be ridiculous! Get the soup, and put it over the fire; and I'll tell you all I know about our little guest."

"I let the fire go down when tea was ready, it is so warm to-night," said Kitty, raking away the ashes in the open fireplace, and drawing together a few coals.

"That will do. You only want a cupful or so at once, and you can warm it in a saucepan over those coals."

"Dear me! I guess I know how to do as much as that without telling.
Sit down now, and let me hear about the child."

So Karl dropped into the wooden arm-chair beside the hearth, and told his story; while Kitty, bustling about, warmed the broth, moved the tea-pot and covered dish of toast nearer to the remnant of fire, waved a few flies off the neat tea-table, and drove out an intrusive chicken, who, before going to roost, was evidently determined to secure a dainty bit for supper from the saucer of bread and milk set in the corner for pussy.

"If the broth is ready, I'll take it in," said Karl, as his sister removed it from the fire.

"Well, here it is; and do tell Dora to come to supper, or at least come yourself. I want to get cleared away some time."

"I'll tell her," said Karl briefly, as he took the bowl of broth, set it in a plate, and laid a silver spoon beside it.

"How handy he is! just like a woman," said Kitty to herself as her brother left the room; and then, going out into the sink-room, she finished washing and putting away the "milk-things,"-a process interrupted by the arrival of Dora with her little charge.

CHAPTER XIX.

A CHAMBER OF MEMORIES.

"How is she now, Dora?" asked Karl, softly opening the door of the rosy-room.

"Better. You can come in if you want to. Have you got the broth?"

"Yes: here it is."

"That's nice. Now hold her up, please, this way, while I feed her. See, little Sunshine! here is some nice broth for you. Take a little, won't you?"

The pale lips slightly opened, and Dora deftly slipped the spoon between them. The effect was instantaneous; and, as the half-starved child tasted and smelled the nourishing food, she opened wide her eyes, and, fixing them upon the cup, nervously worked her lips, and half extended her poor little hands, wasted and paled by even two days of privation and fatigue.

"I tell you what, Dora, this child has had a mighty narrow chance of it," said Karl aside, as Dora patiently administered the broth, waiting a moment between each spoonful.

"Yes," replied she softly. "I am so glad I met her! it was a real providence."

"For her?"

"For me as much," returned Dora simply. "It is so pleasant to be able to do something again!"

"You miss your wounded and invalid soldiers, and find it very dull here," said Karl quickly, as he glanced sharply into the open face of the young girl.

"Hush, Karl! don't talk now: it will disturb her. Is tea ready?"

"Yes, and Kitty sent word for you to come. Run along, and I will stay with the chick till you come back."

"No: I can't leave her yet. You go to supper, and perhaps, when you are done, I will leave you with her; or Kitty can stay, and I will clear away."

"Won't you let me stay now?" asked the young man hesitatingly.

"No. Here, take the bowl, and run along."

"'Just as you say, not as I like,' I suppose," said Karl, laughing; and, taking the bowl, he went softly out.

"Now, little girl, you feel better, don't you?" asked Dora cheerily, as she laid the heavy head back upon the pillow, and tenderly smoothed away the tangled hair.

"Si, signora," murmured Giovanni's pupil.

"What's that? I don't know what you mean. Say it again, won't you?"

But the child only fixed her dreamy eyes upon the face of the questioner, with no effort at reply; and then the lids began slowly to close.

"Now, before you go to sleep, Sunshine, I am going to take you up stairs, and put you in my own bed, because I sha'n't want to leave you alone to-night; and no one sleeps here. Wait till I fold this shawl round you, and then pull your arms about my neck. There: now we'll go."

She lifted the child as she spoke, and carried her again into the front entry, and up the square staircase to a cottage-chamber with white, scoured floor, common pine furniture, the cheapest of white earthern toilet-sets, and nothing of expense or luxury to be found within its four whitewashed walls, and yet a room that gave one a feeling of satisfaction and peace not always inhabiting far wider and more costly chambers: for the little bed was artistically composed, and covered with snow-white dimity, as was the table between the windows, and the cushion of the wooden rocking-chair; while curtains of the same material, escaped from their tri-colored fastenings, floated in upon the soft breeze like great sails, or the draperies of twilight spirits departing before mortal presence.

In the fireplace stood a large pitcher, filled with common flowers, fresh and odorous; and upon the high mantle-shelf, and all around the room, was disposed a collection of the oddest ornaments that ever decked a young girl's sleeping-chamber. Among them we will but pause to mention two muskets, the one bent, the other splintered at the stock; four swords, each more or less disabled; an officer's sash; three sets of shoulder-straps; a string of army-buttons, each with a name written upon a strip of paper, and tied to the eye; two or three dozen bone rings, of more or less elaborate workmanship, disposed upon the branches of a little tree carved of pine; a large collection of crosses, hearts, clasped hands, dogs'-heads, and other trinkets, in bone, some white, and some stained black; a careful drawing of a crooked and grotesque old negro, in a frame of carved wood; and, finally, a suit of clothes hung against the wall in the position of a human figure, consisting of a jaunty scarlet cap, with a little flag of the United States fastened to the front by an army-badge; a basque, skirt, and trousers of blue cloth, with a worn and clumsy pair of boots below. From a belt fastened across the waist hung a little barrel, a flask, and by a wide ribbon of red, white and blue, a boatswain's silver whistle.

Singular ornaments, we have said, for a young girl's sleeping-room, and yet, in this case, touchingly appropriate and harmonious: for they were the keepsakes given to the daughter of the regiment by the six hundred brave men, who each loved her as his own; they were the mementoes of a year in Dora Darling's life, of such vivid experiences that it threatened to make all the years that should come after pale and vapid in comparison.

Just now, however, all the girl's strong sympathies were aroused and glowing; and as she tenderly cared for the child so strangely placed within her hands, and finally laid her to sleep in the clover-scented sheets of the fair white bed, she felt happier than she had for months before.

A light tap at the door, and Kitty entered.

"I'll stay with her while you go and eat supper. Charles said he'd come; but I'd like well enough to sit down a little while. My!-she's pretty-looking; isn't she?"

"The prettiest child I ever saw," replied Dora, with her usual decision; and then the two girls stood for a moment looking down at the delicate little face, where, since the food and broth Dora had administered, a bright color showed itself upon the cheeks and lips; while the short, thick curls, carefully brushed, clustered around the white forehead, defining its classic shape, and contrasting with its pearly tints.

"Who can she be?" asked Kitty in a whisper.

"Some sort of foreigner,—French maybe, or perhaps Italian. She has talked considerably since I gave her the broth; but I can't make out a word she says. She spoke English when I first met her; but I don't believe she knows much of it," said Dora thoughtfully.

"There is something sewed up in a little bag, and hung round her neck," added she, "just such as some of our foreign volunteers had,—a sort of charm, you know, to keep them from being struck by the evil eye. That shows that her friends must have been foreigners."

"Yes; and Catholics too, likely enough," said Kitty rather contemptuously; adding, after a pause,—

"Well, you go down, and I'll sit by her a while. If she sleeps as sound as this, I don't suppose I need stay a great while. There's the supper-dishes to do."

"I'll wash them, of course; but, if you want to come down, you might leave the door open at the head of the back stairs, and I should hear if she called or cried. And, now I think of it, I have a letter to show Karl and you. I got it at the post-office."

"From Mr. Brown?" asked Kitty quickly.

"No, from a Mr. Burroughs; a man I never heard of in my life till to-day. But come down in a few minutes, and I will read it to you."

"Well, don't read it till I come."

"No: I won't." And Dora quietly went out of the room, leaving Kitty to swing backward and forward in the white-cushioned rocking-chair, her dark eyes wandering half contemptuously, half enviously, over Dora's collection of treasures, with an occasional glance at the sleeping child.

CHAPTER XX.

A LETTER AND AN OFFER.

IN the kitchen, Dora found Karl waiting for her; and, while she eat her supper with the healthy relish of a young and vigorous creature, she gave her cousin an account of all the circumstances attending her meeting with the little girl, whom she described again as a foreigner, and probably French.

"And what's to be done with her, Dora?" asked the young man rather gravely, when she had finished.

"Why, when she is well enough to tell who she is, and where she came from,—that is, if she can talk English at all,—we can return her to her friends; or, if they are not to be discovered, I will keep her myself. That is,"-and the young girl paused suddenly, the blood rushing to her face, as she added,—" that is, if you and Kitty are willing. It is your house, not mine; though I'm afraid I am apt to forget."

Karl looked at her reproachfully.

"When I brought you here, Dora Darling, I brought you home; and when my mother died, not yet a year ago, did she not bid us live together as brother and sisters, in love and harmony?"

"Yes; but"—

"But what, Dora?"

"I am afraid sometimes I behave too much as if it were my own house," faltered Dora.

"And so it is your own house, just as it is my own and Kitty's own. Have either of us ever made you feel that there was any difference, or that you had less right here than we?"

Dora made no reply; and, while Karl still waited for one the staircase-door opened softly, and Kitty appeared.

"The child is fast asleep," said she: "so I thought I would come down and hear the letter."

"What letter?" asked Karl a little impatiently.

"Oh! I haven't told you. Here it is."

And Dora drew from her pocket, and held toward him, a large white envelope, boldly directed to "Miss DORA DARLING, care of Capt. Charles Windsor"

"That's nonsense. I have beaten my sword into a ploughshare now, and am only plain mister," said Capt. Karl, glancing at the direction.

"Well, read the letter, do; I'm dying to hear it," said Kitty impatiently; and her brother, with an affectation of extreme haste, unfolded the thick, large sheet of note-paper and read aloud:—

"Having been requested to communicate with Miss Darling upon a matter of importance, Mr. Thomas Burroughs will do himself the honor of calling upon her, probably in the afternoon of Thursday, Aug. 25.

"CINCINNATI, Aug. 20."

"Thursday, 25th! Why, that is to-morrow!" exclaimed Karl, as he finished reading.

"Dated Cincinnati, you see! It is some message from Mr. Brown. He lives about twenty miles from Cincinnati," said Kitty eagerly.

"I don't think so. Why should Mr. Brown send a message when he writes to me so often?" replied Dora with simplicity.

"I should think he did. I suppose you expected a letter this afternoon, and that was what made you so bent upon driving to town in all the heat."

"It wasn't very hot, and you know we needed these things from the shop."

"From the grocery-store, do you mean?" asked Kitty sharply.

"Yes."

"Why can't you talk as we do, then? You have been here long enough now, I should think."

"Because she knows how to talk better, Miss Kit," said Karl good-humoredly. "Calling a shop a store is an Americanism, like calling a station-house a dpt, or trousers pants."

"Well, I thought we were Americans, Dora and all," retorted Kitty.

"Mercy, child! don't let us plunge from philology into ethnology. I prefer to speculate upon Mr. Thomas Burroughs. Who is he? and what does he want of our Dora?"

"To marry her, I suppose, or to ask her to marry Mr. Brown," snapped
Kitty.

"Perhaps he wants to ask my good word toward marrying you," suggested Dora, coloring deeply.

"No such good luck as that, eh, Kitty?" said Karl with a laugh.

"Good luck! I'm sure I'm in no hurry to be married; and, though I haven't had Dora's chances of seeing all sorts of men, I dare say I shall get as good a husband in the end," replied Kitty loftily.

"But, contemplating for one moment the idea that it may not be an offer of marriage that Mr. Thomas Burroughs means by a 'matter of importance,' let us consider what else it can be," said Karl with a quizzical smile.

"Perhaps he wants your ideas upon the campaign in Western Virginia, and a report of the general's real motives and intentions," suggested Dora gayly.

"Perhaps he wants to engage his winter's butter; though I don't believe Dora is the one to ask about that," said Kitty.

"Now, Kitty! I'm sure I made up the last, and you said it was as nice as you could do yourself."

"Yes; but you turned all the buttermilk into the pig's pail instead of saving it for biscuits."

"So I did. Well, as dear old Picter used to say, 'What's the use ob libin' if you've got trew larnin'?'"

"O Dora! how can you, how can you!-you cruel, cruel girl, how can you speak of him!" cried Kitty in a passion of anger and grief; and, pushing back her chair so violently as to upset it, she rushed out of the room.

"Oh, I am so sorry!" exclaimed Dora in great distress; and would have followed her, had not Karl held her back.

"Don't go, dear; it will be of no use: she will not let you into her room. Poor Kitty! she loved her mother so passionately, and her nature is so intense! We must make great excuses, Dora, for our sister's little inequalities of temper: I think her great loss is at the bottom of all."

Dora looked thoughtful, and presently said slowly, "I know it, Karl; but it does seem to me rather unjust that she should hate poor Pic's memory so bitterly even now. He did not know any more than I that he had small-pox when he came back that time from New York; and when Kitty told him that Aunt Lucy had taken it from him, and was very sick, he felt so badly, that I think it prevented his getting well."

"O Dora, don't say that! Kitty could not have blamed him openly."

"I don't know what she said; but, from that day, he grew worse, and died without being able to bid me good-by,—Pic, who brought me away from those cruel people, and cared for me as if I had been his child. O dear, dear old Pic!"

She did not cry; she very seldom did: but she clasped her hands tightly together, and looked so white and wild, that Karl came to her, and, taking her in his arms, would have soothed and caressed her like a little child, had not she repulsed him.

"Please not, dear Karl! I must bear my griefs alone for I am alone in all the world."

It was the bitterest sentence Dora had ever spoken, and her cousin looked at her in dismay.

"If Picter could have given the disease to me instead of to aunt, and he and I could have journeyed on together into another world as we had through this, and left your mother to Kitty and you!" continued Dora; while in her eyes, and about her white lips, quivered a passion of grief far beyond any tears,—far beyond, thank God! any grief that eyes and lips so young are often called to express. And as it rose and swelled in her girl heart, and shook her strong young soul, Dora uttered in one word all the bitterness of her orphaned life.

"Mother!" cried she, and clinched her hands above the sharp pain that seemed to suffocate her, the pain we call heart-ache, and might sometimes more justly call heart-break.

Karl looked at her, and his gay young face grew strong, and full of meaning. He folded her again in his arms, and said,—

"Dora, I had not meant to speak yet; but I cannot see you so, or hear you say such words. Do not you know, cousin, that there is nothing in all the world I love like you; and that, while I live, you can never be alone; and, while I have a home, you can never want one, or be other than its head and centre? Dora, marry me, and I will make you forget all other loves in the excess of mine." Dora allowed her head to droop upon his shoulder, and a sudden sense of peace and rest fell temptingly upon her spirit.

"Dora, Dora Darling always, even when you are all my Dora!" whispered Karl; but Dora released herself from his arms, and stood upright. Her face was strong again now, although very white; and she said,—

"Thank you, cousin. You are good and kind, as you always have been, and I am glad you love me as I love you; but what else you have said we will forget. I am too young to think of such things, and you will not feel so to-morrow or next day. Be my brother, as you have been, and let me be sister to you and Kitty, as aunt told us. I wish I could make Kitty love me."

The young man would have persisted; but Dora, gravely shaking her head, said,—

"Karl dear, you only distress me, and I want to be quiet. Do not speak of this again for at least another year, and then, perhaps, you will not want to."

"But in a year I may, if I do want to?" asked Karl eagerly.

"I don't want to say that; for I don't know that I should want you to then," said Dora, with such exquisite simplicity, that the young man laughed outright, and said,—

"But you don't know that you sha'n't, do you, darling Dorelle?"

"I didn't say so."

"No; but—Well, I won't insist; only I shall put down the date. Let me see: Aug. 24, isn't it?"

He took out his note-book, wrote a few words, and, glancing at Dora with a suppressed smile, put it away again. Then, more seriously, he took her hand, saying,—

"Only remember one thing, Dora; and that is, whatever may come in the future, this house is your home as long as it is ours; and, while I live, there is always some one who loves you best of all God's creatures."

CHAPTER XXI.

GIOVANNI'S ROOM.

"OCHONE! an' it's weary work climbin' thim stairs," groaned Mrs.
Ginniss, pausing upon the landing outside the organ-grinder's door.

"An' mabbe she's wid him still. Anyway, I'll see, and save the coomin' down agin."

With these words, Mrs. Ginniss gave a modest rap upon the door, and, as it remained unanswered, a somewhat louder one, calling at the same time,—

"Misther Jovarny! Misther Jovarny, I say! Is it out yees still are?"

The question remaining unanswered, the good woman waited no longer, but, climbing the remaining flight of stairs took the key of her room from the shelf in Teddy's closet where it had been left, and unlocked the door.

"Cherry, darlint, be ye widin?" asked she, throwing it open; and then, recollecting herself, added,—

"An' sure how could she, be, widout she kim in trew the kayhole?
But, blissid Vargin! where would they be all the day long?"

So saying, Mrs. Ginniss threw up the window, and looked anxiously down the street in the direction where Giovanni and Cherry had that morning disappeared.

Nothing was to be seen of them; but, just turning the corner, came Teddy, his straw-hat pushed back upon his forehead, and his steps slow and undecided. He was thinking wearily, as he often thought of late, that the time had come when he could no longer withhold his little sister from the friends to whom she really belonged; and it was not alone the heat of the August night that brought the great drops of perspiration to the boy's forehead, or drew the white line around his mouth.

"It's quicker nor that you'll stip, my b'y, whin you hear the little sisther's not in yit, an' it's wid Jovarny she is," muttered Mrs. Ginniss; and, half dreading the entrance of her son, she applied herself so diligently to making a fire in preparation for supper, that she did not appear to notice him.

"Good-evening, mother. Where's Cherry?" asked Teddy, throwing himself wearily into a chair just inside the door.

"An' is it yersilf, gossoon? An' it's the big hate is in it intirely."

"Yes: it's hot enough. Where's Cherry?"

"Takin' a little walk, honey. You wouldn't be shuttin' the poor child into the house this wedder, sure?"

"Taking a walk!-what, alone!" exclaimed Teddy, sitting upright very suddenly.

"Of coorse not. Misther Jovarny was perlite enough to ax her; an' she wor that wild to go, I couldn't say her no."

"I wish you had said no, mother. I hate to let her be with that fellow, anyway. I'd have taken her to walk myself, if I was twice as tired. How long have they been gone?"

And Teddy, in his turn, looked anxiously out at the window, but saw nothing more than the squalid street weltering in the last rays of the August sun; a knot of children fighting in the gutter over the body of a dead cat; an old-clothes man sauntering wearily along the pavement, and a dog, with lolling tongue and blood-shot eyes, following close at his heels.

"How long have they been out? asked Teddy again, as he drew in his head, and looked full at his mother, whose confusion struck him with a sudden dismay.

"O mother!" cried he, "what is it? There's more than you're telling me amiss. How long is she gone?"

"Sure an' I didn't mind the clock whin they wint," said Mrs.
Ginniss, still struggling to avoid the shock she felt approaching.

"No, no; but you can tell! O mother! do speak out, for the love of God! I can see how scared you are, though you won't say it. Tell me right out all there is to tell."

"An' it's no great there is to till, Teddy darlint; on'y this mornin', whin I was sint for to Ann Dolan (an' she that bad it's dead we thought she wor one spell, but for Docther Wintworth), Jovarny kim up, an' axed might the child go for a walk to the Gardens wid him; an' I jist puttin' on me shawl to go out, an' not wantin' to take the little crather in wid a sick woman, nor yet to lock the door on her, an' lave her to fret. So I says she might go wid him; and, whin she coom home, I tould Jovarny to open the door wid the kay an' let her in, an' showed her the dinner on the shelf by: an' if it's harm that's coom to her, it's harder on me than on yersilf it'll fall; an' my heart is bruck, is bruck intirely."

Throwing her apron over her head, Mrs. Ginniss fell into at chair, and gave way to the agitation and alarm she had so long suppressed; but Teddy, ordinarily so kind, and tender of his mother, stared at her blankly, and repeated,—

"This morning! How early this morning?"

"I wor jist afther washin' the bit breakfast-dishes," sobbed Mrs.
Ginniss.

"Twelve hours or near!" exclaimed Teddy in dismay. "And is it to the
Gardens he said he'd take her?"

"Shure an' did he!"

"To the Public Gardens, the City Gardens, just by the Commons?" persisted Teddy.

"Jist the Gardens wor all he said; an' towld me the shwans that wor in it, an' the bit posies."

"Yes: there's swans there, and posies enough," muttered Teddy, and, snatching the hat he had thrown upon a chair as he entered, rushed out of the room and down the stairs at headlong speed.

But, before he could possibly have reached the Garden, the sun had set, all visitors were excluded, and the gate-keeper had gone home. Nothing daunted, Teddy scaled the high iron fence; ran rapidly through all the paths, arbors, nooks, and corners of the place; and finally returned over the fence, just in time, to be collared by a policeman, who had been watching him: but so sincere was the boy's tone and manner, as he assured the official that he was after no harm but was looking for his little sister, who had been taken away from home, and, as he feared, lost, that the guardian of the public peace not only released him, but inquired with some interest into the particulars of the case; saying that he had been likely to notice any one remaining in the Garden longer than usual.

Teddy, with anxious minuteness, described the appearance both of the lost child and the "organ-fellow," as he called Giovanni; and gave the particulars of their leaving home as his mother had given them to him. The policeman listened attentively, but shook his head at the end.

"Haven't seen any sich," said he. "Them I-talian fellers is a bad lot; and I shouldn't wonder if he'd took off the child to learn her to play a tambourine, and go round picking up croppers for him. You'd better wait till morning; and, if they don't turn up, her mother can go and tell the chief about it."

"Chief of police?" asked Teddy.

"Yes; but it ain't always he can do any thing. There was that little gal, a year ago pretty nigh, belonged to a man by the name of Legrange. She was lost, and they offered a reward of ten thousand dollars finally; but she warn't never heard from. You see, there's sich a many children all about: and come to change their clothes, and crop their hair, it's hard to tell t'other from which," said the policeman meditatively; and then, suddenly resuming his official dignity, added, "You mustn't never get over that fence again, though: mind that, young man."

"Thank you, sir," said Teddy, turning away to hide the guilty confusion of his face; and, as he hurried home, he anxiously revolved the idea of applying to the police for aid, should Cherry remain absent after the next morning. But Teddy knew something of the law, and had too often seen better hidden secrets than his own ferreted out and brought to the light by its searching finger, to wish to trust himself within its grasp; at any rate, just yet.

"If I find her, I'll give her up, and tell all, and never touch the reward; but how can I go and say she's lost again?" thought Teddy, with a sick heart. And when, running up the stairs, his quick eyes caught sight of his mother's face, his own turned so ghastly white, that she ran toward him, crying,—

"An' is it dead you've found her, Teddy?"

"Worse; for she's lost; and all that comes to her is on my shoulders," said Teddy hoarsely, as he stood just within the door, looking hungrily about the room, as if he hoped, in some forgotten corner, to light upon his lost treasure.

"Did Jovarny take his organ and the monkey?" asked he suddenly.

"Sure, and he didn't; for I mind luckin' afther him going down the street."

"Then he'll be back!" exclaimed the boy eagerly; but the next moment the new hope died out of his face, and he muttered,—

"He might have taken them before. Anyway, I'll soon see;" and, running down the stairs, Teddy applied his sturdy shoulder and knee to the rickety door of the Italian's room. Neither door nor lock was fitted to withstand much force, and, with a sharp sound of rending wood and breaking iron, they flew apart; and Teddy, stepping over the threshold, glanced eagerly around. The room was stripped of everything except the poor furniture, which Teddy knew the Italian had hired with it, and the wooden box where he had kept his clothes. Of this the key remained in the lock; and, the boy, lifting the lid, soon discovered that a few worthless rags were all that remained.

"He's gone, and she with him!" groaned Teddy, dropping the box-cover, and standing upright to look again through the deserted room. His mother stood in the doorway.

"Och, Teddy! an' it's desaved us intirely he has,—the black-hearted crather; an' may the cuss O' Crom'ell stick to him day an' night, an' turn his sleep to wakin', an' his mate to pizen, till all I wish him is wished out!"

"It's no good cursing or wishing, mother," said Teddy bitterly. "If there was, I'd curse myself the first; for it's on me it had ought to fall."

"Sorra a bit of that, thin, Teddy mavourneen; for iver an' always it was yersilf that wor tinder an' careful uv her that's gone; an' yersilf it wor that saved the life of her, the night she first come home to us; an' it's none but good that iver yees did her in all the days of yer life; an', if there's any blame to be had betwixt us, it's on yer poor owld mother it should be laid,—her that loved the purty darlint as if she'd been her own, an', if she's lost, will carry a brucken heart to her grave wid mournin' afther her. O wurra, wurra, acushla machree! Och the heavy day an' the black night that's in it! Holy Jasus, have mercy on us! Spake the good word for us, blissid Vargin! Saint Bridget (that's me own namesake), stip up an' intersade for us now, if iver; for black is the nade we have uv help."

Falling upon her knees, and pulling a rosary of wooden beads from her bosom, the Irish woman pursued her petitions, mingling them with tears and exclamations more or less pathetic and grotesque; while Teddy, seated upon the Italian's empty box, his head between his hands, his elbows upon his knees, his eyes fixed steadily upon the floor, gave up his young heart a prey to such remorse as might fitly punish even a heavier crime than that of which his conscience accused him.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE CONFESSION.

THE morning came, but brought no comfort. Mrs. Ginniss had crept up stairs, and, throwing herself upon the bed, had fallen asleep with the tears still trickling down her honest face; but to Teddy's haggard eyes no sleep had come, and he had only changed his position by stretching himself upon the floor beside the box, his head upon his arm, his aching eyeballs still shaping in the darkness the form and features of the little sister whom he had sullenly resolved was lost to him forever as punishment for his fault in concealing her.

"If I'd brought her back," thought he again and again, "they'd have let me get seeing her once in a while; they couldn't have refused me so much; and maybe some day I'd have been a gentleman, and could have talked with her free and equal. But now she's lost to them and to me; and, when I tell the master, he'll call me a mean thief and a liar, and a rascal every way, and he'll never look at me again; and mother"—

Then he would wander away into dreary speculation upon what his another would say when the truth was made known to her, and she found the boy on whom she had lavished her love and pride dishonored and discarded by the master to whom he owed so much, and whose patronage she had taken such pains to secure for him; and then, like the weary burden of a never-ending song, would come again the thought,—

"But if I'd brought her back at the first!"

The bitter growth of the night, however, had borne fruit in a resolution firm as it was painful; and, when Teddy came up stairs to make himself fit to go to the office, he was able to say some words of comfort to his mother, assuring her that no blame to her could come of what had happened, and that it was possible the child might yet be found, as he should warn those of her loss who could use surer means to search for her than any at their command.

"An' is it the perlice ye're manin'?" asked Mrs. Ginniss. "Sure it's little they'd heed the loss o' poor folks like us, or look for one little child that's missin', whin there's more nor enough uv 'em to the fore in ivery poor man's house. But niver a one like ours, Teddy b'y,—niver another purty darlint like her that's gone."

Teddy made no reply to this, but, hastily swallowing some food, took his hat, and left the room.

Upon the stairs he met the landlord, who, followed by a furniture-broker, entered the room of the organ-grinder. Going in after them, Teddy learned, in answer to his eager questions, that the broker had, early in the morning of the previous day, received a visit from the Italian, who, announcing that he had no further use for the furniture, paid what was owing for the rent of it, and made a bargain for a box he was about to leave behind him; but, as to his subsequent movements, the man had no information to give, nor could even judge whether he intended leaving the city, or only the house.

Thanking him or the information, Teddy went drearily on his way, more hopelessly convinced than ever that Giovanni had deliberately stolen the child, and absconded with her.

"Well," muttered he, "all I've got to do now is to tell the master, and take what I'll get. If he finds the little-no: she's none of that, nor ever was-if he finds her, and takes her home to them that lost her, I'll be content, if it's to prison, or to sweeping the streets, or to be a slave in the South, he sends me."

Arrived at the office, Teddy faithfully performed his morning duties, and then seated himself to wait for Mr. Barlow, who was again occupying Mr. Burroughs's office during that gentleman's absence in the West. While arranging upon his table some papers he was to copy, Teddy suddenly remembered that other morning, now nearly a year ago, when Mr. Burroughs had laid upon his very table the picture and advertisement of the lost child; and all the months of guilty hesitation and concealment that since had passed seemed to roll back upon the boy's heart, crushing it into the very dust. He threw down the pen he had just taken up, and laid his head upon his folded arms, groaning aloud,—

"Oh! if I had told him then! if I had just told him that morning!"

The door of the office opened quickly; and Mr. Barlow, a grave and reserved young man, who had never taken much notice of Teddy, entered, and, as he passed to the inner room, glanced with some curiosity at the boy, whose emotion was not to be quite concealed.

"If you please, sir"—

"Well, Teddy?"

"I should like to send a letter to Mr. Burroughs."

"Do you mean a letter from yourself?"

"Yes, sir."