in this direction. A
dirty, vicious child was an offence to her, not an object of pity, and
she felt more like, spurning it with her foot than touching it with
her hand. But it was not so with Edith; she listened to her father, and
became deeply interested in the poor, suffering, neglected little ones
whose sad condition he could so vividly portray, for the public duties
of charity to which he was giving a large part of his time made him
familiar with much that was sad and terrible in human suffering and
degradation.

One day Edith said to her father,

"I saw a sight this morning that made me sick. It has haunted me ever
since. Oh, it was dreadful!"

"What was it?" asked Mr. Dinneford.

"A sick baby in the arms of a half-drunken woman. It made me shiver to
look at its poor little face, wasted by hunger and sickness and purple
with cold. The woman sat at the street corner begging, and the people
went by, no one seeming to care for the helpless, starving baby in her
arms. I saw a police-officer almost touch the woman as he passed. Why
did he not arrest her?"

"That was not his business," replied Mr. Dinneford. "So long as she did
not disturb the peace, the officer had nothing to do with her."

"Who, then, has?"

"Nobody."

"Why, father!" exclaimed Edith. "Nobody?"

"The woman was engaged in business. She was a beggar, and the sick,
half-starved baby was her capital in trade," replied Mr. Dinneford.
"That policeman had no more authority to arrest her than he had to
arrest the organ-man or the peanut-vender."

"But somebody should see after a poor baby like that. Is there no law to
meet such cases?"

"The poor baby has no vote," replied Mr. Dinneford, "and law-makers
don't concern themselves much about that sort of constituency; and even
if they did, the executors of law would be found indifferent. They are
much more careful to protect those whose business it is to make drunken
beggars like the one you saw, who, if men, can vote and give them place
and power. The poor baby is far beneath their consideration."

"But not of Him," said Edith, with eyes full of tears, "who took little
children in his arms and blessed them, and said, Suffer them to come
unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

"Our law-makers are not, I fear, of his kingdom," answered Mr.
Dinneford, gravely, "but of the kingdom of this world."

A little while after, Edith, who had remained silent and thoughtful,
sai