one hurt you?"

The little fellow only answered by questioning: "You are crying
yourself;" said he; "are you as hungry as I am?"

"Are you really crying for hunger! that is dreadful!" rejoined
William. "I know what it is not to have enough to eat, but still I
never have been so starved as to cry about it."

"Neither grandmother nor I have had anything to eat since morning, and
I am very hungry."

"But what are you doing here?" inquired our hero.

"Just gathering some sticks, to make a fire for grandmother, who is
sick, and cannot spin now," answered the boy, still weeping.

"Have you no parents to take care of you?" again asked William. "What
is your name, and where do you live?"

The boy answered that his name was Ned Graham, and named a street at
no great distance from the place where they were, and which was well
known to William. He said that his parents were both dead; that while
his father, who was a carpenter, lived, they had been very
comfortable; but that now, as his grandmother was very old, and
himself too young to do anything to help to make a livelihood, they
were often hungry. "Grandmother spun and knit until she became sick,
and the neighbours still sent us in something; but they are poor
themselves, grandmother says; and this morning, when old Annie
Michael, who supports herself and children by washing, sent us some of