pier to my
mind."

(_Host_.)--"Now, dear boys and girls, before we close the proceedings of
this happy day, my excellent friend, your missionary, Mr Seaward, will
say a few words."

John Seaward steps to the front, and says a few words--says them so
well, too, so simply, so kindly, yet so heartily, that the army is
roused to a pitch of great enthusiasm; but we leave this speech to the
reader's imagination: after which--_Exeunt Omnes_.

And, as the curtain of night falls on these ragged ones, scattered now,
many of them, to varied homes of vice, and filth, and misery, the heavy
eyelids close to open again, perchance, in ecstatic dreams of food, and
fun and green fields, fresh air and sunshine, which impress them more or
less with the idea embodied in the aphorism, that "God made the country,
but man made the town."

CHAPTER NINE.

HOW THE POOR ARE SUCCOURED.

"I am obliged to you, Mr Seaward, for coming out of your way to see
me," said Sir Richard Brandon, while little Di brought their visitor a
chair. "I know that your time is fully occupied, and would not have
asked you to call had not my friend Mr Brisbane assured me that you had
to pass my house daily on your way to--to business."

"No apology, Sir Richard, pray. I am at all times ready to answer a
call whether of the poor or the rich, if by any means I may help my
Lord's cause."

The knight thought for a moment that he might claim to be classed among
the poor, seeing that his miserable pittance of five thousand barely
enabled him to make the two ends meet, but he only said:

"Ever since we had the pleasure of meeting at that gathering of ragged
children, my little girl here has been asking so many questions about
poor people--the lower orders, I mean--which I could not answer, that I
have asked you to call, that we may get some information about them.
You see, Diana is an eccentric little puss," (Di opened her eyes very
wide at this, wondering what "eccentric" could mean), "and she has got
into a most unaccountable habit of thinking and planning about poor
people."

"A good habit, Sir Richard," said the missionary. "`Blessed are they
that consider the poor.'"

Sir Richard acknowledged this remark with a little bow. "Now, we should
like to ask, if you have no objection, what is your chief object in the
mission at--what did you say its name--ah! George Yard?"

"To save souls," said Mr Seaward.

"Oh--ah--precisely," said the knight, taken som