the
house.

Having locked little Biddy safe in my chamber, I returned and picked up
off the grass, two silver spoons of Jim's mother's, that Bridget had
taken from the parlor closet while we were getting the pears.

That gave us a right to shut her up in jail--to say nothing of her
carrying off poor little Biddy--and you may be sure that Jim was not
long in sending her there, spite of her vociferations that, "If there
was law in the counthry she'd have the right of him yet, for meddling
with an honest woman like Bridget Fliligan."

"Thank you for telling us your name," said Jim, coolly; "it is just
what we wanted to know."

But it is time I let out my little prisoner, poor little Edith, (that
was her real name.)

"Is she gone a great _way_ off? Can't she get me _ever_?" said the
frightened child, peeping round the room as if she expected to see her
jump out of the closet, or spring from under the bed. "Will you keep
hold of my hand all the time when it comes night? Can't they get me
_then_?"

"No, no, my darling--never, never. Come here and sit on my knee. Now,
tell me, how came you to live with Bridget?"

"I was going to school," said Edith, "and I stopped to look at some
pretty pictures in a shop window, when this Bridget came up to me and
said, 'Which of them do you like best, dear?'--and I said, 'The little
boy asleep on the dog's neck;' and she said, 'If you will come round
the corner with me, I will give you one just like it;' and I said, 'No;
I shall be late at school, and my mamma wouldn't like it;' and then she
said it wouldn't take but a minute, and she led me into an alley, and
when she got there she threw her shawl over my head, and ran with me;
and when she took the shawl off, I was in a house with some Irish
people, and Bridget said, 'I've got her!--she will do nicely, sure, to
play the tambourine. Won't the pretty face of her bring the shillings?'

"And then I cried, and begged them to take me back to mamma; and
Bridget held up a great stick, and said, 'Do you see that?' and then
she took off the clothes I had on, and put on these, and brought the
tambourine, and told me how to play it; and when my fingers trembled so
that I couldn't, she shook me, and pulled my hair, and said I should
have nothing to eat till I learned to do it; and I begged and begged
her to take me home. I told her mamma would cry all night, and papa,
too, and little Henry,--but she hurt me with the stick so (pulling up
her