Produced by Al Haines [Illustration: Cover art] [Frontispiece: Looking out for Father] Little Meg's Children BY HESBA STRETTON Author of 'Jessica's First Prayer,' 'Alone in London,' 'Pilgrim Street,' 'No Place Like Home,' etc. WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY HAROLD COPPING And other Illustrations LONDON THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY 56 PATERNOSTER ROW AND 65 ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD 1905 Contents CHAP. I. MOTHERLESS II. LITTLE MEG AS A MOURNER III. LITTLE MEG'S CLEANING DAY IV. LITTLE MEG'S TREAT TO HER CHILDREN V. LITTLE MEG'S NEIGHBOUR VI. LITTLE MEG'S LAST MONEY VII. LITTLE MEG'S DISAPPOINTMENT VIII. LITTLE MEG'S RED FROCK IN PAWN IX. LITTLE MEG'S FRIENDS IN NEED X. LITTLE MEG AS CHARWOMAN XI. LITTLE MEG'S BABY XII. THE END OF LITTLE MEG'S TROUBLE XIII. LITTLE MEG'S FATHER XIV. LITTLE MEG'S FAREWELL Little Meg's Children CHAPTER I Motherless In the East End of London, more than a mile from St Paul's Cathedral, and lying near to the docks, there is a tangled knot of narrow streets and lanes, crossing and running into one another, with blind alleys and courts leading out of them, and low arched passages, and dark gullies, and unsuspected slums, hiding away at the back of the narrowest streets; forming altogether such a labyrinth of roads and dwellings, that one needs a guide to thread a way among them, as upon pathless solitudes or deserts of shifting sands. In the wider streets it is possible for two conveyances to pass each other; for in some of them, towards the middle of their length, a sweeping curve is taken out of the causeway on either side to allow of this being done; but in the smaller and closer streets there is room spared only for the passage to and fro of single carts, while here and there may be found an alley so narrow that the neighbours can shake hands, if they would, from opposite windows. Many of the houses are of three or four stories, with walls, inside and out, dingy and grimed with smoke, and with windows that scarcely admit even the gloomy light which finds a way through the thick atmosphere, and down between the high, close buildings.