a
living."

Mr. Carlisle half turned on his heel, but instantly resumed his look
and attitude of fixed attention.

"Mr. Morrison lent him threepence. And Jemmy has supported himself
respectably ever since, and is now in honest employment as an errand
boy."

"I hope you can tell me how he managed it? I do not understand doing
business on such a capital."

"The threepence bought twelve boxes of matches. Those were sold for a
halfpenny each--doubling his capital at once. So he carried on that
business for two years. All day he went to school. In the end of the
day he went out with twelve boxes of matches and hawked them about
until they were disposed of. That gave him threepence for the next
day's trade, and threepence to live upon. He spent one penny for
breakfast, he said; another for dinner, and another for supper. So he
did for two years; now he does better."

"He deserves it, if anybody in London does. Is not this a strange
instance, Eleanor?--on honour?"

"If you like--but not solitary."

"What has been done for the mass of these boys in these schools? what
has been accomplished, I mean?"

"I have given you but one instance out of many, many individual
instances."

"Then you can afford to be generous and give me another."

Perhaps he said this only because he wanted to have her go on talking;
perhaps Eleanor divined that; however she hesitated a moment and went
on.

"Lord Cushley, with some other friends, has just provided for the
emigration to Australia of near a dozen promising cases of these boys."

"Was Eleanor Powle another of the friends?"

"No; I had not that honour. These are reclaimed boys, mind; reclaimed
from the very lowest and most miserable condition; and they are going
out with every prospect of respectability and every promise of doing
well. Do you want to know the antecedents of one among them?"

"By all means!"

"Notice them. First, slavery under two drunken people, one of them his
mother, who sent him out to steal for them; and refused him even the
shelter of their wretched home if he came to it with empty hands. At
such times, thrust out houseless and hungry, to wander where he could,
he led a life of such utter wretchedness, that at length he determined
to steal for himself, and to go home no more. Then came years of
struggling vagrancy--during which, Mr. Carlisle, the prison was his
pleasantest home and only comfortable shelter; and whenever he was
turned out of it he stoo