“Next week, on Thursday.”

“Not till next Thursday!” exclaimed Pinky, in a tone of disappointment.

“The school’s only once a week.”

Pinky chafed a good deal, but it was of no use; she must wait.

“You’ll be sure and go next Thursday?” she said.

“If Mother lets me,” replied the child.

“Oh, I’ll see to that; I’ll make her let you.  What time does the school go in?”

“At three o’clock.”

“Very well.  You wait for me.  I’ll come round here at half-past two, and go with you.  I want to see the young lady.  They’ll let me come into the school and learn to sew, won’t they?”

“I don’t know; you’re too big, and you don’t want to learn.”

“How do you know I don’t?”

“Because I do.”

Pinky laughed, and then said,

“You’ll wait for me?”

“Yes, if mother says so.”

“All right;” and Pinky hurried away to take measures for hiding the baby from a search that she felt almost sure was about being made.  The first thing she did was to soundly abuse the woman in whose care she had placed the hapless child for her neglect and ill treatment, both of which were too manifest, and then to send her away under the new aspect of affairs she did not mean to trust this woman, nor indeed to trust anybody who knew anything of the inquiries which had been made about the child.  A new nurse must be found, and she must live as far away from the old locality as possible.  Pinky was not one inclined to put things off.  Thought and act were always close together.  Scarcely had the woman been gone ten minutes, before, bundling the baby in a shawl, she started off to find a safer hiding-place.  This time she was more careful about the character and habits of the person selected for a nurse, and the baby’s condition was greatly improved.  The woman in whose charge she placed it was poor, but neither drunken nor depraved.  Pinky arranged with her to take the care of it for two dollars a week, and supplied it with clean and comfortable clothing.  Even she, wicked and vile as she was, could not help being touched by the change that appeared in the baby’s shrunken face, and in its sad but beautiful eyes, after its wasted little body had been cleansed and clothed in clean, warm garments and it had taken its fill of nourishing food.

“It’s a shame, the way it has been abused,” said Pinky, speaking from an impulse of kindness, such as rarely swelled in her evil heart.

“A crying shame,” answered the woman as she drew the baby close against her bosom and gazed down upon its pitiful face, and into the large brown eyes that were lifted to hers in mute appeal.

The real motherly tenderness that was in this woman’s heart was quickly perceived by the child, who did not move its eyes from hers, but lay perfectly still, gazing up at her in a kind of easeful rest such as it had never before known.  She spoke to it in loving tones, touched its thin cheeks with her finger in playful caresses, kissed it on its lips and forehead, hugged it to her bosom; and still the eyes were fixed on hers in a strange baby-wonder, though not the faintest glinting of a smile played on its lips or over its serious face.  Had it never learned to smile?