g he stood gazing out upon the yards, below, and the houses that
came up to them from a neighboring street. There was a woman in one
of these yards, and she looked up toward the window where Andy stood,
curiously.

"You imp of Satan!" were the terrible words that fell upon his ears at
this juncture, and he felt himself caught up as by a vulture. He knew
the cruel voice and the grip of the cruel hands that had already left
their marks in his tender flesh. Mother Peter, her face red with passion
and her eyes slowing like coals of fire, held him high in the air,
and shook him with savage violence. She did not strike, but continued
shaking him until the sudden heat of her passion had a little cooled.

"Didn't I tell you not to meddle with anything in this room?" and with
another bruising grip of Andy's arms, she threw him roughly upon the
floor.

The little hole in the paper was then repaired by pasting another piece
of paper over it, after which Andy was left alone, but with a threat
from Mother Peter that if he touched the window again she would beat the
life out of him. She had no more trouble with him that day. Every half
hour or so she would come up stairs noiselessly, and listen at the door,
or break in upon the child suddenly and without warning. But she did not
find him again at the window. The restlessness at first exhibited had
died out, and he sat or lay upon the floor in a kind of dull, despairing
stupor. So that day passed.

On the second day of Andy's imprisonment he distinctly heard the old
woman go out at the street door and lock it after her. He listened for a
long time, but could hear no sound in the house. A feeling of relief and
a sense of safety came over him. He had not been so long in his prison
alone without the minutest examination of every part, and it had not
escaped his notice that the panes of glass in the upper sash of the
window were not covered with paper, as were those below. But for the
fear of one of Mother Peter's noiseless pouncings in upon him, he would
long since have climbed upon the sill and taken a look through the upper
sash. He waited now for full half an hour to be sure that his jailer had
left the house, and then, climbing to the window-sill with the agility
of a squirrel, held on to the edge of the lower sash and looked out
through the clear glass above. Dreary and unsightly as was all that lay
under his gaze, it was beautiful in the eyes of the child. His little
heart swel