The light shone in her face--the mother started at the appealing cry for help--sprang up--Heavens, what do we see? It is little Sissee--Little Katy's sister and her mother! What a sight for that mother! The man she so much dreaded--the man who had so disturbed her dreams--with her child, her last, her only child, in his strong arms, and no one near to protect, to save. She sprang towards him, and fixed her feeble hands in his hair. Of what avail? He flung her from him reeling, fainting, across the room. The noise brought the faithful Phebe from her couch--too late. The mother saw her child disappearing in the dark passage--she heard her screams for help--she heard no more. One look of his terrible eye, as he bore away her struggling child, was enough to kill one of a stronger form than hers. One look of satisfied revenge--revenge of a man upon a feeble woman, and his hand is upon the door. One step more and he is in the street. One step more and he fell, beneath a blow of a stout cane in a strong man's hand, and lay trembling across that threshold, quivering like a bullock felled by the butcher's blow. [Illustration: A NEW YORK STREET SCENE.--_Page 341._] "Here, Phebe, take the child; take care of the mother; tell her all is safe; the Lord watches over the truly penitent; he will protect; he will save." I dragged the unconscious mass of human flesh down upon the pavement, and struck three sharp blows upon the stones, with the broken cane--broken in avenging a feeble woman. It was answered right and left, up and down, and again repeated. I peered into the darkness for the coming succor. Will it come? Will it come in time? For a strong hand has seized my only weapon, now he has it in his. There is a momentary struggle--the prostrate man is up and the other one down. A large Bowie knife, the midnight prowler's fashionable weapon, is gleaming at my throat. A moment more, and all my debts were paid and duties done. Moments fleet fast, but all too slow for the assassin's knife, when it is not the will of Him that giveth life, that life should fail. The knife fell, but not with a blow--it fell from a broken arm. The watchman's club had done the work. The watchman had heard the call, and had come in time to save the avenger and punish the assassin. "Take him away. You know me and where to send when I am wanted. I have another life to save inside this house." What was said or done need not be told. The reader is dull of divining power, if he does not already know. I cannot tell. I only know that I awaked from a short nap, next morning, in an easy chair, with a sweet little girl, some three years old, clinging her arms around my neck and nestling her cheek up to mine. Had mortal ever sweeter dreams? "What time is it, Phebe?" "Don't know dat, sir; sun up yonder." "Is it? And she sleeps quietly? Very well, let her sleep. I will send a doctor, on my way home, to look at her. Good by. Bon jour, Sis. One more kiss, there."