"Yes, Miss--Stringer and Bullem--that was the name over the shop-door." "What! did they keep a shop?" "To be sure they did." "How long did you stay there?" "I never went away no more, Miss. When I got better, the lady began to talk to me. I was a little mite of a thing, but I was quick enough. She found what bad ways I was bringing up in; that I had never once heard of Our Saviour--not even of my Maker--far from ever hearing of the Bible--or having it read, or being taught to pray, or--" The two young girls looked at each other, but said nothing. Matty, in broken and interrupted sentences, went on: "So she kept me; for she could not bear to send me back to that pit of iniquity in which she had found me. And as I lay in my bed, one day, and they thought I was asleep, I heard her arguing the point with her young husband-- "'Why, child, you cannot pretend to adopt all the poor neglected children in this bad town?' he said. "'Oh no! I know one can do little--little enough: it is but one drop of water in the vast ocean--only one little, little drop; but the oyster took it into its shell, and it became a pearl. Let me keep this poor little one. I don't mean to be foolish--indeed I don't--I will only clothe her, and feed her, and send her to the charity school: indeed, they will half clothe her there. Do--do, dear John--she is such a miserable object! What is she to do? Let her be taught her duty--let her not be a poor ruined wretch, body and soul at once.'" "The young lady would have moved a stone with her talking. Her husband was not very persuadable; he was not like her. He was rather a cold-hearted, selfish young man, but he couldn't refuse her; and so, when I got better, I was sent to one of the great charity schools in the city, where I learned a deal; but my sweet Mrs. Stringer took a pleasure in teaching me herself, and so I learned a deal more." Enough of Matty's tale. Mrs. Stringer, when she devoted such means as she could command to the rescue of one poor child from the misery in which she was living, and raised her from deplorable ignorance, as regarded all higher things, to a knowledge of the supreme and only real good, little thought how extensive her good deed would prove; and that in providing for the religious and moral education of this wretched child, she was preparing the means of a religious education--imperfect, yet still in some sort a sound religious education--for two children of wealth and luxury, as to such things, most entirely destitute. But so it proved--and this was the only religious education they either of them could be said ever to receive; so utterly, so entirely, were all relations of this nature forgotten and neglected in this house of profusion, where not one single thing, but the one thing needful could be said to be wanting.