he was still a very tiny creature
when she began to understand that everyone did not live locked up inside
high walls with spikes at the top, and though she and the rest of the
family might pass through the door that the great key opened, her father
could not; and she would look at him with a wondering pity in her tender
little heart.

One day, she was sitting in the lodge gazing wistfully up at the sky
through the barred window. The turnkey, after watching her some time,
said:

"Thinking of the fields, ain't you?"

"Where are they?" she asked.

"Why, they're--over there, my dear," said the turnkey, waving his key
vaguely, "just about there."

"Does anybody open them and shut them? Are they locked?"

"Well," said the turnkey, not knowing what to say, "not in general."

"Are they pretty, Bob?" She called him Bob, because he wished it.

"Lovely. Full of flowers. There's buttercups, and there's daisies, and
there's--" here he hesitated not knowing the names of many
flowers--"there's dandelions, and all manner of games."

"Is it very pleasant to be there, Bob?"

"Prime," said the turnkey.

"Was father ever there?"

"Hem!" coughed the turnkey. "O yes, he was there, sometimes."

"Is he sorry not to be there now?"

"N--not particular," said the turnkey.

"Nor any of the people?" she asked, glancing at the listless crowd
within. "O are you quite sure and certain, Bob?"

At this point, Bob gave in and changed the subject to candy. But after
this chat, the turnkey and little Amy would go out on his free Sunday
afternoons to some meadows or green lanes, and she would pick grass and
flowers to bring home, while he smoked his pipe; and then they would go
to some tea-gardens for shrimps and tea and other delicacies, and would
come back hand in hand, unless she was very tired and had fallen asleep
on his shoulder.

When Amy was only eight years old, her mother died; and the poor father
was more helpless and broken-down than ever, and as Fanny was a careless
child and Edward idle, the little one, who had the bravest and truest
heart, was led by her love and unselfishness to be the little mother of
the forlorn family, and struggled to get some little education for
herself and her brother and sister.

At first, such a baby could do little more than sit with her father,
deserting her livelier place by the high fender, and quietly watching
him. But this made her so far necessary to him that he became accustomed
to h