ecame quite a little family
joke, as almost every evening when he and Matty came to deliver the
day's earnings to Jim--for it was not considered safe for them to carry
the money to their own home--he brought also some small token for
"Jim's second young lady," whereby I was understood; now a couple of
daisies, a rose, or two or three violets, or a few sprigs of
mignonnette, begged from Dutch Johnny; now a bird's nest, manufactured
by himself out of twine and a few twigs; and once a huge turnip which
he had seen fall from a market-cart as it passed on its way down the
avenue, and picking it up, after vainly trying to make the carter hear,
had laid it aside as a suitable gift for me; and another time he
brought for my acceptance a hideous, miserable, half-starved kitten,
which, as I was known by the servants to have a horror of cats, was
declined for me both by Jim and Thomas, greatly to Tony's mortification
and disappointment.

At the Easter festival, when he and Matty had "looked as good as
anybody," to his mind, each child in the Sunday school had been
presented with a small pot of pansies; and Tony, instead of taking his
home, had come from the church to our house, and, asking for me by his
usual title of "Jim's second young lady," had shyly presented his
Easter token.

Yes, I would fain have made an exchange, and taken Tony as my charge;
but pride, and the recollection of Milly's fear that I would not
persevere with Matty, forbade.

I had thought over all manner of plans for removing both children from
the influence of their wretched home and drunken parents; but most of
these were pronounced by the more experienced to be visionary and not
feasible. So they still continued to return to them at night, although,
"weather fair or weather foul, weather wet or weather dry," they never
failed to be present at their post as early as possible in the morning.

Miss Craven and I had taken from Jim the charge of providing the
cripples' dinner; and for a trifling sum Mrs. Petersen, who had no
children of her own, gave them that meal and their supper in her room,
so that in many respects they were far better off than they had been.

But still there seemed no loop-hole where I could insert a wedge for
Matty's moral regeneration; she appeared to remain hard, impenetrable,
and suspicious.

The story of the "ducking" had, of course, been graphically rehearsed
by those of the schoolboys who had witnessed it, to those who had no