At first, after she had stolen him from the workhouse, when all danger of pursuit was over, she used to take him on Sundays into the fashionable streets, and point out to him the well-dressed children, and long to deck the pretty boy in garments as gay as theirs; as he grew older she would lead him by the hand, and show him the happy children at play, and put crumbs into his pockets, and teach him how to feed the birds on the Serpentine. As much as possible, wonderfully so, considering the criminal life she herself led, all his pleasures were pure pleasures. This state of things continued until Robin was five years old. He still had the beautiful eyes, pathetic almost as a little dog's, of his babyhood; but otherwise the close, unwholesome air, and bad and insufficient food, had destroyed nearly all of his early beauty. Just then Helen was convicted of some petty theft, and sentenced to a house of correction for three months. With little shame on her own account, she yet suffered agony for Robin. She had small fear of his wanting food and clothing; she had small fear of not finding him before her on her return to her old haunts. Yet a mighty dread pursued her. An habitual criminal herself, she still had one ray of pure light in her darkened soul. Though she was a thief, yet Robin should be honest; though she was evil, yet he should be good. This she hoped, this she longed for, this she dreamt of; and it was the dread that some one now might acquaint the child with evil that made her prison hours so long and wretched. At last her term of imprisonment was over, and she came back to find the child well in body and apparently untainted in soul. She resumed her old life, stealing again for him, though she fondly hoped that he had never stolen. CHAPTER II. _HE WAS NO LONGER HER GUARDIAN ANGEL._ One day she was lying on her bed. It was a sultry July day, and the woman, weary in body and soul, had thrown herself there hoping to obtain a little rest. Although she had once entered a prison, she was regarded by her miserable fellow-sinners as a clever hand, and often prided herself on her own good fortune in evading the police. But to-day she was, as she expressed it, down on her luck; hers was a hand-to-hand existence, and to-day there was no bread in the cupboard, and no money to buy any in her pocket. She had heard also that the "nippers," as she termed the police, were again on her track, and she knew that she must change her quarters as quickly as possible; but she was very tired, so utterly exhausted from want of sleep and want of food, that she must take one hour of slumber before she put herself into a place of safety. The child, who had cried himself sick for want of his breakfast, lay curled up by her side.