to steal, (not because God saw her--for
she didn't know anything about _Him_,) but for fear of policemen and
prisons--so she wandered about, hour after hour, saying pitifully to
the careless crowd, "Only a penny--_please_ give me a penny to buy a
loaf of bread!"

Yes--Clara's mother was very cruel; but God forbid, my little innocent
children, that you should ever know how hunger, and thirst, and misery,
may sometimes turn even that holy thing--a _mother's love_--to
bitterness.

Poor Clara! she had never known a better home than the filthy, dark
cellar, where poor people in cities huddle together like hunted cattle;
her little feet had never pressed the soft, green meadows; her little
fingers had never plucked the sweet wild-flowers; her little eyes had
never seen the bright, blue sky, save between dark brick walls. Her
little head often pained her. She was foot-weary and heart-sore; and
what was worse than all, she had never heard of heaven, "where the
weary rest." Wasn't it very pitiful?

Well, little Clara kissed my hand when she had eaten enough--(it was so
odd for _Clara_ to have _enough_)--and her sunken eyes grew bright, and
she said--"Now I shall not be beaten, because I've something left to
carry home;" so she told me where she lived, and I bade her good bye,
and told her I would come and see her mother to-morrow.

The next day I started again to find little Clara's mother. I was
_very_ happy going along, because I meant, if I could, to get her away
from her cruel mother; to make her clean and neat; to teach her how to
read and spell, and show to her that the world was not _all_
darkness--not _all_ sin, and tears, and sorrow; and to tell her of that
kind God who loves _everything_ that He has made. So as I told you I
was very happy,--the sun looked so bright to me--the sky so fair,--and
I could scarcely make my feet go fast enough.

Turning a corner suddenly, I met a man bearing a child's coffin. I
cannot tell you _why_ I stood still--why my heart sank like lead--why I
could not let him pass, till I asked him what little form he was
bearing away,--or why my heart told me, before he answered, that it was
my poor little Clara.

Yes--it was she! I was too late--_she_ was in the little coffin! No
hearse--no mourners--no tolling bell! Borne along--unnoticed--uncared
for--through the busy, crowded, noisy, streets. But, dear children,
kind Angels looked pitying down, and Clara "hungers no more--nor
thirsts any