rrant
ye!"

Fortunately the policeman saw her in time to prevent her doing further
mischief, or even touching the boy, for, laying his firm grasp upon her
arm, he exclaimed authoritatively--

"Come, none of this, my good woman. I must take you to Bow Street, to
answer the charge of killing that poor little chap."

Then ensued a scene too terrible to describe. The wretched woman was
taken away from the place, shrieking and swearing, leaving her dead
child to be tended by strangers, kinder far than she had ever been.

CHAPTER X.

NORA.

A drizzling rain kept falling the day on which little Jimmy was to be
laid in his narrow home. They had found beneath his ragged jacket a
little packet, carefully tied with a piece of thread, and on opening it,
something dried and shrivelled fell to the ground. It was the bunch of
violets, now withered, Pollie's first gift to him--the only gift he had
ever received, and which came fraught with such peace to him. With
tender pity Mrs. Turner refolded the tiny packet, and placed the faded
flowers again where they had been so carefully treasured.

His unhappy mother was in prison, which place she only quitted to be
confined for life in a criminal lunatic asylum, driven mad by that
fearful curse of England--drink! drink! so that there would have been no
one to follow him to his last resting-place had not good Mrs. Turner
offered to go. She could not bear to think of the poor child being laid
to rest so friendlessly, and little Pollie pleaded to be taken. Then
Lizzie Stevens begged to be allowed to accompany the widow in her pious
task, and just as the humble parish funeral was leaving the house, which
had been but a miserable home for the dead child, Sally Grimes came up,
and, taking Lizzie's hand silently, joined the three mourners. A large
black cloak covered her patched but clean frock, and she wore an old
black bonnet of her mother's, which had outlived many fashions. It was
the only outward semblance of mourning she could get, but her heart
sorrowed sincerely for the crippled boy whom she had seen for many
years, desolate and uncared for, crouching in the dingy
doorway--desolate until little Pollie found him there, and shed some
brightness around his hitherto lonely life; and another thing, he was a
sort of link between her and Pollie.

The London streets looked dismal and dirty on this autumn afternoon with
the pitiless rain and murky sky; but when the little party reac