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as to see over the iron railing of the balcony, she
peeped down, and saw a small dark man walking slowly by the house,
turning the crank of a hand-organ which he carried at his side. Upon the
organ was perched a monkey, dressed in a red coat with gilt buttons, a
little cocked hat, and blue trousers. He was busily eating a seed-cake;
pausing now and then to look about him in a sort of anxious way,
chattering all the while as if he thought some one wanted to take it
away from him.
'Toinette had never before seen a monkey; and she stared at this one in
great surprise and delight, taking him for a little man, and his
inarticulate chattering for words in some foreign language such as she
had sometimes heard spoken.
The music also suited the little girl's ear better than the best strains of
the Italian opera would have done; and altogether she was resolved to
see and hear more both of the monkey and the music.
"Mamma's asleep, and Susan gone out; so I can't ask leave, but I'll only
stay a little tiny minute, and tell the little man what is his name, and
what he is saying," reasoned the pretty runaway, primly wrapping
herself in her mother's breakfast-shawl left lying upon the sofa, and
tying her handkerchief over her head.

"Now I's decent, and the cold won't catch me," murmured she,
regarding herself in the mirror with much satisfaction, and then running
softly down stairs. Susan, thinking she should be back directly, had left
the catch-latch of the front-door fastened up: so 'Toinette had only to
turn the great silver handle of the other latch; and this, by putting both
hands to it and using all her strength, she finally succeeded in doing,
although she could not close the door behind her. Leaving it ajar,
'Toinette ran down the steps, and looked eagerly along the square until
she discovered the hand-organ man with his monkey just turning the
corner, and flew after him as fast as her little feet would carry her. But,
with all her haste, the man had already turned another corner before she
overtook him, and was walking, more quickly than he had yet done,
down a narrow street. He was not playing now; but the monkey, who
had finished his cake, was climbing over his master's shoulders,
running down his arms and back, chattering, grinning, making faces,
and evidently having a little game of romps on his own account.
'Toinette, very much amused, tripped along behind, talking as fast as
the monkey, and asking all manner of questions, to none of which
either monkey or man made any reply; while all the time the beautiful
rosy light was fading out of the west, and the streets were growing dark
and crowded; and as the organ-grinder, followed by 'Toinette, turned
from one into another, each was dirtier and narrower and more
disagreeable than the last.
All at once, the man, after hesitating for a moment, dashed across the
street, and into a narrow alley opposite. Two or three dirt-carts were
passing at the same time; and 'Toinette, afraid to follow, stood upon the
edge of the sidewalk, looking wistfully after him, and beginning to
wonder if she ought not to be going home.
While she wondered, a number of rude boys came rushing by; and,
either by accident or malice, the largest one, in passing the little girl,
pushed her so roughly, that she stumbled off the sidewalk altogether,
and fell into the gutter.
A little hurt, a good deal frightened, and still more indignant, 'Toinette
picked herself up, and looked ruefully at the mud upon her pretty dress,

but would not allow herself to cry, as she longed to do.
"If I'd got my gingham dress on, it wouldn't do so much harm," thought
she, her mind returning to the story she had that afternoon heard; and
then all at once an anxious longing for home and mother seized the
little heart, and sent the tiny feet flying up the narrow street as fast as
they could move. But, at the corner, 'Toinette, who never had seen the
street before, took the wrong turn; and, although she ran as fast as she
could, every step now led her farther from home, and deeper into the
squalid by-streets and alleys, among which she was lost.
CHAPTER VI.
MOTHER WINCH.

IN a narrow court, hardly lighted by the one gas-light flaring at its
entrance, 'Toinette stopped, and, looking dismally about her, began at
last to cry. At the sound, a crooked old woman, with a great bag on her
back, who had been resting upon the step of a door close by, although
the little girl had not noticed her,