"You are one of the nurses or attendants at
the Hospital, I saw you leave to-night and last
night."

"Yes, I am. I am Sally."

"There is a pleasant patience in your face
which makes me believe that very young
children would take readily to you."

"God bless 'em! So they do."

The lady lifts her veil, and shows a face no
older than the nurse's. A face far more refined
and capable than hers, but wild and worn
with sorrow.

"I am the miserable mother of a baby lately
received under your care. I have a prayer to
make to you."

Instinctively respecting the confidence which
has drawn aside the veil, Sally whose ways are
all ways of simplicity and spontaneity replaces
it, and begins to cry.

"You will listen to my prayer?" the lady
urges. "You will not be deaf to the agonised
entreaty of such a broken suppliant as I
am?"

"O dear, dear, dear!" cries Sally. "What
shall I say, or can I say! Don't talk of prayers.
Prayers are to be put up to the Good Father of
All, and not to nurses and such. And there!
I am to hold my place for half a year longer,
till another young woman can be trained up to it.
I am going to be married. I shouldn't have
been out last night, and I shouldn't have been
out to-night, but that my Dick (he is the young
man I am going to be married to) lies ill, and I
help his mother and sister to watch him. Don't
take on so, don't take on so!"

"O good Sally, dear Sally," moans the lady,
catching at, her dress entreatingly. "As you are
hopeful and I am hopeless; as a fair way in life
is before you, which can never, never, be before
me; as you can aspire to become a respected
wife, and as you can aspire to become a proud
mother; as you are a living loving woman, and
must die; for GOD'S sake hear my distracted
petition!"

"Deary, deary, deary ME!" cries Sally, her
desperation culminating in the pronoun, "what
am I ever to do? And there! See how you
turn my own words back upon me. I tell you
I am going to be married, on purpose to make
it clearer to you that I am going to leave, and
therefore couldn't help you if I would, Poor
Thing, and you make it seem to my own self
as if I was cruel in going to be married and
not helping you. It ain't kind. Now, is it
kind, Poor Thing?"

"Sally! Hear me, my dear. My entreaty
is for no help in the future. It applies to what
is past. It is only to be told in two words."

"There! This is worse and worse," cries
Sally, " supposing that I understand what two
words you mean."

"You do understand. What are the names
they have given my poor baby? I ask no more
than that. I have read of the customs of the
place. He has been christened in the chapel,
and registered by some surname in the book.
He was received last Monday evening. What
have they called him?"

Down upon her knees in the foul mud of the
by-way into which they have strayed —an empty
street without a thoroughfare, giving on the
dark gardens of the Hospital—the lady would
drop in her passionate entreaty, but that Sally
prevents her.

"Don't! Don't! You make me feel as if I
was setting myself up to be good. Let me
look in your pretty face again. Put your
two hands in mine. Now, promise. You will
never ask me anything more than the two
words?"

"Never! Never!"

"You will never put them to a bad use, if I
say them?"

"Never! Never!"

"Walter Wilding."

The lady lays her face upon the nurse's
breast, draws her close in her embrace with
both arms, murmurs a blessing and the words,
"Kiss him for me!" and is gone.

Day of the month and year, the first Sunday
in October, one thousand eight hundred and
forty-seven. London Time by the great clock
of Saint Paul's, half-past one in the afternoon.
The clock of the Hospital for Foundling
Children is well up with the Cathedral to-day.
Service in the chapel is over, and the Foundling
children are at dinner.

There are numerous lookers-on at the dinner,
as the custom is. There are two or three
governors, whole families from the congregation,
smaller groups of both sexes, individual
stragglers of various degrees. The bright
autumnal sun strikes freshly into the wards;
and the heavy-framed windows through which
it shines, and the panelled walls on which it
strikes, are such windows and such walls as
pervade Hogarth's pictures. The girls'
refectory (including that of the younger children)
is the principal attraction. Neat attendants
silently glide about the orderly and silent
tables; the lookers-on move or stop as the
fancy takes them; comments in whispers on
face such a number from such a window
are not unfrequent; many of the faces are
of a character to fix attention. Some of the
visitors from the outside public are
accustomed visitors. They have established a
speaking acquaintance with the occupants of
particular seats at the tables, and halt at those
points to bend down and say a word or two.
It is no disparagement to their kindness that
those points are generally points where personal
attractions are. The monotony of the long
spacious rooms and the double lines of faces, is
agreeably relieved by these incidents, although
so slight.

A veiled lady, who has no companion, goes
among the company. It would seem that
curiosity and opportunity have never brought
her there before. She has the air of being a
little troubled by the sight, and, as she goes the
length of the tables, it is with a hesitating step
and an uneasy manner. At length she comes
to the refectory of the boys. They are so much