pect
of affairs she did not mean to trust this woman, nor indeed to trust
anybody who knew anything of the inquiries which had been made about the
child. A new nurse must be found, and she must live as far away from the
old locality as possible. Pinky was not one inclined to put things off.
Thought and act were always close together. Scarcely had the woman been
gone ten minutes, before, bundling the baby in a shawl, she started off
to find a safer hiding-place. This time she was more careful about the
character and habits of the person selected for a nurse, and the baby's
condition was greatly improved. The woman in whose charge she placed it
was poor, but neither drunken nor depraved. Pinky arranged with her to
take the care of it for two dollars a week, and supplied it with clean
and comfortable clothing. Even she, wicked and vile as she was, could
not help being touched by the change that appeared in the baby's
shrunken face, and in its sad but beautiful eyes, after its wasted
little body had been cleansed and clothed in clean, warm garments and it
had taken its fill of nourishing food.

"It's a shame, the way it has been abused," said Pinky, speaking from an
impulse of kindness, such as rarely swelled in her evil heart.

"A crying shame," answered the woman as she drew the baby close against
her bosom and gazed down upon its pitiful face, and into the large brown
eyes that were lifted to hers in mute appeal.

The real motherly tenderness that was in this woman's heart was quickly
perceived by the child, who did not move its eyes from hers, but lay
perfectly still, gazing up at her in a kind of easeful rest such as it
had never before known. She spoke to it in loving tones, touched its
thin cheeks with her finger in playful caresses, kissed it on its lips
and forehead, hugged it to her bosom; and still the eyes were fixed on
hers in a strange baby-wonder, though not the faintest glinting of a
smile played on its lips or over its serious face. Had it never learned
to smile?

At last the poor thin lips curved a little, crushing out the lines of
suffering, and into the eyes there came a loving glance in place of the
fixed, wondering look that was almost a stare. A slight lifting of the
hands, a motion of the head, a thrill through the whole body came next,
and then a tender cooing sound.

"Did you ever see such beautiful eyes?" said the woman. "It will be a
splendid baby when it has picked up a little."

"Let it