Before he had taken a step, one of the singers hurried to his side, laid a hand upon his arm, and conducted him slowly to the organ-bench. Then it was that any stranger would have learned what all London understood,--that the courtly old gentleman was blind. At the first rich chord from the organ, a hush fell upon the room, and when the silvery-haired musician finished, and rose to his feet with another stately bow, the people silently filed out, too stirred by the grandeur of his music for ordinary speech. That night, in the city of London, hundreds of suffering and friendless children were gathered into places of refuge, and were fed, warmed, and clothed with the money earned by the genius and loving-kindness of Georg Friedrich Händel. SIX HUNDRED PLUS ONE [COLERIDGE] Up to London, one May morning, came Samuel Coleridge, and as the coach rattled over the pavements, and the roar and tumult of the city filled his ears, the boy clutched his uncle's arm with delight. Never before in all his ten years had he journeyed beyond the quaint country village where he was born, and the dun clouds of city smoke caused him to look expectantly about for rain. His uncle laughed and patted the boy's arm good-naturedly. "Never mind," he said; "these crowded streets will soon become as homelike to you as one of your Devonshire fields." Mr. Bowdon was right, and at the end of a week Samuel could go alone about the quarter of the city where his uncle resided, and his ears grew so accustomed to the mighty din that he quite forgot there was any noise to hear. Samuel was the youngest of thirteen children. His mother was a widow, and gradually she had become too poor to provide food and shelter for so great a family. To be sure, the oldest brothers and sisters aided her as best they could, but times were hard, money was scarce at best, and when Uncle Bowdon proposed to undertake the care and education of Samuel his offer was thankfully accepted. It was planned that the boy should visit at his uncle's house for several weeks, and that later in the summer he should enter the famous charity school known as Christ's Hospital. Many families sought to send their sons to this school, but only those pupils were admitted who were too poor to pay for their education. Samuel was tall for his age, and very dark. He was attractive without being handsome, for his striking look of intelligence, his slight, straight figure and ready laughter, earned for him the frankest approval of friends and strangers too.