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historical period. On the Bay of Naples, and about eighteen miles' distance from Mount Vesuvius, is a conical hill four hundred and forty feet in height, and covering an area more than half a mile in diameter. This is called Monte Nuovo, or the New Mountain,' and came into existence less than three hundred and fifty years ago, its site having been anciently occupied in part by the Lucrine Lake. This continued till 1538, when the New Mountain' was formed; and the facts attending its formation have been conclusively proved. For more than two years previously, the country around was affected by earthquakes, which gradually increased in intensity, and attained their climax in September of the year last mentioned.

'On the 27th and 28th of that month, these earthquake shocks are said to have been felt almost continuously day and night. About eight o'clock in the morning of the 29th, a depression of the ground was noticed on the site of the future hill; and from this depression, water, which was at first cold and afterwards tepid, began to issue. Four hours afterwards the ground was seen to swell up and open, forming a gaping fissure, within which incandescent matter was visible. From this fissure numerous masses of stone, some of them "as large as an ox," with vast quantities of pumice and mud, were thrown up to a great height, and these falling upon the sides of the vent, formed a great mound. This violent ejection of materials continued for two days and nights, and on the third day a very considerable hill was seen to have been built up by the falling fragments; and this hill was climbed by some of the eye-witnesses of the eruption. The next day the ejections were resumed, and many persons who had ventured on the hill were injured, and several killed by the falling stones. The later ejections were, however, of less violence than the earlier ones, and seem to have died out on the seventh or eighth day after the beginning of the outburst. The great mass of this considerable hill would appear, according to the accounts which have been preserved, to have been built up by the materials which were ejected during two days and nights.' This volcano is now quiescent, and the slopes of the hill are covered with thickets of stone-pine.

The circumstances attending the formation of this remarkable hill may be regarded as typical of what has taken place in the case of probably every centre of volcanic action that exists. The presence of internal disturbing agencies is first notified by successive earthquake shocks, which result in the partial disruption of the surface, and the opening out of a fissure, from which, along with heated water or steam, masses of rock, mud, and other debris, are ejected. These materials, as they fall back, gradually accumulate around the opening, until what is called a crater is formed. Within this crater, incandescent matter is visible, which from time to time bursts or boils up with great eruptive force, sending forth immense volumes of heated vapour, and ejecting fresh masses of loose materials, which, as they fall back upon the newly-formed conical hill, and roll down its sides till they reach the angle of rest, gradually add to its height and swell out its bulk. Thus, what had been but a short time before a level valley, or even, as in the case

of Monte Nuovo, a lake, is now an elevated hill, with all the strange and striking characteristics of a 'burning mountain.'

In the early period of a volcano's existence, and under normal atmospheric conditions, the cone round the crater is built up pretty equally on all sides, whereby the opening of the volcano continues to retain its original central position. But there are various agencies by which the shape of the volcanic cone is modified and changed. For instance, in the case of high mountains, such as Vesuvius, the combined weight and pressure of the material that surrounds or falls back into the opening of the crater has a tendency to plug up the opening altogether, in which event the subterranean forces frequently burst out by an opening which they make for themselves in the lower slopes of the hill. When this occurs, the same phenomena happen as before. The debris thrown out falls back round the new-made opening or fissure, and a twin volcano-or parasitic cone,' as it is termed-is gradually formed. Again, when the volcano, either during an eruption, or from its geographical position, is exposed to strong winds blowing persistently in one direction, the greater portion of the dust and debris ejected into the air is carried to leeward, and thus the cone is built up with the crater on one side, the summit of the cone so formed being frequently much higher than the crater, and in a sense overlooking it. Of perfect cones, those of Cotopaxi, nineteen thousand six hundred feet in height, and Citlaltepetl, seventeen thousand three hundred and seventy feet, are striking examples; though in each case we may take it that suc cessive periods of eruption alternating with periods of quiescence have frequently changed both the size and the shape of the respective craters.

In describing the origin of Monte Nuovo, we have seen the process by which volcanoes are formed; and in Mr Judd's account of what he saw taking place in the crater of Stromboli, we gain a corresponding knowledge of how volcanoes, after being formed, continue to act. Stromboli is one of the oldest volcanoes in the Mediterranean Sea, and is peculiar in this respect, that for at least two thousand years it has been in a constant and regular, but not in a violent or dangerous state of activity; hence it is possible for observers, without any overwhelming sense of danger, to watch for hours together the series of operations going on within the crater. Our author, in 1874, made a careful examination and sketch of this volcano. The island of which it consists is of rudely circular outline, and the volcano rises in a conical form to the height of three thousand and ninety feet above the level of the Mediterranean. Stromboli is one of those volcanoes in which the crater is not on the summit, but on the side of the mountain some distance below the summit. Viewed at night-time, it presents a very striking and singular spectacle. The mountain, owing to its great elevation, is visible over an area having a radius of more than a hundred miles; and as it bursts out intermittently into a broad flash or glare of light, then sinks down, only in a few minutes to flash out afresh, it has been called 'the Lighthouse of the Mediterra nean.'

Journal

'If we climb up,' says Mr Judd, 'to this scene of volcanic activity, we shall be able to watch narrowly the operations which are going on there. On the morning of the 24th of April, 1874, I paid a visit to this interesting spot in order to get a near view of what was taking place. On reaching a point upon the side of the Sciarra from which the crater was in full view before me, I witnessed an outburst which then took place. Before the outburst, numerous light curling wreaths of vapour were seen ascending from fissures on the sides and bottom of the crater. Suddenly, and without the slightest warning, a sound was heard like that produced when a locomotive blows off its steam at a railway station; a great volume of watery vapour was at the same time thrown violently into the atmosphere, and with it there were hurled upwards a number of dark fragments, which rose to the height of four hundred or five hundred feet above the crater, describing curves in their course, and then falling back upon the mountain. Most of these fragments tumbled into the crater with a loud, rattling noise; but some of them fell outside the crater; and a few rolled down the steep slope of the Sciarra into the sea. Some of these falling fragments were found to be still hot and glowing, and in a semi-molten condition, so that they readily received the impression of a coin thrust into them.'

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There is a still higher spot on the upper side of the crater from which the spectator can look down upon the bottom of the crater itself and see what is going on there; and when the wind is blowing from the onlooker towards the crater, he may sit for hours watching the wonderful scene displayed before him. The black slaggy bottom of the crater is seen to be traversed by many fissures or cracks, from most of which curling jets of vapour issue quietly, and gradually mingle with and disappear in the atmosphere. But besides these smaller cracks at the bottom of the crater, several larger openings are seen, which vary in number and position at different periods.' These larger apertures may be divided into three classes: (1) Those that emit steam in loud snorting puffs, like a locomotive engine; (2) those from which masses of molten material are seen welling out, and sometimes flowing outside the crater in a lava-stream; and (3) those within the walls of which a viscid or semiliquid substance is seen slowly heaving up and down. As we watch the seething mass in this third class of apertures, the agitation within it is seen to increase gradually, and at last a gigantic bubble is formed, which violently bursts, when a great rush of steam takes place, carrying fragments of the scum-like surface of the liquid high into the atmosphere.'

'If we visit the crater by night,' continues our author, the appearances presented are found to be still more striking and suggestive. The smaller cracks and larger openings glow with a ruddy light. The liquid matter is seen to be red or even white hot, while the scum or crust which forms upon it is of a dull red colour. Every time a bubble bursts and the crust is broken up by the escape of steam, a fresh glowing surface of the incandescent material is exposed. If at these moments we look up at the vapour-cloud covering the mountain, we shall at once understand the

cause of the singular appearance presented by Stromboli when viewed from a distance at night; for the great masses of vapour are seen to be lit up with a vivid, ruddy glow, like that produced when an engine-driver opens the door of the furnace and illuminates the stream of vapour issuing from the funnel of his locomotive." more vivid picture could scarcely be drawn of the process of volcanic action, or one conveying to the reader's mind a better antidote for the misconceptions that prevail regarding it.

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The three essential conditions on which the production of volcanic phenomena seems, in Mr Judd's opinion, to depend, are the following: 'First, the existence of certain apertures or cracks communicating between the interior and the surface of the earth; secondly, the presence of matter in a highly heated condition beneath the surface; and thirdly, the existence of great quantities of water imprisoned in the subterranean regionswhich water, escaping as steam, gives rise to all those active phenomena we have been describing.' The questions involved in the second and third of these conditions-namely, how matter in a highly heated condition comes to be found beneath the surface of the earth, and how the additional presence of water there is to be accounted for-have already been treated by us in an article entitled, ‘Is the Interior of the Earth Molten or Solid?' (No. 943), and need not therefore be further referred to in this place.

Regarding the first of the above three conditions of volcanic phenomena-cracks or fissures in the earth's crust-Professor Judd, in the work in question, has added largely to the existing knowledge on the subject. He has contributed also not only to our knowledge of the causes and operations of volcanic phenomena, but to what we know of their uses in the economy of the natural world. The materials ejected from volcanoes during an eruption are not, as many may think, a wholly useless collection of debris. On the other hand, much of what is thus thrown out is of considerable commercial value. The volatile substances issuing from volcanic vents are at once deposited when they come into contact with the cool atmosphere; others form new compounds with one another and the constituents of the atmosphere; while others, again, combine with the materials of the surrounding rocks and form fresh chemical compounds with some of their ingredients. The deposits which are thus continually accumulating on the sides and lips of volcanic fissures, consist of sulphates, chlorides, sal-ammoniac, sulphur, &c. At Vulcano, regular chemical works have been established by a Scotch firm in the crater of the volcano, a great number of workmen being engaged in collecting the materials which are deposited around the fissures, and which are renewed by the volcanic action almost as soon as they are removed. This work, as one may readily suppose, is not at all times carried on with safety; for in 1873, a sudden outburst of activity within the crater took place before the workmen could escape, and several of them were severely burned by the explosions.

As the knowledge of natural phenomena and natural products extends, man is day by day widening the area of his operations, and allowing a smaller and smaller proportion of those products to go to waste; yet it may not be without

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MR JOLLY bore his daughter's death with that Spartan fortitude which belongs to the great race of Egotists. I will not say he did not grieve; but he talked too much of his bereavement for my simple fancy, and managed his handkerchief too artistically as he stood beside the grave. There is a sort of man who will mountebank grief at a funeral as he will mountebank joy at a wedding and patriotic indignation at an election meeting; who, if he shed tears, must needs do it with a grace, and dances you an oratorical minuet over the slain in a Roumelian atrocity. Of one sincerity of regret Mr Jolly was guilty. His son-in-law had no filial yearnings towards him, and did not beg him to make his house his home. You meet Mr Jolly in life now and then, as well as in

loves her with a haunting remorseful tenderness, a sad and deep affection; and the common people say that little Constance is the very apple of Squire Strange's eye. 1

Aunt Lucretia inoculated Reginald only too easily with her own beliefs, and the little man for a long time hated Val with a mingled scorn and loathing which were at times almost too much to bear. But he threw himself on the other hand enthusiastically on Gerard's side, and made a hero of him, and little as he knew, made some near guesses at the sort of storms which had passed through his soul. This intimacy with Gerard cost him dear, and yet gave him a sweet remembrance which I think will last his lifetime. He hung about Lumby Hall a good deal in those days, and a singular change was noticed in him.

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I never had any feminine society, Mrs Lumby, he said on one occasion. That is, I never enjoyed any lengthened period of home-life, don't you know, madam? and I feel the loss the depriva tion deeply. Now, it's a fact recognised even by the ancients, that female associations soften the manners. I can't say I think a lot of the ancients, as a rule, though they do make such but they were certainly right there; a fuss of them at school and at the varsities; don't you think so? And so the bald-headed little man fluttered in conversation, in a manner altogether new and noticeable. He was nervous-he was flurried in his speech-and yet he

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novels, and I cannot conceive of him anywhere hurried and was so remarkably eager to be

as being other than a bore. I fear that sermons are wasted upon him, and that portraiture is a vain art for him. Meeting his reflection in these pages, he may say-I think I hear himthat it is a most unfaithful and uncharacteristic sketch, and not in the least like anybody.

would talk,

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agreeable and complimentary, that he ran some risk of becoming a nuisance.

During one of Reginald's visits to Lumby Hall, two years after his sister's death, Gerard, unexpectedly entering his bedroom, beheld a sight There are few wounds from which the human which shook his sides with mirth. We suffer, heart will not recover, if they are inflicted in and we think we shall never laugh more; but its youth. And perhaps the best way of curing the days and the months go by, and the burden such wounds is to leave them to their own of grief is somehow lightened, and then comes healing, and to do whatever plain duties lie a jest somewhere, and we laugh again as heartily before you. This was Val Strange's cure, and as ever. Only perhaps the laughter leaves us it succeeded as well as could be hoped. From a little sadder than before, and acts as though that wild scene on Welbeck Head, he went back to such work as he could find, and then and there left the Primrose Way for good. He has not yet lived down the beliefs his neighbours entertained about the callousness of his conduct towards his young wife and his hardness at her death. And so true are the world's verdicts and so well worth listening to, that Mr Jolly passes as a model of paternal grief and tender fatherly remembrance of the dead, whilst Val is still spoken of as having exhibited himself as monster of no feeling. It strikes some people as a curious thing that so dour and hard a man as Mr Gerard Lumby was believed to be should ever have overlooked and forgiven the wrong Val Strange did against him. And seeing that the two men, though they meet but seldom, are singularly attached to each other, these wiseacres conclude that Gerard has but a shallow sort of nature after all, and is incapable of any very strong and enduring emotion. But these are mainly people who make a great point of their pretensions to read character."

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Whatever may be thought still of Val's relations with his beautiful wife, there are no mistakes made about his love for his little daughter. He

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it were a signal to call the shadow back again.
The good little Reginald, when Gerard came
unexpectedly upon him, was in his shirt-sleeves,
and was hard at work with some gruesome gluey
substance out of a bottle, polishing his baldness
with both hands, as a French-polisher works at
mahogany. And, there on the table before him
was spread each individual device of that great
fraternity of knowing ones who gift the bald with
liquid hair-seed at seven-and-six per bottle; a
score of them, and nearly all unstoppered. Taking
in the whole situation at a
glance, Gerard fell
against the door-post and lifted up his voice and
screamed and laughed outrageously; and the
little man, with his hands still at his head,
turned round, and stared at him with a visage
so rueful and amazed, that mirth became almost
heroic in intensity. He smiled feebly at length,
and went on polishing with a look of shame.

It's all very well to laugh,' he said, when Gerard had done laughing, and in a condition of infantine weakness, was wiping his eyes, you curled and golden young Anak. But how would you feel if you were a small cove like me? five feet four, and as bald as a billiard-ball! I don't believe any of 'em are of any use,' he added

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'You don't go about in that way, do you?' inquired Gerard breathlessly at last.

No,' said the little man. 'It's a self-imposed sentence of imprisonment to use it. It's very hard, because a fellow can't even lie down, lest he should stick to something; and besides that, I'd sooner be as I am, than bald in spots, as I should be if it made the hair grow, and I had rubbed it off in places. There is a dreary sort of interest,' he added, 'in sitting before a lookingglass and betting with yourself against any special fly making a landing.'

Lord Byron has noted the indubitable fact that laughter leaves us doubly serious, but this was a droll introduction to a love-confidence.

"Why do you inflict these absurdities upon yourself?' asked Gerard.

"Well, it's unpleasant to know that you're singular, the little man responded. 'You feel ostracised from your kind, don't you know?'

'Rubbish,' said Gerard.

"Well, that's nonsense of course, and was meant for nonsense. But I don't want to look like Methuselah yet, and I get taken for all manner of ages.'

'Jolly,' said Gerard, 'I begin to think you are in love. He had not the remotest belief that this shaft would hit the gold, or even the white, or he would never have loosed it.

'So I am,' said Reginald.-Gerard sat grave and silent. Why shouldn't I be?' asked the little man. I'm not Old Parr. And look here, Lumby, you can tell me perhaps whether I have a chance. He looked guiltily at Gerard, and murmured: It's your cousin Milly."

'I can't tell,' said Gerard. Go and speak to her. You have my best wishes.'

'It's horribly absurd, you know,' said the little man. Of course, it's awfully absurd. I used to watch Va Fellows I knew I used to watch, and I used to laugh at 'em no end. I never thought I should come to this,' he added, indicating the bottles on the dressing-table; but when a man's as far gone as I am, he'll do any thing to make himself feel a little worthier.' When a man gets to so pronounced a badinage as this concerning himself, it is not easy for anything less than a hippopotamus to feel thinskinned. Gerard saw that the little man was almost hysterical in his desire to hide himself, and sauntered away, therefore, with an aspect of carelessness, repeating his advice.

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In a quarter of an hour Reginald descended with no trace of his late pursuits about him, and seeking Milly, found her in the garden, plunged desperately into the question at his heart-and was rejected. She respected him-she liked himshe offered him a sister's affection. She let him down as gently as she could; and he went away sadly, and threw all the preparations out of window, and grieved. He announced his depar

ture that evening; and Gerard of course knew the cause of it, and was very sorry for the staunch friend, and the brother of his dead love. Before Reginald went away, however, he spoke to Milly again.

You're very good and tender-hearted,' he said; 'and when I'm gone, you'll very likely accuse yourself of having made me miserable. Don't do that,' he pleaded stoutly. I'm not going to pay myself the poor compliment of saying don't care. Of course I care; but I don't know who it was, just now, but there was a lady of whom somebody said that to know her was a liberal education. And I shall be a better fellow for it; and I'm very much obliged to you for putting it so kindly.-Good-bye,' he said briskly; but the tears were in his eyes.

Mrs Lumby spoke of his departure, and asked Gerard privately if he could divine what had driven Reginald away. He, thinking his mother innocent of the truth, respected his friend's secret; but it was soon apparent that she knew it, and had but asked her question for an object of her

own.

Why has Milly refused so many offers?' she asked. Is there nobody in the world will suit her, or is she in love with somebody already?'Gerard was silent; but something in his mother's face and voice recalled to his mind the time when Milly had clung to him begging him to abandon his purposed pursuit of his enemy. Whilst he was thinking of this, his mother returned to the charge.-'Can you guess who it may be, Gerard?' There was that curious something in her face and voice again; but he was not of that tribe of dandies who are ready at any mere hint to believe a woman in love with them.

'Why should I guess?' he asked, as lightly as he could, and rising, made as if to leave the room.

His mother arose also and stood before him. 'Can't you guess, Gerard?'

He stood a little awkwardly before her, and would have made any light answer serve to turn the question aside, if he could have found one. But none occurred to him. His mother's reiterated question seemed to point to him, and the remembrance he had in his mind gave him the same indication; but he was loath to accept it. To love and love's delights, his heart was dead. Love is not so poor a thing in all hearts, that a year or two can serve to bury it out of memory.

Gerard,' she said, seeing him silent, and perhaps mistaking the slight traces of confusion which declared themselves, 'I have known it a long time. She began to care for you whenwhen your troubles began, dear.'

'If it is so,' he returned, 'you should have kept her secret, mother.'

Oh,' she cried, a little wounded, 'you are not to think that Milly has spoken to me, or that she guesses that I know. But women see these things.'

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I hope you are mistaken,' answered Gerard; and having kissed her, left the room. He was not a young man from whom caresses lightly, or often; and the kiss seemed to his mother to set a certain seal of solemnity upon his refusal. A day or two later, she began quietly

to question Milly as to the reason of her manifold refusals of eligible young manhood.

'You don't want me to go away, do you, aunty?' asked the young lady; and the old one entered a warm disclaimer. Let me stay with you,' pleaded Milly. 'I shall never marry,' she added.

Until the right man asks you,' returned the old lady.

'Let us wait till he comes, dear aunt,' said Milly, 'before we say any more about it.' So the question dropped, and was no more reverted

to.

YOUNG LIFE IN THE STREETS. WHEN John Leech drew his 'Portraits of Children of the Mobility,' he considered them as the antipodes of the class represented by the word he was playing upon-the Nobility. The armorial bearings he drew for them are not to be found at the heraldic offices: First Quarter, Azure, a Tile dilapidated or shocking-bad Hat; Second Quarter, between two Clays in saltire Argent, in base, a Pot of Heavy frothed of the second; Third Quarter, Sable, a Bunch-of-Fives proper; Fourth Quarter, Or, a Neddy, Sable, passant, brayant, panniered proper, cabbaged and carroted Gules. The children born to these peculiar armorial honours are not, as the phrase goes, born with a silver spoon in their mouth; it has been aptly said, that if they were, the spoon would be transferred at once to a near relation, to provide something more nourishing to go into the mouth instead. When they are able to run about, they run into the streets, having been carried thither before by other babies; and there, to the casual observer, they seem to remain all the rest of their lives. Some of them play there; but these are the offspring of the higher mobility; others earn in the streets, others live in the streets, and neither the embrace of Charity nor the grasp of the School Boards can clear them thence to shelter. Most of them, alas! get shelter eventually for a series of lengthening periods-in prison. So we class young life in the streets in three simple divisions, under which all town-dwellers see it in their rambles the children who play there, who work there, who live there.

The children at play make the bright side of the picture. They are worth watching. Their ingenuity, their animal spirits, their sublime power of making the best of it,' are all enviable. A dying merchant, looking from his window in old age and sickness, once sighed to give all he had if he might be the ragged boy at the opposite corner squabbling for marbles. Well, he too, in a figurative sense, had had his squabbling and his marbles once, and the boy had yet to come to age and labour or penury; for Fate deals, after all, with an even hand, and it may be that in many cases the blank, work-driven lives of the poor have a prelude of unusual recklessness of high spirit, and power of enjoyment where there is little to be enjoyed. They make the best of it. We have seen a poor child's feathered shuttle-cock, her only toy, go down into an area, and the child, after one melancholy peep

through the railings, was as gay as ever with a crumpled paper doing service instead. A little further on, inside another area railing, a goat was mountaineering, taking the cellar tops for the edges of a precipice; and there seemed to be something akin between the ready mode of 'making the best of it' in the dumb animal and in the uncared-for child. In the same spirit, not having green boughs to swing from, among flickering leaf shadows, they climb a lamp-post furtively to tie the rope, and fly round it with a shorter swing at each turn, till the final twist and collision. Moreover, like a large growth of spider, they spin their ropes across from rail to rail at doorways; so that the inhabitant who comes suddenly home in those romantic neighbourhoods, may have to wait till a living swingful of small nurses and babies in arms descend, and until the web of knots is cleared from the doorway, and the spiders sent to weave a barricade elsewhere.

ever found was carried on by a solitary little The strangest oddity of child's street-play we baby-boy, just able to jump with safety with both feet off the flags. He had a large doll for a partner, nearly as big as himself, held carefully with her toes on the ground; and without music or witnesses, he was slowly and solemnly dancing Where had he seen couples with the doll. dancing, and when, in his experienced babyhood? the street-organ crowd to the organ-grinder's The question opens up infinite speculations, from music in the hall at some home party-as it sometimes happens-or the Twopenny Hop!' Somewhere he had seen it, and profited thereby ; and the simplicity of himself and his partner outshone the shepherd dances of Arcadia.

Child-life in the streets for the earning of a living, is no child's play. The picture darkens all at once when we come to that part of it, and darkens more and more until the end. Streettrading by children is not now so common as it was before the law made school attendance compulsory for at least some part of the year. In those days, the number of children earning a living by vending various articles in the London streets alone was computed to be far over ten thousand. Some counted them as nearer twenty thousand. One has only to turn to the pages of Mr Mayhew's London Labour to find in the accounts given by the children themselves, the extreme hardship of their lives. A little watercress-seller, eight years old, with no childish ways or thoughts, and with wrinkles in her face where the dimples ought to be, may be taken as an example of the sufferings of the very young, not only then, but in countless cases now. She sold watercresses at the rate of four bunches for a penny, making a profit of about fourpence a day. She had a home, and in, this degree was in advance of many others of her class. But those who cherish children of eight years in brighter homes can best understand the terrible hardships implied in this poor little trader's account of herself. The watercresses had to be bought at Farringdon Market before six o'clock in the morning; and from six o'clock till ten, she traversed the streets to sell them, before tasting food. What simple eloquence of poverty is in a few of her answers to the questions asked by the compiler of the book! It's very cold,'

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