e track of her
bare feet in the snow as she went, to a door that rang a noisy bell as
she opened it and went in. A musty smell filled the close room.
Packages, great and small, lay piled high on shelves behind the worn
counter. A slovenly woman was haggling with the pawnbroker about the
money for a skirt she had brought to pledge.

"Not a cent more than a quarter," he said, contemptuously, tossing the
garment aside. "It's half worn out it is, dragging it back and forth
over the counter these six months. Take it or leave it. Hallo! What
have we here? Little Finnegan, eh? Your mother not dead yet? It's in
the poorhouse ye will be if she lasts much longer. What the--"

He had taken the package from the trembling child's hand--the precious
doll--and unrolled the shawl. A moment he stood staring in dumb
amazement at its contents. Then he caught it up and flung it with an
angry oath upon the floor, where it was shivered against the coal-box.

"Get out o' here, ye Finnegan brat," he shouted; "I'll tache ye to
come a-guyin' o' me. I'll--"

The door closed with a bang upon the frightened child, alone in the
cold night. The sun saw not its home-coming. It had hidden behind the
night clouds, weary of the sight of man and his cruelty.

Evening had worn into night. The busy city slept. Down by the wharves,
now deserted, a poor boy sat on the bulwark, hungry, foot-sore, and
shivering with cold. He sat thinking of friends and home, thousands of
miles away over the sea, whom he had left six months before to go
among strangers. He had been alone ever since, but never more so than
that night. His money gone, no work to be found, he had slept in the
streets for nights. That day he had eaten nothing; he would rather die
than beg, and one of the two he must do soon.

There was the dark river rushing at his feet; the swirl of the unseen
waters whispered to him of rest and peace he had not known since--it
was so cold--and who was there to care, he thought bitterly. No one
would ever know. He moved a little nearer the edge, and listened more
intently.

A low whine fell on his ear, and a cold, wet face was pressed against
his. A little crippled dog that had been crouching silently beside him
nestled in his lap. He had picked it up in the street, as forlorn and
friendless as himself, and it had stayed by him. Its touch recalled
him to himself. He got up hastily, and, taking the dog in his arms,
went to the police station near by, and ask