The woman--Mrs.Burke by name--in whose care the child had been placed could not afford to keep him for nothing.

The two dollars week received for his board added just enough to her income to enable her to remain at home.

But failing to receive this, she must go out for day's work in families at least twice in every week.
What, then, was to be done with little Andy, as the baby was called?
At first Mrs.Burke thought of getting him into one of the homes for friendless children, but the pleasant child had crept into her affections, and she could not bear the thought of giving him up.

His presence stirred in her heart old and tender things long buried out of sight, and set the past, with its better and purer memories, side by side with the present.

She had been many times a mother, but her children were all dead but one, and she--Alas! the thought of her, whenever it came, made her heart heavy and sad.
"I will keep him a while and see, how it comes out," she said, on getting the promise of a neighbor to let Andy play with her children and keep an eye on him whenever she was out.