Those bags contain the clothes in which these children are brought to the Home in the morning. They are {119} changed with the morning's ablutions, and clean garments substituted for them until the mothers come in the evening to fetch away their bairnies, and by that time they have been aired and sweetened. It is noticeable that this has the effect in many instances of inducing the women to make praiseworthy efforts to improve the appearance of the children, and, indeed, the whole tendency of the treatment of the little ones is to develop the tenderness and love which lie deep down in the hearts of the mothers. Even the endearing nicknames almost instinctively bestowed upon the tiny darlings have a share in promoting this feeling, and the pretty rosy plump little creatures, or the quaint expressive bright-eyed babies, who are called "Rosie," "Katie," "Pet," "Little Old Lady," and so on, all have a kind of happy individuality of their own in the regards of the dear lady who founded and still directs the institution, and in those of the nurses who tend them. Sometimes the names arise from some little incident occurring when the children are first brought there, as well as from the engaging looks and manners of the little ones themselves. "The King," is a really fine baby-boy, the recognised monarch of the upper nursery, but his sway is strictly constitutional; while a pretty little wistful, plump lassie, is good-humouredly known as "Water Cresses," and has no reason to be ashamed of the name, for it designates the business by which a hard-working mother and elder sister earn the daily bread for the family. Did I say that the charge for each child is twopence daily? Nominally it is so; and let those who desire to know something of the real annals of the poor remember that even this small sum—which of course cannot adequately represent anything like the cost—is not easily subtracted from the scanty earnings of poor women engaged {120} in slopwork, or selling dried fish, plants, crockery, and small wares in the streets, or going out to work in warehouses, rope-walks, match-making, box-making, and other poor employments, where the daily wages will not reach to shillings, and sometimes are represented only in the pence column. Let it be remembered, too, that the husbands of these women (those who are not prematurely widows, or whose husbands have not deserted them) are employed as dock labourers, and are often under the terrible curse of drink, or are in prison, while the women struggle on to support the little ones, who but for this institution, would perhaps be left—hungry, naked, and sickly—to the care of children only two or three years older than themselves; or would be locked in wretched rooms without food or fire till the mother could toil homeward, with the temptation of a score of gin-shops in the way. Each of the bright intelligent little faces now before us has its history, and a very suggestive and pathetic history too.