keep 'em out."

"No, and 'tisn't much use trying," answered the shop-keeper, with a
levity of manner not unmarked by Mrs. Bray, who said,

"The black sheep have to live as well as the white ones."

"Just so. You hit the nail there."

"And I suppose you find their money as good as that of the whitest?"

"Oh yes."

"And quite as freely spent?"

"As to that," answered the woman, who was inclined to be talkative and
gossipy, "we make more out of the black sheep than out of the white
ones. They don't higgle so about prices. Not that we have two prices,
but you see they don't try to beat us down, and never stop to worry
about the cost of a thing if they happen to fancy it. They look and buy,
and there's the end of it."

"I understand," remarked Mrs. Bray, with a familiar nod. "It may be
wicked to say so; but if I kept a store like this, I'd rather have the
sinners for customers than the saints."

She had taken a seat at the counter; and now, leaning forward upon her
arms and looking at the shop-woman in a pleasant, half-confidential way,
said,

"You know everybody about here?"

"Pretty much."

"The black sheep as well as the white?"

"As customers."

"Of course; that's all I mean," was returned. "I'd be sorry if you knew
them in any other way--some of them, at least." Then, after a pause, "Do
you know a girl they call Pinky?"

"I may know her, but not by that name. What kind of a looking person is
she?"

"A tall, bold-faced, dashing, dare-devil sort of a girl, with a snaky
look in her eyes. She wears a pink hat with a white feather."

"Yes, I think I have seen some one like that, but she's not been around
here long."

"When did you see her last?"

"If it's the same one you mean, I saw her go by here not ten minutes
ago. She lives somewhere down the alley."

"Do you know the house?"

"I do not; but it can be found, no doubt. You called her Pinky."

"Yes. Her name is Pinky Swett."

"O-h! o-h!" ejaculated the shop-woman, lifting her eyebrows in a
surprised way. "Why, that's the girl the police were after. They said
she'd run off with somebody's child."

"Did they arrest her?" asked Mrs. Bray, repressing, as far as possible,
all excitement.

"They took her off once or twice, I believe, but didn't make anything
out of her. At any rate, the child was not found. It belonged, they
said, to a rich up-town family that the girl was trying to black-mail.
But I don't see how that could be."

"The chil