As if it were a colt, or a calf, or a six-weeks young pup--or any thing under heaven but his own flesh and blood! as if the little innocent had never lain beneath the loving heart of _her_ whose last throb was for its sweet helplessness--last prayer for its vailed future. Shade of the mother hover over that child! I read again: “Information wanted of a little girl, who, at the age of five years, was placed, ten years ago, in ---- alms-house.” I thought of _her_ cheerless childhood (as I looked around my own bright hearthstone at my own happy children). I saw _her_ yearning vainly for the sweet ties of kindred. I followed her from thence out into the world, where all _but_ herself, even the humblest, seem to have some human tie to make life sweet; I saw her wandering hither and thither, like Noah’s weary dove, without finding the heart’s resting-place; wondering, when she had time to wonder (for the heavy burden of daily toil which her slender shoulders bent beneath), if one heart yet beats on God’s green earth, through which her own life-tide flows. I think of this--I wonder _who_ it is who “wants information” concerning her. I wonder is it some remorseful relative, some brother, some sister, some father whose heart is at length touched with pity for the unrecognized little exile--ay--such things have been! “Clerks out of employment.” Need it be? With acres of fertile earth lying fair in the broad sunshine, waiting only the touch of their sinewy muscles, to throw out uncounted embryo treasures, while ruddy Health stands smiling at the plow! Then I read of starving seamstresses, with no stock in trade but their needle; nothing but that too often, God help them! between their souls and perdition; and, then, in the very face of my womanly instincts, I say, _let_ them lecture--_let_ them preach--let them even be doctors, if they will (provided they keep their hands off me!) Then I read, alas! advertisements, which promise youth and purity to lead them through the scorching fires of sin unharmed, unscathed, which say that the penalty annexed by a just God to his violated laws (even in this world), _they_ will turn aside; that a man _can_ take fire into his bosom and _not_ be burned. And then I think that the editor who for paltry gain, throws such firebrands into pure and happy homes _should look well that the blight fall not on his own_. But there is comedy as well as tragedy in an advertising sheet. I am fond of poetry; my eye catches a favorite extract from Longfellow, or Bryant, or Percival, or Morris; I read it over with renewed pleasure, blessing the author in my heart the while. I am decoyed into the building to which it serves as a fairy vestibule. Where do I find myself? By Parnassus! in a carpet-warehouse--in a sausage-shop--in a druggist’s--shoemaker’s--tailor’s--or hatter’s establishment. Who shall circumscribe American ingenuity where dollars and cents are concerned?