"But you've no business to invite any one into our house," cried Tom, in an insolent tone. "It would be a pretty joke indeed if you could have friends here, when we are not allowed to have one." "My guests will not eat their dinner here," replied Susan. "I shall send it for them in so clever a way that all the four dinners could be easily packed up in my thimble." "Your thimble! Oh! What do you mean—what can you mean?" cried both the Fairleys in a breath. And Jessy added, with a merry little laugh, "I don't think that such a feast as yours would feed a hungry mouse." "Ah! Missie, you are quite mistaken there," cried Susan, amused at the children's looks of surprise. "My guests shall have right good cheer. Would you like to know what fare will be provided?" "Let's hear all about it," said Tom. "What would you think of meat, potatoes, rice, and onions made up into a nice Irish stew, and a good slice of bread into the bargain? Each of my guests will have this." "I say!" exclaimed the astonished Tom, dropping his money in his surprise. "And can that—meat, onions and all—go into your thimble?" "Not exactly the dinner itself, but the dinner price," replied Susan. "And one good thing about my feast is this—I am quite sure that my little guests will be pleased, not one will go grumbling away. They will most likely not have tasted meat for a whole week before, and will enjoy their hot Irish stew as much, perhaps more, than you, Master Tom, did your chicken." "I don't like riddles," cried the boy, impatiently. "Who are these hungry guests of yours? And how can you have them to dinner? Just tell us straight out what you mean." Susan was pleased at the opportunity of explaining to her young listeners the simple but beautiful arrangements of the DESTITUTE CHILDREN'S DINNER SOCIETY, * by which a half-starved boy or girl from the miserable dens of London is provided with an excellent meal for threepence, bringing a single penny in addition. She spoke of the poor little ragged wanderers who have never in their lives known what it is to have a comfortable home, nor perhaps—till this charity was begun—a really satisfying meal. * See "Ragged School Magazine" for February 1868. Susan had been in London with an uncle who kept a cook-shop. She told how it made her heart ache to see pale, thin, barefooted children hovering round the place to smell the savoury scent which to them must have been so tantalising, and to gaze through the windows at the tempting food which they might not taste. Susan did not say how often she had stinted herself in her meals that she might give to those who needed. "I was thankful," said Susan, "to find that God had put it into the hearts of the wise and good to feed these poor hungry lambs, and in a way so simple and easy that even a servant girl can help a little in the work." "How will you do it, how will you send your dinners," asked Jessy, "when you live so far-away from London?"