The new life that had opened to little Andy since the dreary night on which, like a stray kitten, he had crept into Andrew Hall’s miserable hovel, had been very pleasant.  To be loved and caressed was a strange and sweet experience.  Poor little heart!  It fluttered in wild terror, like a tiny bird in the talons of a hawk, when Pinky Swett swooped down and struck her foul talons into the frightened child and bore him off.

“If you scream, I’ll choke you to death!” she said, stooping to his ear, as she hurried him from the mission-house.  Scared into silence, Andy did not cry out, and the arm that grasped and dragged him away was so strong that he felt resistance to be hopeless.  Passing from Briar street, Pinky hurried on for a distance of a block, when she signaled a street-car.  As she lifted Andy upon the platform, she gave him another whispered threat: 

“Mind! if you cry, I’ll kill you!”

There were but few persons in the car, and Pinky carried the child to the upper end and sat him down with his face turned forward to the window, so as to keep it as much out of observation as possible.  He sat motionless, stunned with surprise and fear.  Pinky kept her eyes upon him.  His hands were laid across his breast and held against it tightly.  They had not gone far before Pinky saw great tear-drops falling upon the little hands.

“Stop crying!” she whispered, close to his ear; “I won’t have it!  You’re not going to be killed.”

Andy tried to keep back the tears, but in spite of all he could do they kept blinding his eyes and falling over his hands.

“What’s the matter with your little boy?” asked a sympathetic, motherly woman who had noticed the child’s distress.

“Cross, that’s all.”  Pinky threw out the sentence in at snappish, mind-your-own-business tone.

The motherly woman, who had leaned forward, a look of kindly interest on her face, drew back, chilled by this repulse, but kept her eyes upon the child, greatly to Pinky’s annoyance.  After riding for half a mile, Pinky got out and took another car.  Andy was passive.  He had ceased crying, and was endeavoring to get back some of the old spirit of brave endurance.  He was beginning to feel like one who had awakened from a beautiful dream in which dear ideals had almost reached fruition, to the painful facts of a hard and suffering life, and was gathering up his patience and strength to meet them.  He sat motionless by the side of Pinky, with his eyes cast down, his chin on his breast and his lips shut closely together.

Another ride of nearly half a mile, when Pinky left the car and struck away from the common thoroughfare into a narrow alley, down which she walked for a short distance, and then disappeared in one of the small houses.  No one happened to observe her entrance.  Through a narrow passage and stairway she reached a second-story room.  Taking a key from her pocket, she unlocked the door and went in.  There was a fire in a small stove, and the room was comfortable.  Locking the door on the inside she said to Andy, in a voice changed and kinder,