s,
and flinging himself on the floor in front of the baby, exclaimed:

"I'll tell you what we'll do, little wife: we'll present one of these to
the boy, and then you and I will eat it in honor of his birthday,
unless, indeed, there may be some bad omen in this, even. You know the
juice of the grape may, under certain circumstances, become a dangerous
article?"

Mrs. Phillips laughed carelessly as she nestled in the little sewing
chair, and prepared to enjoy the grapes. "No," she said, gaily; "grapes
are very harmless omens to me. I'm not the least afraid that Baby Benny
will ever be a drunkard."

* * * * *

There used to be in Albany, not many years ago, a miniature "Five
Points," and one didn't have to go very far up what is now Rensselaer
Street to find it, either. There were tenement houses, which from attic
to basement swarmed with filthy, ragged, repulsive human life.

In one of the lowest and meanest of these many cellars, on the very day,
and at the identical hour, in which Master Pliny Hastings held high
carnival at his father's table, and Baby Benny Phillips nestled and
dreamed among the soft pillows of his mother's easy chair, a little
brother of theirs, clad in dirt and rags, crawled over the reeking
floor, and occupied himself in devouring eagerly every bit of potato
skin or apple paring that came in his way. Was there ever a more forlorn
looking specimen of a baby! It was its birthday, too--there are more
babies in the world than we think for whose birthdays might be
celebrated on the same day. But this one knew nothing about it--dear me!
neither did his mother. I doubt if it had once occurred to her that this
poor bit of scrawny, dirty, terrible baby had been through one whole
year of life. And yet, perhaps, she loved her boy a little--her face
looked sullen rather than wicked. On the whole, I think she did, for as
she was about to ascend the stairs, with the sullen look deepening or
changing into a sort of gloomy apprehension, she hesitated, glanced
behind her, and finally, with a muttered "Plague take the young one,"
turned back, and, catching him by the arm of his tattered dress, landed
him on the topmost step, in a mud-puddle! but she did it because she
remembered that he would be very likely to climb into the tub of
soapsuds that stood at the foot of the bed, and so get drowned.

Mrs. Ryan came up her cellar stairs at the same time, and looked over at
her neighbor