"Poor little creature! Can we help, Leslie?" "One of the singers at the Octagon Chapel will direct me to the place--Crown Alley, a low street enough, by the Abbey churchyard." "Ah!" and his mother sighed; "a low place, doubtless." "The child's father is an actor--he was hired to play here--and has had a fall, and is helpless." "An actor!" Mrs. Travers' pale face flushed with crimson. "An actor! Ah, my dear son, one engaged in the devil's work cannot claim charity from Christians." "I do not take your meaning, ma'am. An actor may suffer, and his child starve as well as other folk, and need help." "I grieve for suffering, dear son, as you know; but----" "But you condemn all actors wholesale. Nay, my sweet mother"--and Leslie changed his tone--"nay, my sweet mother, it is not you who steel your heart; it is the doctrine taught you in the fashionable chapel yonder of lords and ladies, who reserve for themselves the right to the kingdom of heaven." "My son, do not speak thus; nor scoff at what you cannot yet understand. If prayers avail for your conversion, constant and persevering, mine will at last be heard." "I thank you for your prayers, dear mother--they come from a true heart. And now to supper, and then to my violoncello. The Herschels are removing at once to this street--almost will their music be within ear-shot; and there will be great works in the garden, and the largest mirror in the kingdom will be cast. Who can tell what may be discovered? Now, mother, you do not see sin and wickedness in star-gazing, surely?" Mrs. Travers shook her head. "I would not care for myself to be too curious as to the secrets which God does not reveal." Leslie stamped his foot impatiently, and then said: "We cannot agree there, mother. Every gift of God is good; and if He has given the gift of mathematical precision, and earnestness in applying it for the better development of the grandest of all sciences, who shall dare to say the man who exercises that gift is wrong? For my own part, I feel uplifted in the presence of that great and good man--Mr. Herschel--and his wonderful sister." "'When I consider Thy heavens the work of Thy fingers,'" Mrs. Travers quoted from the Psalms, "I say, with David, 'What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that Thou considerest him?' Such knowledge, my dear son, as that, after which you tell me Mr. and Miss Herschel seek, is too wonderful for me, nor do I wish to attain it. Mr. Relley delivered a very powerful discourse on this matter last Sunday. I would you had heard it, instead of listening to the music at the Octagon, where the world gathers its votaries every Sabbath-day to admire music, and forget God."