Jack was naturally very much excited by the new prospects that opened out before him. He had seen little happiness in his short life. It is a sad thing to say that he had hardly ever known what it was to eat a full meal. Cold and pinching privation, and long, toilsome days in the streets, had been his portion hitherto. Was it possible, he asked himself, that all this was to be changed.

Was he to have a home like other boys, and a relation who was able to supply him with the comforts of which he knew so little?

It seemed like a dream, and little Jack might have been tempted to distrust the information which had been given to him. But somehow he could not help feeling confidence in what Mark told him. He felt that Mark would not deceive him, and the dream must come true after all.

Jack finished out the day as usual, and went home. Peggy's attention was at once called to the new basket.

"Where did that come from?" she asked.

"My basket was stolen, and a kind gentleman gave me money to buy this." Jack answered.

"Was the matches stole too?"

"Yes; he gave me money enough to buy as many as I lost."

"Who stole 'em? Do you know?"

"I think it was Tim Roach. He was hangin' round, at the time I lost it."

"Did he snatch it from you?"

"No; I laid it down a minute while I went into a cigar store to get a quarter changed for a gentleman who had just bought a box of matches, when Tim picked it up and ran away."

"I'd like to get hold of Tim!" said Peggy wrathfully. "I'd wring his neck for him, the little wretch!"

Then a new and cunning idea came to Peggy.

"I tell you what to do, Jack," she said; "just you go out to-morrow mornin' without any basket, and begin to cry, and tell people that you've had your matches stolen. Then somebody'll give you money, and you can bring it home."

"But that would be tellin' a lie, Peggy," objected Jack.

"And what if it is!" retorted Peggy. "You needn't be so dreadfully good. It ain't a lie that'll hurt anybody, and the gentlemen that gives you the money won't miss it."

It occurred to Jack that it would suit his plans to go out the next morning without the basket. Considering how he had been brought up, his conscience was unusually tender, and he would not have liked to leave the city without returning the basket and his stock-in-trade to Peggy. Besides, she could have him arrested for theft, if she chose. He decided, therefore, that he would make no further objection to Peggy's proposal.

"Just as you say, Peggy," he said, submissively.

"That's a good boy!" said Peggy, good-humoredly. "That's a pretty good snap!" she said to herself, complacently. "I don't know why we shouldn't foller it up. It'll be more than the profit of the matches, and Jack can do it two or three times a day."

It did, indeed, seem a very ingenious method of raising money, and answered the purpose of begging, without being open to the usual objection.

The old woman drawing near the pallet, strove to catch the words that fell from the boy's lips.

Jack usually got tired with being about the streets all day, and after he had eaten the frugal supper with which Peggy had provided him, he lay down on a pallet provided for him in the corner of the room, and was soon asleep. But with such a momentous secret on his mind, it will not be a matter of surprise that Jack's thoughts, even in sleep, were occupied with his new plan. Whenever he was restless he was apt to talk in his sleep, and did so on the present occasion.

Peggy had not gone to bed, but sat in an old wooden rocking-chair, smoking a pipe.

"What's the boy sayin'?" she asked herself, as Jack began to talk. "I'll listen, and then if he's been up to any mischief, he'll out with it."

She removed the pipe, an............