"twenty lashes".
Sylvia shuddered at the array of faces. From the stolid nineteen years
old booby of the Kentish hop-fields, to the wizened, shrewd, ten years
old Bohemian of the London streets, all degrees and grades of juvenile
vice grinned, in untamable wickedness, or snuffed in affected piety.
"Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of
such is the Kingdom of Heaven," said, or is reported to have said, the
Founder of our Established Religion. Of such it seemed that a large
number of Honourable Gentlemen, together with Her Majesty's faithful
commons in Parliament assembled, had done their best to create a Kingdom
of Hell.

After the farce had been played again, and the children had stood up
and sat down, and sung a hymn, and told how many twice five were, and
repeated their belief in "One God the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven
and Earth", the party reviewed the workshops, and saw the church, and
went everywhere but into the room where the body of Peter Brown, aged
twelve, lay starkly on its wooden bench, staring at the gaol roof which
was between it and Heaven.

Just outside this room, Sylvia met with a little adventure. Meekin had
stopped behind, and Burgess, being suddenly summoned for some official
duty, Frere had gone with him, leaving his wife to rest on a bench that,
placed at the summit of the cliff, overlooked the sea. While resting
thus, she became aware of another presence, and, turning her head,
beheld a small boy, with his cap in one hand and a hammer in the other.
The appearance of the little creature, clad in a uniform of grey cloth
that was too large for him, and holding in his withered little hand a
hammer that was too heavy for him, had something pathetic about it.

"What is it, you mite?" asked Sylvia.

"We thought you might have seen him, mum," said the little figure,
opening its blue eyes with wonder at the kindness of the tone. "Him!
Whom?"

"Cranky Brown, mum," returned the child; "him as did it this morning. Me
and Billy knowed him, mum; he was a mate of ours, and we wanted to know
if he looked happy."

"What do you mean, child?" said she, with a strange terror at her heart;
and then, filled with pity at the aspect of the little being, she drew
him to her, with sudden womanly instinct, and kissed him. He looked up
at her with joyful surprise. "Oh!" he said.

Sylvia kissed him again.

"Does nobody ever kiss you, poor little man?" said she.

"Mother used to,