l her acquaintance.
But alas! that voice, by nature of such bird-like vivacity, repeated
again and again, "Ah! we are all very unhappy now." "Do you sing
together, or go to evening schools?" "We have not the heart. When we
have a piece of work, we do not stir till it is finished, and then we
run to try and get another; but often we have to wait idle for weeks.
It grows worse and worse, and they say it is not likely to be any
better. We can think of nothing, but whether we shall be able to pay
our rent. Ah! the workpeople are very unhappy now." This poor, lovely
little girl, at an age when the merchant's daughters of Boston and New
York are just gaining their first experiences of "society," knew to
a farthing the price of every article of food and clothing that is
wanted by such a household. Her thought by day and her dream by night
was, whether she should long be able to procure a scanty supply of
these, and Nature had gifted her with precisely those qualities,
which, unembarrassed by care, would have made her and all she loved
really happy; and she was fortunate now, compared with many of her sex
in Lyons,--of whom a gentleman who knows the class well said: "When
their work fails, they have no resource except in the sale of their
persons. There are but these two ways open to them, weaving or
prostitution, to gain their bread." And there are those who dare to
say that such a state of things is _well enough_, and what Providence
intended for man,--who call those who have hearts to suffer at the
sight, energy and zeal to seek its remedy, visionaries and fanatics!
To themselves be woe, who have eyes and see not, ears and hear not,
the convulsions and sobs of injured Humanity!

My little friend told me she had nursed both her children,--though
almost all of her class are obliged to put their children out
to nurse; "but," said she, "they are brought back so little, so
miserable, that I resolved, if possible, to keep mine with me." Next
day in the steamboat I read a pamphlet by a physician of Lyons in
which he recommends the establishment of _Creches_, not merely like
those of Paris, to keep the children by day, but to provide wet-nurses
for them. Thus, by the infants receiving nourishment from more healthy
persons, and who under the supervision of directors would treat them
well, he hopes to counteract the tendency to degenerate in this race
of sedentary workers, and to save the mothers from too heavy a burden
of care and l