wondered at the oddity of it.'

'Why, the fact is,' said Mr Meagles, 'Mrs Meagles and myself are,
you see, practical people.'

'That you have frequently mentioned in the course of the agreeable
and interesting conversations we have had together, walking up and
down on these stones,' said the other, with a half smile breaking
through the gravity of his dark face.

'Practical people. So one day, five or six years ago now, when we
took Pet to church at the Foundling--you have heard of the
Foundling Hospital in London? Similar to the Institution for the
Found Children in Paris?'

'I have seen it.'

'Well! One day when we took Pet to church there to hear the
music--because, as practical people, it is the business of our
lives to show her everything that we think can please her--Mother
(my usual name for Mrs Meagles) began to cry so, that it was
necessary to take her out. "What's the matter, Mother?" said I,
when we had brought her a little round: "you are frightening Pet,
my dear." "Yes, I know that, Father," says Mother, "but I think
it's through my loving her so much, that it ever came into my
head." "That ever what came into your head, Mother?" "O dear,
dear!" cried Mother, breaking out again, "when I saw all those
children ranged tier above tier, and appealing from the father none
of them has ever known on earth, to the great Father of us all in
Heaven, I thought, does any wretched mother ever come here, and