lar allowance of coals, bread, butter, tea, sugar, and milk.

The nettle geranium no longer holds undisturbed possession of the window-sill, for through the kindness of one of her many friends she has been supplied with several bright flowering plants; while, to her no small delight, the post has more than once brought her a present of a little bouquet of fresh spring flowers. She really seems quite at a loss to express her gratitude for all that has been done for her, or her sense of God's goodness to the likes o' her.' The lady who kindly provided her friend, who slept on a mangle,' with a bed, will be glad to hear that she has a share in her good fortune, as she now earns is. a week by cleaning Mrs. B.'s

room.

SCRAPS.-London is filling very fast now, and we think it not an unseasonable moment to remind our friends that the Orphanage possesses a horse and van, and that we are most thankful for invitations to call anywhere within reasonable distance for scraps of all sorts, stale loaves, groceries, vegetables, old clothes, carpets, hangings, glass, crockery— anything, in short, and everything which the owners will spare for the use of The Home.

Littering about every house are a vast number of things of no practical use to the occupiers, but which might save us the expenditure of many a shilling, or if quite unusable might be disposed of for the advantage of the institution.

And if this is the case in private houses, it is still more so in shops and places of business, large schools, &c. Tradesmen, especially, continually find themselves cumbered with a quantity of shop-worn articles which they might readily dispense with in our favour. Greengrocers often are compelled to throw away fruit and vegetables;

butchers and bakers, too, have to dispose of stale provisions, that would quite stock our larder if transferred to the Home.

Our well-wishers would do us good service if they would plead our cause among the tradesmen who serve them, and others, as they have opportunity.

Many of these are full of generous and kindly feeling towards charitable institutions, and might be willing from time to time even to make some sacrifice for our benefit. They only want the object brought before them in such a way as to touch their hearts and draw out their sympathies. Will our friends act upon this hint ?

We hope that none of our readers will forget that this is the final notice of the Sale of Work, which is to be held on May 15, 16, and 17, for the Building Fund of the Convalescent Home. Contributors of fancy work, clothing, &c., are requested to send their parcels not later than May 10. Hampers of flowers addressed to Mrs. HOBSON, Grosvenor Hall, 200 Buckingham Palace Road, S.W., will be gladly welcomed on the 15th, for adorning the hall, and flowers for sale. Most earnestly we would impress on our friends the importance of all doing their best to make the sale known, of attending it themselves, and inducing others to attend. Failure we do not expect; but we hope for such a sale as shall pay the expenses of the room, and add a few hundreds to our funds. This would be a considerable help and encouragement to us during the first days of commencing such a great work as the building of the Convalescent Home.

Parcels and hampers should be addressed to Miss THOMAS, 27 Kilburn Park Road, N.W., who will also gladly forward papers of the sale for distribution to any who will apply.

No. 6.-VOL. V.

My Visit to the Convalescent

B

Lome.

USINESS matters, upon which I need not enlarge, took me to Broadstairs early in last month; and as I had long felt an especial interest in the charitable work which the Sisters are carrying on there among sickly and suffering children, I resolved to combine business with pleasure. and pay their Convalescent Home a visit.

The present temporary premises consist of two houses at the extreme south side of the little town-ordinary, slightly built, threestoried houses, such as one may count by the score at any watering-place. Its occupants, however, differed considerably from the ordinary run of seaside visitors.

Although so early in the season, the little Institution was pretty nearly full, its population numbering fifty altogether, and every corner of the two houses seemed to be made the most of.

The Sister in charge willingly took me over the Home, and showed me the ingenious provision made for such homely and necessary branches of the ménage as cooking food, airing clothes, repairing linen, and bathing and washing so many little people.

I confess it was to me a problem how fifty dinners could be cooked in the tiny

PRICE 2d.

kitchen, and eaten in the little underground room which serves as a refectory, for the Sisters told me it was the rule that all should sit down together. But it was a problem which was, somehow, solved very satisfactorily, judging by the well-fed appearance of the children.

I allude, of course, to those who had been there some little time, for the new-comers looked lean and starved enough, poor little things!

A large proportion are orphans from the parent Institution at Kilburn-children with diseased or enfeebled constitutions, who the Sisters fear might otherwise never grow up into strong women capable of working hard for their living in the future.

I turned, however, with special interest to the patients proper-pale-faced little denizens of the lanes and courts of the parishes of Shoreditch, Clerkenwell, or Paddington, who for three or four weeks were revelling in plentiful food, fresh salt breezes, and all the varied delights of the sea-shore.

Anxious to learn a little of their ordinary life and surroundings, I asked leave-which was readily given-to hold a little conversation with them. With the exception of a sickly-looking girl of thirteen, whose mother lived at Rochester, they were all from London, and, like most street children, they were excessively precocious and communicative.

No. 1.-Mary Anne B. gave this account of herself :

'I've had the pleurisy, that's what brought me here. Nearly went mad with the pain. Doctor thought I'd have to be sent away, I used to scream and holler that loud. I was in bed two months. I lives at Finsbury Market. Father's a painter, but he's out of work nearly all winter. Mother has to work hard. She finishes trousers for a shoptakes the ravellings off, puts on the buttons (I helps her at that), holes 'em, lines 'em, finishes 'em off. For this she has 4d. a pair, 2d. if they're boys'; and she has to find her own thread, but not the buttons. She'll sometimes get twenty pair at oncet, and then she'll be up at three in the morning and work all day till eleven at night for days together.

'We was bad off last winter, for neither father nor mother hadn't got no work.

'Mother and father was just pleased and glad when the lady what teaches me in Sunday School said she'd get me off to the sea for three weeks. I've quite lost the pain in my side since I come here, and feel strong and hearty. Mother's had fourteen children, but there's only four of us living.'

No. 2.-Anna, aged ten, had never been out of London before in her life. Fell upon a kerb, and hurt her side; has never been well since. Looks very pale and heavy-eyed, but declares she feels much better for the change.

van.

He stumbled one day over a brewer's rope as lay right across his path, and broke a blood-vessel. He was took off to a horspital, but they wouldn't let him in ; Isaid how as he was too bad. So he came home and died.

Mother was thankful for me to come here. She said she 'oped it 'ud help to get my 'ealth up. I was quite strong till I fell over the kerb, but I hope I'll get well now. I wants to be strong so as to help mother more.'

No. 3.-Louise Kemp had suffered for some time from a nervous affection, which threatened to become St. Vitus' dance. She looked very weak and thin. When I inquired whether she had had enough to eat at home, she replied, 'Oh, it didn't make a bit of difference to me whether we was short or not, for I couldn't 'ardly eat nothing at home. I don't know what makes me eat so much here; perhaps it's the country air.'

The shaking hand of which she complained is steady now, and saying with a smile that she feels well and strong, she runs on:

'What have we come 'ere for? Why to get our 'ealths up. We've been ill all our life-times; p'raps its 'cos we've so little to eat. Whenever mother takes us to the doctor, he says: "Why they wants nourishment;" and then mother aint got it to give us, yer see.

'Mother's very bad herself-always lays a-bed. What's the matter with her? We don't know. She musn't tell us, she says. It's summat werry bad, and she'll have to go to the horspital and undergo a operation. She's never been well since my little brother was born, two years ago. Afore that she worked 'ard, mother did. But now, if she gits a bit o' sewing from a shop, she sits up a-bed, and then she lays back, and she

ketches at her breath, and turns so whiteshe's forced to give in.

'Father works at making tea-boxes at the tea.coopers', but he's often slack o' work. Once he were out o' work for a 'ole three weeks-right off. Oh, we was bad off! Sometimes we never had no breakfast at all. But we always 'ad breakfast of a Sunday, 'cos we goes to the Sisters' schools, and there all the poor children gits a lovely currant-roll, and such a big mug o' tea. Mother says it is a 'elp.

Me and my sister, we does all we can to 'elp her. We can make the cases for matchboxes-not the drawers-and earn threefarthings a gross-that's twelve dozen. As soon as ever we gits 'ome from school we sets to work. We never takes a minute for play, nor nothing-only when baby's cross, and we've got to mind him.

'The most as we ever earned in one week was eighteenpence. Mother said it were a good job; and we 'ad such a good dinner the Sunday after. Lucy, yer remember that good dinner as we 'ad that Sunday a long while ago the best we ever 'ad-boiled mutton, potatoes, and currant pudden ?

'All our lives we've never had such good food as we gits 'ere. But we'd enjoy it better if it warn't for thinkin' o' poor mother, and wonderin' what she's got. Lucy there couldn't eat her tea one night for crying and thinkin' as how mother mightn't be havin' none. So then I writ and told mother, and she writ back as we wasn't to fret, 'cos she'd 'ad better teas since we went to the seaside, seein' she 'adn't got us two to keep.

'Doctor says I'm consumptive, but I've spit no blood since the third day after I come here, and I feels ever so much better.'

The Sister told me privately that though these and other little East Londoners are warm-hearted, lovable children, yet they are terribly uncivilised, and if left for five minutes almost invariably take to fighting and swearing, after the fashion of the London streets.

'Florence' is only six, and an orphan. Her old grandfather brought her down to Broadstairs himself, and piteous were her screams when he departed and left her alone

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among strangers. Now, however, she says: 'I wish I could stop here for always. want to be one of the Sisters' orphans.' Upon her arrival, her sunken eyes and deathlike pallor gave the impression of a child. hopelessly ill. But the dark circles have quite disappeared now, and, with her round rosy cheeks and bright eyes, Florence is discovered to be a very pretty little girl, quite as able to enjoy life as anyone. Like many a fading London blossom, she had evidently a good stock of health in reserve, only needing favourable conditions to bring it into play.

But who is that large-sized infant in the Sister's arms, looking as if she always expected to be nursed and fondled. If asked her name, she answers, in a harsh, unnatural voice, 'Baby Noble,' and when questioned patiently, can tell you a good deal about herself. For she is turned four years old, though she can neither stand nor walk. Rickets is her malady, and her legs curve forward in a helpless, and apparently hopeless, manner. But sea air and the other benefits of the Home may do wonders, and the doctor gives a good hope of cure if 'Baby Noble' is but able to remain long enough. Perhaps some reader of Our Work may have a 'letter' or a guinea to spare, which will secure the poor child another three weeks at the Broadstairs Convalescent Home.

Besides these, there were several young patients suffering from scrofula and general debility; two of them with bowed legs for which an operation would have been necessary had not the gentler treatment pursued at Broadstairs proved effectual.—And so on.

As I stood in the centre of an animated group-each anxious to tell me a little about herself and heard the merry shouts of the other health-seekers as they raced up and down the private bit of road in front of the Home, I thought to myself what comfort and hope this practical charity must bring to many a parent's aching heart, and pictured the joy with which they would welcome back their treasures to their humble homesrestored to them, in more senses than one.

I think too, that it must be a satisfaction

to those who support this Institution to reflect that every penny they give goes directly to aid its objects-no money being wasted in salaries to matrons and governesses, or wages to servants; for there is not a paid person in the place. The Sisters wash, and dress, and comb, and teach the children, and some elder girls from the Orphanage of Mercy do the house-work, under the active superintendence of the Sisters.

I peeped into the small kitchen where three girls were preparing the midday meal, and then into the little refectory where three more were scrubbing down the deal tables and laying them for the next meal. I caught a glimpse of sundry maidens scouring saucepans in the scullery, and of others hard at work with brush and broom in the upstairs department. All were as busy and happy as bees on a summer's day.

I observed that even the poorest children were neatly dressed, but the Sister told me this was through the kindness of friends who continually send parcels of clothing-some new, some old-in which the little convalescents can be attired. We strip off their rags as soon as possible after they come to us,' she said, 'for obvious reasons.'

Owing to the kindness of a friend who is paying the rent of the second house, the Sisters will be able to receive more children this year than has for some time past been possible; but the immense numbers of applications from the poorer parishes of our great London show how great is the need of a Home conducted upon the same simple principles as this-only on a much larger scale.

When I had said good-bye to my little friends, I walked on to the site for the new Convalescent Home, in which the readers of Our Work have already shown so real and practical an interest.

Here, I rejoiced to find a number of men, under a foreman, engaged in putting up a boundary wall, and turning up the turf with a view to finding a foundation; and my fancy easily travelled on to the time when within the walls of a spacious and cheerful

Home some hundreds of children should be assembled, whose merry voices and ringing laughter would testify to their returning health-children who, but for the charitable hand held out to them, might be languishing on beds of sickness, or creeping slowly but surely towards an early grave.

But before my dream can be realised there is much, very much, to be done. May the people of England not be slow to take advantage of the opportunity offered them, and show their sympathy with the undertaking by a prompt and liberal response to the appeals now being put forth for this Seaside Convalescent Home for the children of the poor!

Our Fournal.

By the SECRETARY.

PRIL 9 (Easter Day).-Seldom have we known a brighter or more lovely one. The Orphanage was fragrant, especially on the Children's floor, with the scent of wall-flowers, primroses, and a profusion of other spring flowers which the kindness of our friends had supplied.

Every nook and corner was crammed with nosegays! And how nice the orphans looked with their new blue serge frocks and aprons, made by the industrious fingers of their good patronesses!

One lady had painted each child an Easter egg and marked it with her name; another had provided a new-laid egg for each one at breakfast, in honour of the day.

At the children's afternoon service, the spacious and beautiful church of S. Augustine's overflowed with a vast congregation composed entirely of the scholars and their teachers each child carrying her Easter nosegay; and many were the spectators gathered outside to witness the entrance of the long procession singing Easter hymns on their way into the church.

'Jessie and Alex.' had sent us five shillings, the result of Lent savings, which they re

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