cramped, and selfish, too, and she knew it. Passing by the door of
Grey's room, she saw her asleep with Pen in her arms,--some other little
nightcapped heads in the larger beds. _She_ slept alone. "They tire
me so!" she said; "yet I think," her eye growing fiercer, "if I had
anything all my own, if I had a little baby to make pure and good, I'd
be a better girl. Maybe--_he_ will make me better."

Paul Blecker, heart-anatomist, laughed when this woman, with the aching
brain and the gnawing hunger at heart, seized on the single, Christ-like
love of McKinstry, a common, bigoted man, and made it her master
and helper. Her instinct was wiser than he, being drifted by God's
under-currents of eternal order. That One who knows when the sparrow is
ready for death knows well what things are needed for a tired girl's
soul.

* * * * *


UP THE THAMES.


The upper portion of Greenwich (where my last article left me loitering)
is a cheerful, comely, old-fashioned town, the peculiarities of which,
if there be any, have passed out of my remembrance. As you descend
towards the Thames, the streets get meaner, and the shabby and sunken
houses, elbowing one another for frontage, bear the sign-boards of
beer-shops and eating-rooms, with especial promises of whitebait and
other delicacies in the fishing line. You observe, also, a frequent
announcement of "Tea Gardens" in the rear; although, estimating the
capacity of the premises by their external compass, the entire sylvan