don't break your neck on the bicycle."

In a few minutes Sam Twitter and his bicycle were out of sight.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

A GREAT AND MEMORABLE DAY.

When young Stephen Welland was conducted by John Seaward the missionary
into a large field dotted with trees, close to where his accident had
happened, he found that the children and their guardians were busily
engaged in making arrangements for the spending of an enjoyable day.

And then he also found that this was not a mere monster excursion of
ordinary Sunday-schools, but one of exceedingly poor children, whose
garments, faces, and general condition, told too surely that they
belonged to the lowest grade in the social scale.

"Yes," said the missionary, in reply to some question from Welland, "the
agency at George Yard, to which I have referred, has a wide-embracing
influence--though but a small lump of leaven when compared with the mass
of corruption around it. This is a flock of the ragged and utterly
forlorn, to many of whom green fields and fresh air are absolutely new,
but we have other flocks besides these."

"Indeed! Well, now I look at them more carefully, I see that their
garments do speak of squalid poverty. I have never before seen such a
ragged crew, though I have sometimes encountered individuals of the
class on the streets."

"Hm!" coughed the missionary with a peculiar smile. "They are not so
ragged as they were. Neither are they as ragged as they will be in an
hour or two."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that these very rough little ones have to receive peculiar
treatment before we can give them such an outing as they are having
to-day. As you see, swings and see-saws have been put up here, toys are
now being distributed, and a plentiful feast will ere long be
forthcoming, through the kindness of a Christian gentleman whose heart
the Lord has inclined to `consider the poor,' but before we could
venture to move the little band, much of their ragged clothing had to be
stitched up to prevent it falling off on the journey, and we had to make
them move carefully on their way to the train--for vans have brought us
only part of the way. Now that they are here, our minds are somewhat
relieved, but I suspect that the effect of games and romping will undo
much of our handiwork. Come, let us watch them."

The youth and the missionary advanced towards a group of the children,
whose souls, for the time being, were steeped in a see-saw. This