"De bigger dat you see de smoke
De less de fire will be,
And de leastest kind ob possum
Climbs de biggest kind ob tree.

"De nigger at de camp-groun'
Dat kin loudest sing an' shout,
Am gwine ter rob some hen-roos'
Befo' de week am out."

Thus, often, from a bud seemingly withered and dead, would
unexpectedly blossom out an unknown flower of startling brilliancy and
unprecedented attractiveness.




CHAPTER IX.

SUNLIGHT AND DARKNESS IN PALACE AND COTTAGE.


My pupils at the reform school were from the dens and hovels of the
Bowery, while those at S---- were from the palaces of Fifth Avenue;
but to my utter astonishment, the children of the slums were morally
and perhaps intellectually superior to those of the plutocrats. I
was occasionally the guest of both the poverty-stricken and the
millionaire parents of my scholars, and I verily believe that I saw as
much depravity and misery in the abodes of the rich as in those of the
poor.