Was anything ever so provoking as the stolidity of an Irish servant. Every word she uttered made the mystery still darker. I knew no Madame De Vrai; never heard of the name before in my life--took no credit to myself for any special act of kindness to the poor in general, and certainly could not call to mind any act of my life that would warrant me in appropriating the blessing so heartily offered for my acceptance. As to being the father of the poor woman's "childer, dead and alive," I declared emphatically that it was just no such thing. I would not own them. So I called for something to eat, and determined to go to bed, fully satisfied that African blunders and Irish ditto, duly mixed, had made one this time too large for my mastery, either with my very common name, or by a mistake in the street or number; or else somebody else had undertaken to father this family, and now desired to shift the responsibility; certainly I had not, could not, would not father them. So I sat munching and musing over my bread and butter and cold water, of the scenes of the evening which I had witnessed. "Would to Heaven I knew what had become of her," I thought aloud. "Who?" said a kind voice at my elbow. "What lady are you so anxious about now. Any of your Five Point proteges?" "Yes. You have guessed it exactly. None other." "Is that what you have been looking for to-night. Do tell me of your visit. What have you seen?" "More of human misery than I ever saw before in one night. Would you like to hear the detail?" "Yes, it may do me good to hear how others live, and if worse than I do, it may make me more contented with my own lot." "Worse than you do? Why, madam, have you not all that is necessary to make life comfortable around you. A neat, airy, well-furnished house, plenty of room, plenty to eat, good bed to sleep on, good baths for evening ablution or morning renovation, and above all the other luxuries of city life, plenty of that greatest of New York's blessings, the Croton water? Now listen how and where others live. In a close, dirty, pent up court, are piles of old bricks and frame houses, perfect rat harbors, filled with human beings, men, women, children, from cellar bottom to garret peak, poor beyond the power of imagination, dirty to a degree that is sickening to behold, criminal through necessity----" "No, not necessity. Nobody is necessitated to be criminal." "You are simply mistaken. I repeat, criminal by necessity. So educated from childhood, that they know of no way to live, but by the beggar's trade, or pilferer's, or prostitute's crime. Such are the parents, such must be the children. There is no hope otherwise. They are sent out in infancy to beg, and early taught to 'pick up things;' the place of education is the street, the watch house, or city prison." "Why don't their parents send them to school?"