nside, but they would not so quickly feel the softness of mamma's
cheek. All the pleasure of the sense of touch, which you would then find
had been great and of many kinds, would be lost to you. So it was with
Biddy's heart. She had never had any of the little pleasures, the good
times, little hopes and plans, to which all children have a perfect
right. Her hard, friendless, cheerless life had made the outside of
Biddy's brave little heart tough, just as hard, unfit work would toughen
your little hands. But the doll had made a difference to Biddy in every
way. She had done all she could for her doll. She loved it. She had made
it a dress from a piece of her own. She had been beaten again and again
for its sake. Almost more than you would be willing to do for your doll,
is it not? But it had done and was doing a thousand times more for
Biddy, because Biddy had what the doll had _not_--life.

Mrs. Brown sometimes forgot to torment Biddy about the doll, and at
other times she seemed to feel too stupid and dull to care about it. But
she remembered quite often enough, and got away all Biddy's money, and
gave Biddy many a scare and heart-ache about it. At last the
hard-hearted old woman went too far, as cruel people are pretty sure to
do in the end.

About four months had passed since Biddy first found her doll. The warm
winds, the green buds, and singing-birds of spring had come, when one
night Mrs. Brown took the doll away from Biddy, and told her that unless
she could bring her at least two dollars by the close of the week, she
should never see it again.

That night Biddy lay awake a long while thinking over what she could do.
It was late in the night when she whispered to Charley that she had made
up her mind, and wanted to see him somewhere in the morning, and tell
him her plan. Charley answered that he would watch for her in the Bowery
near a jewelry shop where they had often stopped to look at the pretty
things in the window. He said he would be there about half past eight
o'clock. After this was settled, Biddy fell asleep.

In the morning the children met as they had agreed, and walked slowly
down the Bowery for a block or two, while Biddy told her plan to
Charley.

"I can't tell ye all I've been thinkin'," said Biddy; "I feels all
stirred up with thinkin', like the soup when Grumpy puts the stick in
it. I never slept at all till I thinked it out as how I'd do jist one
thing."

"Yis, yis," said Charley, eagerly