big bottle in his hand, Bessie next suggested "Medicine?"

"Why, bless your swate sowl, do I look like a sick man?"

"No, sir; but I thought you walked as though something was the matter
with your legs."

Patrick Magee gave a loud, foolish laugh, as he stumbled up the
slippery steps, and reeled down the dirty alley. When he was gone,
Bessie proposed to take leave of her pensioners, saying, "I must go
home now, or I shall miss my dinner, and they will be troubled about
me. Will you show me as far as Broadway, Molly?"

"Not so fast, if you plase, miss," said Mrs. Magee. "You have _seen_
how poor people live; now I want you to _feel_ how they are clad, this
biting winter weather. Take off your fine clothes, just, and change
with Molly there."

"O please, madam, I would rather go home," cried poor Bessie. "Do let
me go! Mamma has often said, that, if I could be poor for one hour
even, I would know better how to pity the poor; but I really think I
have _seen_ enough to-day. I am very sorry for you, indeed. I 'll ask
papa to help you, and give you all you want; only let me go home."

"So you shall, my pretty bird, but you must drop your fine feathers
first. Off with them! And, Molly, take off all thim lovely holiday
clothes of yours. Sure, exchange is no robbery."

Poor Bessie saw it was vain for her to resist, to plead, or to cry. In
a very short time she found herself divested of every article of her
nice warm apparel, and clad in the dirty, coarse, tattered street
clothes of Molly Magee.

To do the beggar-child justice, she seemed shocked at this cruel
proceeding, this wicked outrage, and pleaded for Bessie as long as she
dared. But Bridget Magee, a bad-tempered woman at the best, had been
drinking bad whiskey all the morning, and the brutal rage of
drunkenness blazed in her hard black eyes. Molly was evidently in
mortal fear of her, and could only give Bessie stolen glances of regret
and sorrow. Very pretty she looked in Bessie's beautiful dress, though
her face was far sadder than before. In the midst of her trouble,
Bessie noticed this, and thought how different was the poor child from
all the rest of the household of Magee. When the change was completed,
Mistress Bridget whispered for a minute or two to the eldest of the
three little boys, and then, turning to her victim, said, with a
horrible laugh, "There now, ye poor little simpleton, follow where
Larry will _lade_ ye. Be off wid ye! I '