She took a large pair of shears from the table-drawer as she spoke, and, grasping the shining, curls in her left hand, rapidly snipped them from the head, leaving it rough, tangled, and hardly to be recognized.

’Toinette no longer resisted, or even cried.  The blow of that rough hand seemed to have stunned or stupefied her, and she stood perfectly quiet, her face pale, her eyes fixed, and her trembling lips a little apart; while the old woman, after laying the handful of curls carefully aside, dragged on the clothes she had selected, in place of those she was stealing, and finished by trying the plaid shawl around the child’s shoulders, fastening it in a great knot behind, and placing a dirty old hood upon the shorn head.

“There, now, you’ll do, I guess; and we’ll go take you home:  only mind you don’t speak a word to man, woman, nor child, as we go; for, if you do, I’ll fetch you right back here, and shut you up with Old Bogy in that closet.”

So saying, she bundled up ’Toinette’s own clothes, slipped the bracelet into her pocket, then, with the parcel in one hand, grasped the child’s arm with the other, and led her out into the street.

“Will you really take me home?” asked ’Toinette piteously, as they climbed the broken steps leading from the cellar to the pavement.

“There, now!  What did I tell yer?” exclaimed the woman angrily, and turning as if to go back.  “Now come along, and I will give you to Old Bogy.”

“No, no! oh, please, don’t!  I will be good.  I won’t say a word any more.  I forgotten that time, I did;” and the timid child, pale and trembling, clung to the wretch beside her as if she had been her dearest friend.

“Well, then, don’t go into fits, and I’ll let you off this time; but see that you don’t open your head agin, or it’ll be all up with yer.”

“Yes’m,” said the poor child submissively; and, taking her once more by the hand, the old woman led her rapidly along the filthy street, now entirely dark except for the gaslights, and more strange to ’Toinette’s eyes than Fairy-land would have been.  As they turned the corner, a tall, broad-shouldered man, dressed in a blue coat with brass buttons, and a glazed cap, who stood leaning against the wall, looked sharply at them, and called out,

“Hullo, Mother Winch!  What’s up to-night?”

“Nothing, yer honor,—­nothing at all.  Me and little Biddy Mahoney’s going to leave some duds at the pawnbroker’s for her mother, who’s most dead with the fever.”

“Well, well, go along; only look out you carry no more than you honestly come by,” said the policeman, walking leisurely up the street.

Mother Winch turned in the opposite direction, and, still tightly grasping ’Toinette’s arm, led her through one street after another, until, tired and bewildered, the poor child clung with half-closed eyes to the filthy skirts of the old woman, and stumbled along, neither seeing nor knowing which way they went.