ut
for adoption in England. In Canada--by-the-bye, during the year 1892,
720 boys and girls have emigrated to the Colonies, making a grand total
of 5,834 young folks who have gone out to Canada and other British
Colonies since this particular branch was started. As I was saying, in
Canada, if a man adopts a child it really becomes as his own. If a girl,
he must provide her with a marriage dowry."

"But the little ones--the very tiny ones, Dr. Barnardo, where do they
go?" I interrupted.

"To 'Babies' Castle' at Hawkhurst, in Kent. A few go to Ilford, where
the Girls' Village Home is. It is conducted on the cottage
principle--which means _home_. I send some there--one to each cottage.
Others are 'boarded out' all over the kingdom, but a good many,
especially the feebler ones who need special medical and nursing care,
go to 'Babies' Castle,' where you were--one day last summer!"

One day last summer! It was remembered only too well, and more so when
we hurried out into the cold air outside and hastened our
footsteps--eastwards. And as we walked along I listened to the story of
Dr. Barnardo's first Arab boy. His love for waifs and strays as a child
increased with years; it had been impressed upon his boyish memory, and
when he became a young man and walked the wards of the London Hospital,
it increased.

It was the winter of 1866. Together with one or two fellow students he
conducted a ragged school in an old stable. The young student told the
children stories--simple and understandable, and read to them such works
as the "Pilgrim's Progress." The nights were cold, and the young
students subscribed together--in a practical move--for a huge fire. One
night young Barnardo was just about to go when, approaching the warming
embers to brace himself up for the snow outside, he saw a boy lying
there. He was in rags; his face pinched with hunger and suffering.

"Now then, my boy--it's time to go," said the medico.

"Please, sir, _do_ let me stop."

"I can't, my lad--it's time to go home. Where do you live?"

"_Don't live nowhere, sir!_"

"Nowhere! Where's your father and mother?"

"Ain't got none, sir!"

"For the first time in my life," said Dr. Barnardo as he was telling
this incident, "I was brought face to face with the misery of outcast
childhood. I questioned the lad. He had been sleeping in the streets for
two or three years--he knew every corner of refuge in London. Well, I
took him to my lodgings. I had a bit