Chapter 6 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.