“I don’t know the way home, and I’m lost!” said ’Toinette, wiping her eyes, and looking doubtfully at the old woman, who was very dark and hairy as to the face, very blinking and wicked as to the eyes, and very crooked and warped as to figure, while her dress seemed to be a mass of rags held together by dirt.

“Lost, be you?” asked this unpleasant old woman, seizing Mrs. Legrange’s beautiful breakfast-shawl, and twitching it off the child’s shoulders.  “And where’d you git this ’ere pretty shawl?”

“It’s my mamma’s, and you’d better not touch it; you might soil it, you know,” said ’Toinette anxiously.

“Heh!  Why, I guess you’re a little lady, ain’t you?  B’long to the big-bugs, don’t you?”

“I don’t know.  I want to go home,” stammered ’Toinette, perplexed and frightened.

“Well, you come right in here along o’ me, and wait till I get my pack off; then I’ll show you the way home,” said the woman, as, seizing the little girl’s hand, she led her to the bottom of the court, and down some steps into a foul-smelling cellar-room, perfectly dark, and very cold.

“You stop right there till I get a light,” said the woman, letting go the child’s hand when they reached the middle of the room.  “Don’t ye budge now.”

Too much frightened to speak, or even cry, ’Toinette did as she was bid, and stood perfectly still until the old woman had found a match, and, drawing it across the rusty stove, lighted a tallow candle, and stuck it into the mouth of a junk-bottle.  This she set upon the table; and, sinking into a chair beside it, stretched out a skinny hand, and, seizing ’Toinette by the arm, dragged her close to her.

“Yes, you kin let me have that pooty shawl, little gal, cause—­Eh, what fine clo’es we’ve got on!” exclaimed the hag, as, pulling off the shawl ’Toinette had again wrapped about her, she examined her dress attentively for a moment, and then, fixing her eyes sternly upon the child, continued angrily,—­

“Now look at here, young un.  Them ain’t your clo’es; you know they ain’t.  You stole ’em.”

“Stealed my clothes!” exclaimed ’Toinette in great indignation.  “Why, no, I didn’t.  Mamma gave them to me, and Susan sewed them.”

“No sech a thing, you young liar!” returned the old woman, shaking her roughly by one arm.  “You stole ’em; and I’m a-going to take ’em off, and give you back your own, or some jist like ’em.  Then I’ll carry these fine fixings to the one they b’long to.  Come, now, no blubbering.  Strip off, I tell yer.”

As she spoke, she twirled the little girl round, and began to pull open the buttons of her dress.  In doing this, her attention was attracted by the bracelet looping up the right sleeve; ’Toinette having, it will be remembered, pulled off the other, and left it at home.

“Hi, hi!  What sort o’ gimcrack you got here?” exclaimed she, pulling at it, until, as ’Toinette had done with the other, she broke the links between two of the cameos, without unclasping the bracelet.