We have seen children rich and children poor, children at work and children at play, but we have not yet seen any of the poor little children who cannot run about as others do, who have to be still, and who very often suffer pain. A lady began a school for poor children who were ill. She had been visiting poor people, and she had found out that sometimes a mother had to leave her sick child the whole day long alone in one dark room. And very often these children were not ill for a little time only, as any of you might be, but ill always from babyhood, without any hope of getting well. To take one case, little Beatrice Annie Jones had a mother who was a widow, and used to go out to scrub people's floors and clean the houses; that is what is called being a charwoman. She had sometimes to go quite a long way to her work, and could not come back in the middle of the day for dinner; so in the morning before she went she used to give Beatrice Annie a bit of bread and an egg, if she had enough money to buy one, and a few sticks, and a little pan with water in it. Then she used to tidy up the room and go away, leaving the child alone. The door must be locked, for a thief might come in and steal the few bits of things there were. The window was dirty and very high up; Beatrice Annie could only see out of it by climbing on a rickety chair, and she could not stand there long, for it hurt her legs and back, for they were not like other little girls' legs and back, but weak and painful, so that she used to drag herself about the floor on all fours, like a baby, rather than walk, even though she was seven years old. The room she and her mother lived in was up many, many stairs, and it was very seldom she could get out at all; for though she was very light and small, her mother was too tired to carry her down after her day's work. Beatrice Annie was suffering from a disease very common with poor children, called rickets. It means that the bones are not strong—they are like chalk, and will break very easily; even a fall off a chair might do it—and it is sometimes caused by the children not having had enough milk when they were babies.

When her mother left her alone, Beatrice Annie used to look round the room and sigh. It was a very dreary room. When you are ill, everyone brings you nice things—flowers and jellies and pictures—to pass the time. This little girl had only one picture, a bright-coloured almanack, with a likeness of the King dressed in the scarlet uniform of a soldier, and she had looked at this so often she was tired of it. She was so lonely that she would have been glad if even a little mouse had come to play with her; but the mice did not come to that room; there were not enough crumbs to please Mr. Mouse. Beatrice Annie could not read; she had never been to school, for she was not strong enough. So she sat for a long time on the wooden floor and wondered what she should do. She had one dirty wooden doll, dressed in rags, and for a little time she washed its face, wiping it with a bit of rag dipped in the corner of the little pan she was going to boil her egg in; but she soon got tired of that. Then she tried to climb on the chair to look out of the window, but when she managed it, after trying several times, she could not stay long, it made her legs ache so; and the street was very far down, she could not see anything interesting. So the weary day went on. Long before one o'clock she had boiled her egg, and she ate it with great enjoyment; but that did not take very long, and then there were hours and hours to wait before at last the old stairs creaked and her mother put the key in the lock and came in with a tired face. She was a good woman this, though so poor and wretched, and she could not help her little girl's being left alone, and she always tried to bring home something for her to cheer her up.

'Look, Beatrice Annie!' she cried, as she opened the door. 'What hever do ye think I've brought for yer?' And she held up a bunch of red radishes for a treat.

Well, when this lady found out that there were many children like Beatrice Annie, she said that there might be a school just for such poor sick children, and that they could do as much or as little work as they liked. Several rich people joined in sharing the expense of starting the school, and one doctor gave a carriage that had two seats in it on which children could lie right down, and others where they could sit. Then a good kind nurse was found, and every morning the nurse went round and carried out or helped all the little sick children who were well enough to come, and took them driving in their own carriage to school. She had to begin very early, and go backwards and forwards several times, for the carriage did not hold a great many children at a time, and there were so many who wanted to come. She took them to a school in Tavistock Place, not very far from the British Museum, in a part of London called Bloomsbury, and by ten o'clock all the children were there.

Then they began work, a little reading and writing, and a few sums; but they were always carefully watched, and if any child seemed tired she was made to stop and lie down on a sofa. At twelve o'clock dinner-time came. At first a few of the children used to bring their own dinners, and as the mothers were very poor, sometimes the dinners were very nasty, and not at all good for a delicate child. Perhaps one little boy, with a white face and a big head, would unroll a filthy bit of newspaper, and show some cold herring, which smelt horrid. Or another would bring out a lump of greasy pudding, as heavy as lead. So it was arranged that if the mother could give a few pence, varying from three halfpence to threepence, according to her means, the children should have dinner at the school, and for these sums it is marvellous what a dinner they get. Beef and mutton, with vegetables, light puddings of milk and fruit, and sometimes rich people send game, and then these poor little gutter children have dinners like princes and princesses.

Though it is in the middle of London, there is a beautiful garden behind, which belongs to the Duke of Bedford, and he allows them to play there, for the house to which it belonged is now pulled down. Some of the children go hopping about on their crutches, and even play games upon the smooth turf under the great shady trees. After being out for an hour, they come in and do such interesting work. All sorts of things they make with their hands. The boys do iron work, and the girls lace; or the boys do painting and basket-making, and the girls embroidery. So that when they grow up and leave the school they may be able to earn a living for themselves.

At about three o'clock the carriage comes again, and they begin to go home. Now, cannot you fancy what a new world this is to the children? Before they went to school they knew nothing about the world they lived in, or about history, or about plants and animals. They had nothing to think of to make them forget their pain. They could just sleep or lie still all day, like little animals. Now they are bright and happy. If by any chance they cannot go to school, or the carriage does not come, they cry bitterly. There are other schools begun now like this one, so perhaps in time all the children who are invalids can go to school.

Of course, there are some cases where a child is too ill to attend any school, and then it must go to a hospital. There is one of these hospitals in Chelsea, and it looks out over the great gray river Thames. It is a large red-brick house, and boys and girls who can never get well can be taken in here and made comfortable, and saved as much pain as possible. It is a beautiful house, and it is very sad, but happy, too, to see the children, and how bright they look. They wear little red flannel jackets when they sit up in bed, and have a tray put across the bed, and upon it for them to play with are the toys that kind people have sent. The rooms are divided into two parts, for boys and girls, and the children are received between the ages of three and ten, so there are no tiny babies here. The large windows are down to the ground, so the children can see what is going on outside, and I will tell you what they see: first, the Embankment; I have told you about that. It is like a broad road, and taxi-cabs and bicycles and many other things are always passing and repassing. Then the river, up which the salt sea tide rolls every day, and when the weather is very cold and stormy the gray and white sea-gulls fly inland up the river, and wheel and scream; and when people throw bread for them they dart down upon it and catch it before it can touch the water, so quick are they.

On the river there are, in summer, pleasure-steamers crowded with people; these stop at a pier quite near the children's hospital, and sometimes they are so full that not another person can get on. Then there are great barges going slowly along, dragged by a little steam-tug; perhaps there are three or four barges one after another, so low in the water that it almost washes over their decks. They carry great piles of hay or coal further up the river, and they look like great lazy porpoises being towed along by the fussy little steamer. If they are coming in with the tide, so that the current helps them, they do not need the steam-tug; but men stand up at one end and help the barge along, and guide it by a huge oar called a sweep. Some of these men and their wives live always on these barges, and earn their living by taking things up the river. There is only a tiny dirty little cabin, the size of the smallest room you ever saw, and so Mrs. Bargeman can't bring fine frocks with her; but that doesn't matter, for it isn't likely that she has any. The faces of the men and women get quite brown with being out always in the open air. It is a queer life that, always going up and down, to and fro, upon the gray water, watching the red sun sink at night and seeing him rise again; watching the sunlight ripple in the water by day, and seeing the lights from the shore shine out sparkling like jewels at night.

The barges are quite low and have no funnels, so they can pass under the bridges; but the steamers have to bow down their funnels when they come to a bridge, and then they raise them up again, as if they were very polite gentlemen saying, 'How do you do?' to the bridge.

Well, the children in the hospital can see these things, and for those whose beds don't face the windows there are looking-glasses so arranged that all that goes on is reflected in them, so that it is like a wonderful picture-book, changing all day long. Though they look so happy, poor children! some of them suffer dreadful pain, and it is sad to think this hospital is for incurable children—that is, children who can never be well in this world.

In one room there is a large picture; I am sure you have seen one like it. It is Jesus Christ standing at a door, knocking, and the door is fast shut, and briars and brambles have grown all over it; but still Christ stands knocking, hoping it may open. In His hand there is a lantern, and the picture is called 'The Light of the World.' Now, the real picture, the one that the artist painted, from which all the others like it have been printed, was painted just where this children's hospital is; for the artist, whose name is Holman Hunt, had a house there before the hospital was built. So he gave a very large copy of his picture to the children, and wrote under it that it was from the artist who made that picture, in that place, to Christ's little ones.

There are other hospitals for children, which are for all sorts of illnesses and not only for incurable ones. There is one in Chelsea, not far from here, and another, a very large one, in Great Ormond Street, not very far from the school for sick children.

In the Great Ormond Street one they take in the very tiniest babies, and so the nurses have plenty to do looking after these mites. Sometimes a child is very naughty when it first comes in, and will do nothing but scream and cry, and the nurses have to be very patient; but it always happens that when it has been there for a time it loves them all so much that it cries when it gets well and has to go home. It is a funny sight to see a nurse or a sister having tea with perhaps three or four children who are well enough to be up. They climb all over her like little kittens, and love her so much she cannot get rid of them. In this hospital each ward is named after some member of the Royal Family: Helena Ward, Alice Ward, and so on, after the Princesses Helena and Alice, daughters of Queen Victoria.

There is a home for cripple girls in London, and another for cripple boys in a part of the West End called Kensington. Here the boys are taken in and taught, not only lessons, but all kinds of things that boys can do without having to walk. Some are tailors, and some make harness for carriage-horses, and some carve wood, and learn carpentering or shoemaking. And so they can earn their own living when they grow up to be men. They all seem very happy, and when you meet them on a walk it is a touching sight; but yet not really sad, because their faces are bright and happy. Fancy meeting twenty or thirty boys going along together, every one of them lame or deformed in some way! Some go on crutches, and some hobble, and others limp; but they do not seem to mind, because, perhaps, they have never known what it is to be active like other boys, and there are plenty of pleasant things they can still do.