: Her Benny: A Story of Street Life by Hocking Silas K Silas Kitto Tuck Harry Illustrator - Christian life Juvenile fiction; Conduct of life Juvenile fiction; Children Conduct of life Juvenile fiction; Adventure stories; Siblings Juvenile fiction; Voyages an

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Brother and Sister.

Perhaps while in our glowing grate The cheerful blaze is rising higher There's some one sitting desolate Without a spark of fire.

Oh, what are we, that God hath blessed Our winter homes and made them glad, While other hearts are sore distressed, While other homes are sad?

It was getting dark, though the Town Hall clock had only just struck four. But a fog had hung all over Liverpool since morning, and everything was as damp and dismal as it well could be; and now, as evening came on, the fog had settled into a downright drizzle, converting the streets into what seemed to Nelly Bates to be endless puddles.

"I wish Benny would come," said she to herself. "I wonder what has kept him? He said he'd be here when the clock struck four."

And she wrapped her tattered clothes more closely around her, and looked eagerly down Lord Street and up and down Castle Street. But no Benny appeared in sight.

"I'm glad as how they's lightin' the lamps, anyhow. It'll make it feel a bit warmer, I reckon," she went on, "for it's terrible cold. But Benny won't be long now, nohow. I hope he's sold all his fusees."

And she looked wistfully at the unsold matches lying in her lap. Then, after a pause, she went on again,

"I's had desp'rate bad luck to-day. I reckon the gen'lmen thinks it too much trouble to take off their gloves to get at the coppers. I wonder if they know what it is to be cold and hungry like me?"

And the child moved a little farther into the shadow of the church, to escape the keen cold blast that swept up from the river.

Little Nelly Bates was a delicate-looking child, with a pale, thoughtful face, and big, round, dreamy-looking eyes. She had none of that wolfish expression that so often characterizes the street Arabs of our large towns and cities; but, on the contrary, there was an air of refinement about her that was difficult to account for. Poor little waif! Her own mother she could not remember. She had only known a stepmother--a cruel, drunken woman; and, alas! her father was no better. Almost as soon as she could walk she had been sent into the streets with her brother Benny, who was a year older, to get her living as best she could. Never knowing a parent's love, the affections of these two children had gone out to each other. Each to each was more than all the world beside. At the time our story opens Nelly was nine years of age, and Benny, as we said, a year older.

Still the minutes dragged along, and Benny came not. The 'busses were crowded with people outside and in, wrapped in huge warm overcoats, and all down Lord Street she watched the hurrying crowds bending their steps homewards. And she tried to picture their cheerful homes, with great blazing fires, and happy children running to greet them, and wondered how none of them ever paused to notice her, shivering there in the shadow of the church.

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