ef; for
she experienced "it is more blessed to give than to receive;" and after
seeing her friend disappear through the dingy doorway which led to the
garret called her "home," she turned with a light heart into the entry
which led to her own place, eager to see mother and tell her all; but in
doing so almost fell over a little cripple boy who sat crouched on the
door-steps.

"O Jimmy! did I hurt you?" she asked in alarm.

"No. Everybody knocks me about; I'se used to it," was his answer.

"Poor Jimmy!" said the little girl. "Where's your mother?"

"Down there, drunk again," he replied, pointing his thin finger in the
direction of what in other houses would be the kitchen, but which was
his "home," if it could be dignified by so sacred a name.

Pollie looked sorrowfully on the poor boy, whose thin, wizened face,
with large, hungry eyes, was placed on a shrunk and distorted body. His
mother was the pest of the court, always drunk, and in her drunken fury
beating her wretched offspring. Half-starved and half-clothed, he
passed his time on the door-step, gazing vacantly at the passers-by,
uncared for, unloved amidst the many.

"Poor Jimmy!" repeated the little girl. "Would you like some of my sweet
violets?"

The boy, unused to even a breath of kindness, gazed some few seconds at
her with his eager eyes.

"You be Pollie Turner, bain't yer, what lives upstairs with yer mother?"
he asked at last.

"Yes," she replied, and repeated her question, as she took some of the
flowers from her last bunch. "Would you like these?"

He held out his claw-like hand--so dirty that Pollie almost shrank from
touching it as she gave him the violets. He took them without a word of
thanks, but as she was moving away he called out--

"I say, did yer make these?"

"No, Jimmy," she replied, as she came back to him; "God made them."

"God!" he repeated, "Who's He; Him's mighty clever to fix up these
little bits of things, bain't He?"

The little girl was for a moment shocked, then she felt a tender pity
for the poor boy.

"O Jimmy, don't you know who God is?" she gently asked.

He shook his head; so she went on--

"God is our Father in heaven," and she pointed upwards. "He made these
sweet flowers, and us also, and He sent His dear Son to die for us, so
that all our sins should be taken away. And when Jesus (that is the name
of God's dear Son) was here on earth, He gave sight to the blind, healed
the sick, and was for ever doing