llars week received for his board added
just enough to her income to enable her to remain at home. But failing
to receive this, she must go out for day's work in families at least
twice in every week.

What, then, was to be done with little Andy, as the baby was called?
At first Mrs. Burke thought of getting him into one of the homes
for friendless children, but the pleasant child had crept into her
affections, and she could not bear the thought of giving him up. His
presence stirred in her heart old and tender things long buried out of
sight, and set the past, with its better and purer memories, side
by side with the present. She had been many times a mother, but her
children were all dead but one, and she--Alas! the thought of her,
whenever it came, made her heart heavy and sad.

"I will keep him a while and see, how it comes out," she said, on
getting the promise of a neighbor to let Andy play with her children and
keep an eye on him whenever she was out. He had grown strong, and could
toddle about and take care of himself wonderfully well for a child of
his age.

And now began a new life for the baby--a life in which he must look
out for himself and hold his own in a hand-to-hand struggle. He had no
rights that the herd of children among whom he was thrown felt bound to
respect; and if he were not able to maintain his rights, he must go down
helplessly, and he did go down daily, often hourly. But he had will and
vital force, and these brought him always to his feet again, and with
strength increased rather than lost. On the days that Mrs. Burke went
out he lived for most of the time in the little street, playing with the
children that swarmed its pavements, often dragged from before wheels or
horses' hoofs by a friendly hand, or lifted from some gutter in which he
had fallen, dripping with mud.

When Mrs. Burke came home on the evening of her first day out, the baby
was a sight to see. His clothes were stiff with dirt, his shoes and
stockings wet, and his face more like that of a chimney-sweep than
anything else. But this was not all; there was a great lump as large
as a pigeon's egg on the back of his head, a black-and-blue spot on his
forehead and a bad cut on his upper lip. His joy at seeing her and the
tearful cry he gave as he threw his arm's about her neck quite overcame
Mrs. Burke, and caused her eyes to grow dim. She was angry at the plight
in which she found him, and said some hard things to the woman w