yer!"_

III. TWO 'PRENTICE HANDS AT PHILANTHROPY.

_Miss Helen._

IV. BEHIND THE SCENES.

_"The boys at my side prattle together."_
_"Here is the hat!"_

V. I SEEK PATSY, AND MEET THE DUCHESS OF ANNA STREET.

_"The Story of Victor."_

VI. A LITTLE "HOODLUM'S" VIRTUE KINDLES AT THE TOUCH OF JOY.

_Carlotty Griggs "being a Butterfly."_
_Paulina's "good-mornings to Johnny Cass."_

VII. PATSY FINDS HIS THREE LOST YEARS.

_"He sat silently by the window."_
_Tail Piece._

CHAPTER I.

THE SILVER STREET KINDERGARTEN.

"It makes a heaven-wide difference whether the soul of the child is
regarded as a piece of blank paper, to be written upon, or as a
living power, to be quickened by sympathy, to be educated by
truth."

It had been a long, wearisome day at the Free Kindergarten, and I was
alone in the silent, deserted room. Gone were all the little heads,
yellow and black, curly and smooth; the dancing, restless, curious eyes;
the too mischievous, naughty, eager hands and noisy feet; the merry
voices that had made the great room human, but now left it quiet and
empty. Eighty pairs of tiny boots had clattered down the stairs; eighty
baby woes had been relieved; eighty little torn coats pulled on with
patient hands; eighty shabby little hats, not one with a "strawberry
mark" to distinguish it from any other, had been distributed with
infinite discrimination among their possessors; numberless sloppy kisses
had been pressed upon a willing cheek or hand, and another day was over.
No,--not quite over, after all. A murderous yell from below brought me
to my feet, and I flew like an anxious hen to my brood. One small
quarrel in the hall; very small, but it must be inquired into on the way
to the greater one. Mercedes McGafferty had taunted Jenny Crawhall with
being Irish. The fact that she herself had been born in Cork about three
years previous did not trouble her in the least. Jenny, in a voice
choked with sobs, and with the stamp of a tiny foot, was announcing
hotly that she was "NOT Irish, no sech a thing,--she was Plesberterian!"
I was not quite clear whether this was a theological or racial
controversy, but I settled it speedily, and they ran off together hand
in hand. I hastened to the steps. The yells had come from Joe Guinee and
Mike Higgins, who were fighting for the possessio