to
invite Mr. Herschel to join the Philosophical Society in Bath, which
invitation he accepted, and by this means came more prominently before
the world.

Mr. Travers led Griselda to her chair, and as the boy lighted the torch
at the door--for it was quite dark--a small and piteous voice was heard:

"Oh, madam! cannot you do something for us? I heard Mr. Herschel was
kind, but he is hard and stern."

"Mr. Herschel never gives alms," Leslie Travers said; "be off!"

"Nay, sir; wait. The child looks wretched and sad. What is it?" Griselda
asked.

"Oh, madam! my father was engaged to play at the theatre, and he has
fallen down and cannot perform the part. Mr. Palmer is hard, so hard, he
says"--the child's voice faltered--"he says it was drink that made him
fall--and he has no pity; and we are starving."

The group on the steps of that house in King Street was a study for an
artist. The shuddering, weeping child; the stolid chairman; the
link-boy, with the torch, which cast a lurid light upon the group; the
young man holding the hand of the tall and graceful lady, hooded and
cloaked in scarlet, edged with white fur; then the open door behind,
where an oil lamp shone dimly, and the maid's figure, in her large white
cap and apron, made a white light in the gloom. It was a picture indeed,
suggestive of the sharp contrasts of life, and yet no one could have
divined that in that scene lay concealed the elements of a story so
tragic and sorrowful, yet to be developed, and then unsuspected and
unknown.

"Wait," Griselda said. "Tell me, child, if I can help you."

"We are starving, madam, and my father is so ill!"

"I have no money," Griselda exclaimed. "Mr. Travers, if you can help
her, please do so."

"It is at your desire, for I can refuse you nothing; but I know Mr.
Herschel is right, and that alms given like this, is but the throwing of
money into a bottomless pit."

As he was speaking the young man had taken a leathern purse from the
wide side-pocket of his blue coat, and had singled out a sixpence and a
large heavy penny with the head of the King in his youth upon it--big
old-fashioned penny-pieces, of which none are current now.

Mr. Travers put the money into Griselda's hand, and she held it towards
the child.

"What brought you to Mr. Herschel's?" she asked.

"Brian Bellis sings at the Octagon every Sunday; he told me Mr. Herschel
was kind, but he was wrong; it is you who are kind."

"Tell me where you