Hers was the common offence of asking for money. The blow injured the woman's brain, and from that day to this she has been in a lunatic asylum. The father disappeared after the crime, and the child's grandmother took the orphan with living parents in, and out of her scanty earnings kept her. One day this year the old lady passed some men carrying a body found in the river to the dead-house. Curiosity induced her to go in with the crowd, and the face of the dead man was that of her son. A back-street tragedy--common enough, with a varied plot and incidents in these parts, but, as it stands, the life-story of this child. 'And your granny keeps you now?' says the teacher, as she concludes the little history, and turns to the girl. 'Yes, teacher; and when I grow up I'm going to keep granny.' So may it be! There are some hundred girls in the room. Some of them come from decent homes, and some from cellars; many of their histories are romances; but they are romances which mostly tend one way--to show the misery, the guilt, and the poverty in which they have been reared; and to recount them would be but to dwell upon a note which perhaps I have touched too often already. There are brighter stories, too, to be told of their parents, but none so bright as they will be able to tell of themselves when, after years of discipline and culture, they go forth to lead lives which with their fathers and mothers were impossible. Close to the school where the elder girls are educated, and in the same building, is the department for infants. Here the children under seven are prepared to pass into the upper department. Directly we enter we are struck with the appearance of these children. Bad faces there are among them--bruises and scars, and bandages and rags--but the bulk of these younger children have a generally _better_ appearance than their little neighbours.