on had
found a little white dress to wrap it in, and with kindly thought had
laid some white chrysanthemums on the little, innocent breast. Whenever
I see a chrysanthemum now it brings back to my mind the whole scene--the
bare, white walls, the clean wooden floor, the black tressels, and the
table whereon the fair, tender little body lay--all alone.

CHAPTER IV.

Our little life in this world seems of little count. Throw a stone into
the sea--it makes a splash that lasts for one second, then it is all
over; the waves roll on just as though it had not been dropped.

The death of this one little child, whom no one knew and for whom no one
cared, was of less than no account; it made a small paragraph in the
newspapers--it had caused some little commotion on the pier--just a
little hurry at the work-house, and then it was forgotten. What was such
a little waif and stray--such a small, fair, tender little creature to
the gay crowd?

"A child found drowned by the Chain Pier." Kind-hearted, motherly women
shrugged their shoulders with a sigh. The finding or the death of such
hapless little ones is, alas! not rare. I do not think of the hundreds
who carelessly heard the words that morning there was one who stopped to
think of the possible suffering of the child. It is a wide step from the
warmth of a mother's arms to the chill of the deep-sea water. The gay
tide of fashion ebbed and flowed just the same; the band played on the
Chain Pier the morning following; the sunbeams danced on the
water--there was nothing to remind one of the little life so suddenly
and terribly closed.

There was not much more to tell. There was an inquest, but it was not of
much use. Every one knew that the child had been drowned; the doctor
thought it had been drugged before it was drowned; there was very little
to be said about it. Jim, the boatman, proved the finding of it. The
coroner said a few civil words when he heard that one of the visitors of
the town, out of sheer pity, had offered to defray the expenses of the
little funeral.

The little unknown babe, who had spent the night in the deep sea, was
buried in the cemetery on the Lewes Road. I bought a grave for her under
the spreading boughs of a tree; she had a white pall and a quantity of
white flowers. The matron from the work-house went, and it was not at
all like a pauper's funeral. The sun was shining, and the balmy air was
filled with the song of birds; but then the sun doe