ften, in going and returning from the mission-school, Edith would
linger about the neighborhood where she had once met her mother, hoping
to see her come out of some one of the houses there, for she had got it
into her mind that the woman called Mrs. Gray lived somewhere in this
locality.

One day, in questioning a child who had come to the sewing-school as to
her home and how she lived, the little girl said something about a baby
that her mother said she knew must have been stolen.

"How old is the baby?" asked Edith, hardly able to keep the tremor out
of her voice.

"It's a little thing," answered the child. "I don't know how old it is;
maybe it's six months old, or maybe it's a year. It can sit upon the
floor."

"Why does your mother think it has been stolen?"

"Because two bad girls have got it, and they pay a woman to take care of
it. It doesn't belong to them, she knows. Mother says it would be a good
thing if it died."

"Why does she say that?"

"Oh she always talks that way about babies--says she's glad when they
die."

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

"It's a boy baby," answered the child.

"Does the woman take good care of it?"

"Oh dear, no! She lets it sit on the floor 'most all the time, and it
cries so that I often go up and nurse it. The woman lives in the room
over ours."

"Where do you live?"

"In Grubb's court."

"Will you show me the way there after school is over?"

The child looked up into Edith's face with an expression of surprise and
doubt. Edith repeated her question.

"I guess you'd better not go," was answered, in a voice that meant all
the words expressed.

"Why not?"

"It isn't a good place."

"But you live there?"

"Yes, but nobody's going to trouble me."

"Nor me," said Edith.

"Oh, but you don't know what kind of a place it is, nor what dreadful
people live there."

"I could get a policeman to go with me, couldn't I?"

"Yes, maybe you could, or Mr. Paulding, the missionary. He goes about
everywhere."

"Where can I find Mr. Paulding?"

"At the mission in Briar street."

"You'll show me the way there after school?"

"Oh yes; it isn't a nice place for you to go, but I guess nobody'll
trouble you."

After the school closed, Edith, guided by the child, made her way to the
Briar st. mission-house. As she entered the narrow street in which it
was situated, the aspect of things was so strange and shocking to her
eyes that she felt a chill creep to her heart. Sh