!" said Di. "Go on, papa."

"What can this be?" continued Sir Richard, quoting--"_Wild Flowers of
the Forest Day Nursery_. Oh! I see--very good idea. I'll not read it,
Di, I'll tell you about it. There are many poor widows, you must know,
and women whose husbands are bad, who have no money to buy food and
shelter for themselves and little ones except what they can earn each
day. But some of these poor women have babies, and they can't work, you
know, with babies in their arms, neither can they leave the babies at
home with no one to look after them, except, perhaps, little sisters or
brothers not much older than themselves, so they take their babies to
this Cradle-Home, and each pays only twopence, for which small sum her
baby is taken in, washed, clothed, warmed, fed, and amused by kind
nurses, who keep it till the mother returns from her work to get it back
again. Isn't that good?"

"Oh! yes," assented Di, with all her heart.

"And I read here," continued her father, "that thousands of the infants
of the poor die every year because they have not enough food, or enough
clothing to keep them warm."

"Oh _what_ a pity!" exclaimed Di, the tears of ready sympathy rushing
hot into her upturned eyes.

"So you see," continued Sir Richard, who had unconsciously, as it were,
become a pleader for the poor, "if there were a great many nurseries of
this kind all over London, a great many little lives would be saved."

"And why are there not a great many nurseries of that kind, papa?"

"Well, I suppose, it is because there are no funds."

"No what? papa."

"Not enough of money, dear."

"Oh! _what_ a pity! I wish I had lots and lots of money, and then
wouldn't I have Cradle-Homes everywhere?"

Sir Richard, knowing that he had "lots and lots" of money, but had not
hitherto contributed one farthing to the object under consideration,
thought it best to change the subject by going on with the George Yard
Record.

But we will not conduct the reader through it all--interesting though
the subject certainly is. Suffice it to say that he found the account
classed under several heads. Under "_Feeding the Hungry_," for
instance, he learned that many poor children are entirely without food,
sometimes, for a whole day, so that only two courses are open to them--
to steal food and become criminals, or drift into sickness and die.
From which fate many hundreds are annually rescued by timely aid at
George Yard, the supplies