Mr. Dinneford was standing in a maze, shocked and distressed by this little episode, when a man at his side said in a grave, quiet voice,

“I doubt if you could see a sight just like that anywhere else in all Christendom.”  Then added, as he extended his hand,

“I am glad to see you here, Mr. Dinneford.”

“Oh, Mr. Paulding!” and Mr. Dinneford put out his hand and grasped that of the missionary with a nervous grip.  “This is awful!  I am sixty years old, but anything so shocking my eyes have not before looked upon.”

“We see things worse than this every day,” said the missionary.  “It is only one of the angry boils on the surface, and tells of the corrupt and vicious blood within.  But I am right glad to find you here, Mr. Dinneford.  Unless you see these things with your own eyes, it is impossible for you to comprehend the condition of affairs in this by-way to hell.”

“Hell, itself, better say,” returned Mr. Dinneford.  “It is hell pushing itself into visible manifestation—­hell establishing itself on the earth, and organizing its forces for the destruction of human souls, while the churches are too busy enlarging their phylacteries and making broader and more attractive the hems of their garments to take note of this fatal vantage-ground acquired by the enemy.”

Mr. Dinneford stood and looked around him in a dazed sort of way.

“Is Grubb’s court near this?” he asked, recollecting the errand upon which he had come.

“Yes.”

“A young lady called to see you yesterday afternoon to ask about a child in that court?”

“Oh yes!  You know the lady?”

“She is my daughter.  One of the poor children in her sewing-class told her of a neglected baby in Grubb’s court, and so drew upon her sympathies that she started to go there, but was warned by the child that it would be dangerous for a young lady like her to be seen in that den of thieves and harlots, and so she came to you.  And now I am here in her stead to get your report about the baby.  I would not consent to her visiting this place again.”

Mr. Paulding took his visitor into the mission-house, near which they were standing.  After they were seated, he said,

“I have seen the baby about which your daughter wished me to make inquiry.  The woman who has the care of it is a vile creature, well known in this region—­drunken and vicious.  She said at first that it was her own baby, but afterward admitted that she didn’t know who its mother was, and that she was paid for taking care of it.  I found out, after a good deal of talking round, and an interview with the mother of the child who is in your daughter’s sewing-class, that a girl of notoriously bad character, named Pinky Swett, pays the baby’s board.  There’s a mystery about the child, and I am of the opinion that it has been stolen, or is known to be the offcast of some respectable family.  The woman who has the care of it was suspicious, and seemed annoyed at my questions.”