merriment attracted the other girls, and soon Jennie stood among
them, with no trace of sorrow upon her brow, and the memory of the
bitter past wholly swallowed up in the enjoyment of the bright and
blessed present.

CHAPTER XI.

Saturday morning was a busy time at Madame La Blanche's school. Little
fingers stitched with untiring industry upon the coarse raiment that was
to give warmth to many an otherwise shivering body, and by the hour
appointed for the visits, the teacher was surprised at the great results
of such tiny efforts. She smiled approvingly on her pupils, and
summoning a servant to take charge of the weighty bundle, she took
Jennie by the hand and left the house.

Out through the pleasant garden, past the magnificent mansions of the
rich they went--on, and on, amid throngs of the gay and fashionable,
till the streets grew dingy with a motley crowd of the miserable and
ragged, who seemed to herd together, as if thus to hide their
degradation and shame. Some looked upon them, as they walked along, with
a bold and impudent stare; but others shrunk from their observation, and
drew their tattered shawls more closely around them as they moved
hastily away. There were some bargaining at the markets for withered or
decaying vegetables, and others purchasing, at a diminished price, stale
bread from dirty bakeries, and many a one loitering along in his filth
and squalor, with no object nor aim save to dawdle away the time that
hung too wearily upon him. It was a sad and loathsome sight, so near the
gorgeous thoroughfare of this mighty city, to see the pitiable objects
of unmitigated want; but there they were, and in all that teeming mass
but two ministering spirits were visible, gliding on with their
offerings of kindness and mercy.

Down through a dark alley, whose fetid odors were quite sufficient to
deter the dainty from penetrating beyond--they went, and into a
miserable room where was scarcely space for them to stand, so huddled
was it with broken furniture and ragged children. A fire was burning in
a shattered grate, and an untidy woman stood ironing by a table whereon
was the remnant of their meager dinner. Her husband crouched over the
coals as if the day was not warm and sunny. His clothes hung about his
limbs in large folds, and his sunken eyes told that disease was making
fearful ravages upon him. Madame La Blanche opened her bundle, and,
handing him a comfortable dressing-gown nicely quilted,