lding a baby to her breast. As
we looked, the poor baby let go its hold, turned its little head, and
smiled a wan, shrivelled, old-fashioned smile in our faces.

Another happy baby, you see, Mr. Gordon,' said Falconer. 'A child, fresh
from God, finds its heaven where no one else would. The devil could
drive woman out of Paradise; but the devil himself cannot drive the
Paradise out of a woman.'

'What can be done for them?' I said, and at the moment, my eye fell upon
a row of little children, from two to five years of age, seated upon the
curb-stone.

They were chattering fast, and apparently carrying on some game, as
happy as if they had been in the fields.

'Wouldn't you like to take all those little grubby things, and put them
in a great tub and wash them clean?' I said.

'They'd fight like spiders,' rejoined Falconer.

'They're not fighting now.'

'Then don't make them. It would be all useless. The probability is that
you would only change the forms of the various evils, and possibly
for worse. You would buy all that man's glue-lizards, and that man's
three-foot rules, and that man's dog-collars and chains, at three times
their value, that they might get more drink than usual, and do nothing
at all for their living to-morrow.--What a happy London you would make
if you were Sultan Haroun!' he added, laughing. 'You would put an end to
poverty altogether, would you not?'

I did not reply at once.

'But I beg your pardon,' he resumed; 'I am very rude.'

'Not at all,' I returned. 'I was only thinking how to answer you. They
would be no worse after all than those who inherit property and lead
idle lives.'

'True; but they would be no better. Would you be content that your
quondam poor should be no better off than the rich? What would be gained
thereby? Is there no truth in the words "Blessed are the poor"? A deeper
truth than most Christians dare to see.--Did you ever observe that there
is not one word about the vices of the poor in the Bible--from beginning
to end?'

'But they have their vices.'

'Indubitably. I am only stating a fact. The Bible is full enough of the
vices of the rich. I make no comment.'

'But don't you care for their sufferings?'

'They are of secondary importance quite. But if you had been as much
amongst them as I, perhaps you would be of my opinion, that the poor are
not, cannot possibly feel so wretched as they seem to us. They live in a
climate, as it were, which is their own, b