they take away or steal
any of this poor woman's children? 'Tis a wonder if they didn't."

"Well, besides the four children you see here, _asthore_, she had
another neat child, one year old, named Aloysia, whom a lady up town
took with her, two months since, to rear her up along with her own
children; and it was only about ten days since she got news of her
death. When the poor woman heard this, the heart broke entirely within
her, especially as she could not be present at the child's death bed or
at the funeral."

"Why, that's rather strange," said Norry. "Did they send her word that
she was sick?"

"Not a word. It was only when I went up to Mrs. Sillerman's, the other
day, to inquire about the child, she comes out and tells me the child
died, and was decently interred. When I told the mother, she cried out,
'O Aloysia, Aloysia, my darling! are you, too, gone?' And she was not
herself since."

"I do think there must be something wrong in the matter," said Norry.
"Did you tell the priest?"

"No, I did not, for I had not time," said Mrs. Doherty. "God forgive me.
I have a doubt in my own mind that the lady of the house (I renounce
judging her) was not honest when she told me of the child's death.
'Perhaps,' says I to myself, 'she is kidnapped.' And she was such a
purty angel, with a face you would delight looking on; and on her right
hand,--the Lord save us!--a circle like a ring was on her middle finger.
She was too good to live; and was made for heaven, I suppose. Glory be
to God."

CHAPTER III.

AN OFFICIAL.

Our poormaster, Van Stingey, was a very conscientious officer. He never
squandered what he called the people's property, the commonwealth. He
was none of your vulgar, ordinary poormasters. He did not want the
office; they only forced it on to him. Like some of your great
statesmen, he acted for _man_, as he emphatically said; not for poor
widows and orphans, taken one by one; that was only a secondary
consideration. His whole duty, his very existence, seemed to be needed
for the good of man, or humanity in general. The question with him was,
not how to relieve this or that poor man or woman. _That_ might engage
the attention of a man of no intelligence, no education, or no
philosophy: what he aspired to was, always to act by principle; to act
so that the state, or the people who owned _real estate_, and who
elected him against his will, to see that their interests were attended
to, whatever be