the sidewalk attracted her attention; and, stooping to pick it up,
she uttered a little cry of surprise and pleasure. It was her own
coral bracelet, which had traveled round in Mother Winch's pocket
until it came to a hole in the bottom, and quietly slipping out, and
down her skirts to the pavement, lay waiting for its little mistress
to pick it up.

'Toinette kissed it again and again, not because it was a bracelet
but because her father had given it to her; and it seemed somehow to
take her back a little way toward him and home. It must have been
this she meant, in saying as she did,--

"I guess you have come after me, pretty bracelet, hasn't you? and
we'll go home together."

And so, hugging the toy as close to her heart as she would have
liked herself to be hugged to her mother's heart, 'Toinette wandered
on and on through the dark and lonely streets, her little face
growing paler and paler, her little feet more and more weary, her
heart swelling fuller and fuller with fright and desolation; until
at last, stopping suddenly, she looked up at the sky, all alive now
with the crowding stars, and with a great sob whispered,--

"Pretty stars, please tell God I'm lost. I think he doesn't know
about it, or he'd send me home."

And then, as the wild sob brought another and another, 'Toinette
sank down in the doorway of a deserted house, and, covering her face
with her hands, cried as she had never cried in all her little life.