them,
were to-day to swallow up the great city of New Sodom in America, and keep
it under ground for a few thousand years, nothing in all its circuit would
so puzzle the learned archaeologists of A.D. 5873 as the position of the
skeletons in these same waiting-rooms of railway stations.

Thinking such thoughts as these, sinking slowly and surely to the level of
the place, I waited, on this bleak, rainy day, in just such a "Ladies'
Room" as I have described. I sat in the red-velvet stocks, with my eyes
fixed on the floor.

"Please, ma'am, won't you buy a basket?" said a cheery little voice. So
near me, without my knowing it, had the little tradesman come that I was
as startled as if the voice had spoken out of the air just above my head.

He was a sturdy little fellow, ten years old, Irish, dirty, ragged; but he
had honest, kind gray eyes, and a smile which ought to have sold more
baskets than he could carry. A few kind words unsealed the fountain of his
childish confidences. There were four children younger than he; the mother
took in washing, and the father, who was a cripple from rheumatism, made
these baskets, which he carried about to sell.

"Where do you sell the most?"

"Round the depots. That's the best place."

"But the baskets are rather clumsy to carry. Almost everybody has his
hands full, when he sets out on a journey."

"Yis'm; but mostly they doesn't take the baskets. But they gives me a
little change," said he, with a smile; half roguish, half sad.

I watched him on in his pathetic pilgrimage round that dreary room,
seeking help from that dreary circle of women.

My heart aches to write down here the true record that out of those scores
of women only three even smiled or spoke to the little fellow. Only one
gave him money. My own sympathies had been so won by his face and manner
that I found myself growing hot with resentment as I watched woman after
woman wave him off with indifferent or impatient gesture. His face was a
face which no mother ought to have been able to see without a thrill of
pity and affection. God forgive me! As if any mother ought to be able to
see any child, ragged, dirty, poor, seeking help and finding none! But his
face was so honest, and brave, and responsive that it added much to the
appeal of his poverty.

One woman, young and pretty, came into the room, bringing in her arms a
large toy horse, and a little violin. "Oh," I said to myself, "she has a
boy of her own, for