Benny turned away with a great sob, for since Nelly died rebuffs had become doubly hard to bear. He did not try to get another fare, but stood looking out on the storm-tossed river, trying to gulp down the great lumps that rose continually in his throat.

"I specks I'll have to starve," he thought bitterly, "for I can't get a copper to-day nohow."

Just then he felt a touch on his arm, and turning his brimming eyes, he saw the little girl he had noticed on the boat.

"What's the matter, little boy?" she said, in a voice that sounded like music to the sad-hearted child.

They were the first kind words that had been spoken to him for the day, and they completely broke him down.

At length he stammered out between his sobs,

"Oh, I's so hungry an' cold, an' little Nelly's dead; an' all the world is agin me."

"Have you no father?" she said.

"No; I's no father, nor mother, nor sister, nor nobody. Nelly was all I had in the world, an' now she's dead."

"Poor boy!" said the kindly little voice. "And how do you get your living?"

"Oh, I sells matches or carries gents' portmantles when they'll let me, or anything honest as turns up."

"Well, don't think papa is unkind because he spoke cross to you, but he had been annoyed. And here is a shilling he gave me to-day; you need it more than I do, so I will give it to you. Are you here every day?"

"Ay, I's mostly here every day," said Benny, closing his fingers around the bright shilling as one in a dream.

The next moment he was alone. He looked everywhere for the little girl, but she was nowhere visible.

"Golly!" said Benny, rubbing his eyes, "I wonder now if she wur a hangel. Nelly said as 'ow the Lord 'ud provide. An' mebbe He sent her with that bob. I wish I had looked more particler to see if she had wings, 'cause Nelly said as how hangels had wings."

More than twenty times that afternoon Benny looked at the bright new shilling that had been given him; the very sight of it seemed to do him good. It seemed to turn the tide, too, in his favour, for before dark he had earned another shilling; and that evening he trudged to his home with a lighter heart than he had known for many a week.