e.

"Oh dear!" said Diamond's mother, with a deep sigh, "it's a sad world!"

"Is it?" said Diamond. "I didn't know."

"How should you know, child? You've been too well taken care of, I
trust."

"Oh yes, I have," returned Diamond. "I'm sorry! I thought you were taken
care of too. I thought my father took care of you. I will ask him about
it. I think he must have forgotten."

"Dear boy!" said his mother, "your father's the best man in the world."

"So I thought!" returned Diamond with triumph. "I was sure of it!--Well,
doesn't he take very good care of you?"

"Yes, yes, he does," answered his mother, bursting into tears. "But
who's to take care of him? And how is he to take care of us if he's got
nothing to eat himself?"

"Oh dear!" said Diamond with a gasp; "hasn't he got anything to eat? Oh!
I must go home to him."

"No, no, child. He's not come to that yet. But what's to become of us, I
don't know."

"Are you very hungry, mother? There's the basket. I thought you put
something to eat in it."

"O you darling stupid! I didn't say I was hungry," returned his mother,
smiling through her tears.

"Then I don't understand you at all," said Diamond. "Do tell me what's
the matter."

"There are people in the world who have nothing to eat, Diamond."

"Then I suppose they don't stop in it any longer. They--they--what you
call--die--don't they?"

"Yes, they do. How would you like that?"

"I don't know. I never tried. But I suppose they go where they get
something to eat."

"Like enough they don't want it," said his mother, petulantly.

"That's all right then," said Diamond, thinking I daresay more than he
chose to put in words.

"Is it though? Poor boy! how little you know about things! Mr. Coleman's
lost all his money, and your father has nothing to do, and we shall have
nothing to eat by and by."

"Are you sure, mother?"

"Sure of what?"

"Sure that we shall have nothing to eat."

"No, thank Heaven! I'm not sure of it. I hope not."

"Then I can't understand it, mother. There's a piece of gingerbread in
the basket, I know."

"O you little bird! You have no more sense than a sparrow that picks
what it wants, and never thinks of the winter and the frost and, the
snow."

"Ah--yes--I see. But the birds get through the winter, don't they?"

"Some of them fall dead on the ground."

"They must die some time. They wouldn't like to be birds always. Would
you, mother?"

"What a child it is!" thought