ould," was Ruby's cheerful reply. "Especially if you
isn't a good girl."

Jenny went over in her mind the drama of Punch and Judy. Murder meant
being knocked on the head with a stick and thrown out of the window.

That night again the cries went surging up and down the street. Details
of mutilation floated in through the foggy air till the flickering
night-light showed peeping hangmen in every dim corner. Jenny covered
herself with the blankets and pressed hot, sleepless eyelids close to
her eyes, hoping to distract herself from the contemplation of horror by
the gay wheels of dazzling colors which such an action always produces.
The wheels appeared, but presently turned to the similitude of blood-red
spots. She opened her eyes again. The room seemed monstrously large.
Edie was beside her. She shook her sleeping sister.

"Wake up; oh, Edie, do wake up!"

"Whatever is it, you great nuisance?"

In the far distance, "Another Horrible Murder in Whitechapel," answered
Edie's question, and Jenny began to scream.

Chapter IV: _The Ancient Mischief_

There was nothing to counterbalance the terrors of childhood in Hagworth
Street. Outside the hope of one day being able to do as she liked, Jenny
had no ideals. Worse, she had no fairyland. Soon she would be given at
school a bald narrative of Cinderella or Red Riding Hood, where every
word above a monosyllable would be divided in such a way that hyphens
would always seem of greater importance than elves.

About this time Jenny's greatest joy was music, and in connection with
this an incident occurred which, though she never remembered it herself,
had yet such a tremendous importance in some of its side-issues as to
deserve record.

It was a fine day in early summer. All the morning, Jenny, on account of
household duties, had been kept indoors, and, some impulse of freedom
stirring in her young heart, she slipped out alone into the sunlit
street. Somewhere close at hand a piano-organ was playing the intermezzo
from "Cavalleria," and the child tripped towards the sound. Soon she
came upon the player, and stood, finger in mouth, abashed for a moment,
but the Italian beamed at her--an honest smile of welcome, for she was
obviously no bringer of pence. Wooed by his friendliness, Jenny began to
dance in perfect time, marking with little feet the slow rhythm of the
tune.

In scarlet serge dress and cap of scarlet stockinette, she danced to the
tinsel melody. Unhampere