STARVING! THOSE kind and good men who visit the homes (if we call them by so sweet a name) of the very, very poor, often see sad sights that rend the heart. They find six or more families crowded into houses which were only meant to hold one,-each family having a single room, or sometimes only half a room, the other half,marked off with a chalk line, being used by another family. Many of these poor folk have no regular ways of earning their living, and, when they do get a little money by an odd job, they are commonly tempted to leave their bare, cold, cheerless room, for a few hours' light and warmth in the gin-shop, which is always just at the corner of these streets and lanes of poverty and want; and often they waste on the fiery poison of drink money that would go far to furnish their rooms, and clothe themselves and their children. When, besides Poverty, there comes into such homes the other gaunt visitor, Sickness, then their woes become terrible indeed. The rickety bedstead and thin bedding go to the pawn-shop, and the sick man has to lie on the floor. The chair and stool are sold for bread, and those who watch him have to crouch at his side ; and if it were not that a kindly neighbour brings the curate of the parish or some visitor of the poor, the sick man would probably die of sheer starvation, and maybe his wife and daughter would soon follow him to the land where "the weary are at rest." Alas! it is sad to think that in London, where there seems to be money for every luxury and amusement, there have been lately several cases brought to light where the visitor came too late, and where men and women died of nothing but hunger and cold. While, then, we enjoy the comfort of our pleasant homes, we should not forget the poor. It may not be our place to go and see them in their want, but those who wish to give to the poor have only to look in the Times newspaper any day in winter time, and they will find a dozen societies for helping the needy, to any of which they may safely trust their alms. From the low prayer of want and plaint of woe O never, never turn away thy ear! Forlorn in this bleak wilderness below, Ah! what were man should Heaven refuse to hear ? ST. VALENTINE'S DAY AT PACKMEADOW. By the Rev. C. W. Jones. F course we send and receive “Valentines,” of course the windows of all the book-shops are gay with them for a month beforehand, but we do more than that at Packmeadow; it is one of the great days in the year to all the children in the parish, for every one of them can have a bun and a penny by bidding “Good morrow, Valentine,” at Yardwater, in the early morning of that day. And you may depend upon it, that very few of them fail to do it. And so, before it is fairly light, you may hear round the house the monotonous chant of childish voices, “Good morrow, Valentine,” and the scampering of little feet as they race up and . the avenue to keep themselves warm, while they are waiting for the arrival of the basket of buns, and the ba of pence which are to be distribute among them. Let us go down and have a look at them. There they are, some hundred and fifty of them, all as merry as grigs, and with what a joyous shout of “Good morrow, Valentine,” do they receive us, for they know by our appearance that the buns and pennies are not far behind. These, however, are not quite ready yet, and the children must scamper, and shout, and play at hide-and-seek behind the trees a little longer. They certainly had now to do something to keep themselves warm, for the morning was cold enough. It was freezing hard, and the trees were beautifully frosted with rime. Every twi was covered with its delicate crystals, an as the rising sun shot its red beams among them, they gleamed with a rosy light, as if they were not ice, but slowly burning firebrands. Little, however, did the children care for the beautiful frostwork, their minds were fully occupied with the thoughts of coming buns and pennies. Poor little things, these were rarities to them ; but, as for the frost, they had had that at their fingers' ends all the winter. So there they were of all shapes and sizes, waiting for their dole—square, round, triangular, polygonal, and linear. One little scrap of a girl in her brother's greatcoat, borrowed for the occasion, was entirely enveloped in it from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet, and walked about like an animated advertisement of a scare-crow shop. Then there was a little boy who had walked three miles in the snow before sunrise, rolled up quite round in his mother's shawl. The little fellow had cried bitterly till she had given him leave to go “Valentining,” and now he was crying quite as bitterly at being here in the cold. Close to him was a tall, thin, whipping-post of a girl, quite innocent of crinoline, and I dare say she had little or nothing on besides her ragged print frock; but there she was, with pinched features and bony hands, eager to have a whole penny bun to eat, and a whole penny to spend as she pleased. Near her, half lounging, half hiding behind a tree, stood a gawky hobble-de-hoy, all elbows and knuckles, who had slipped away from his work in a neighbouring field, in order to claim to be a child, and so to improve his poor breakfast. But the crisis was approaching, a door opened, and out came a basket of buns, such a basket !—no little thing with a lid that you could carry on your arm, but a regular, undeniable clothes-basket, borne by two servants, and followed by my two little boys, in all the grandeur of knickerbockers, each lugging along a bag of pence. And wasn't there a shout set up at their appearance; and didn't the children rush forward as if they would eat them up, basket, servants, little boys, pence, bags, and all? . Of course, this was not to be allowed; but, with much shouting and pushing of a kindly sort, the children were arranged in two rows down the avenue, boys on one side and girls on the other, so that all might fare alike. Then the hobble-de-hoy was convicted; as luck would have it, he got placed between two little scraps of boys, who hardly reached higher than his knee. “What, you here, John ” exclaimed the bun-distributor, “I should as soon have thought of seeing your father. However," added he, “wait till the little when it was explained to her, she only ones have got their share, and perhaps I answered that she had prayed in general shall find one over for you.” for protection for themselves and their And so, to his great delight, it turned townspeople. out; for the buns had been provided in “However,” she added, “ do you think no stinted measure, and there were enough that if it were the will of God, to build a left not only for him, but also for some wall around us, it would be impossible to weakly little ones, who had not been permitted to come out for a long walk in the And now came the dreaded night of the snow that cold February morning. 5th of January ; and about midnight the Great was the satisfaction with which troops began to enter on all sides. The the buns were eaten and the pennies house we were speaking of lay close by pocketed. Light-heeled and light-hearted, i the road, and was larger than the dwellings away trooped the children, still keeping near it, which were only very small cotup their monotonous chant of “Good mor tages. Its inhabitants looked out with row, Valentine," till it died away in the anxious fear, as parties of the soldiers distance, and we went in to our breakfast, entered, one after another, and even went which we enjoyed none the less from the to the neighbouring houses to ask for what thought that some hundred and fifty they wanted ; but all rode past their children had been made happy, for a time dwelling. at least, by what had been distributed Throughout the whole day there had among then. been a heavy fall of snow - the first that winter,—and towards evening the storm became violent to a degree seldom known. THE WALL OF SNOW. At length came four parties of Cossacks, who had been hindered by the snow from WHEN the year 1814 began, troops of entering the town by another road. This Swedes, Cossacks, Germans, and Rus part of the outskirts was at some distance sians, were within half-an-hour's march of from the town itself, and therefore they the town of Sleswick ; and new and fearful would not go farther ; so that all the reports of the behaviour of the soldiers houses around that in which the old wowere brought from the country every day. man lived were filled with soldiers, who There had been a truce, which was to come quartered themselves in them. In several to an end at midnight of the 5th of January, houses there were fifty or sixty of these which was now drawing near. On the half-savage men. It was a terrible night outskirts of the town, on the side where for those who dwelt in this part of the the enemy lay, there was a house standing town, filled to overflowing with the troops alone, and in it there was an old pious of the enemy. But not a single soldier woman, who was earnestly praying, in the came into the grandmother's house; and, words of an ancient hymn, that God would amidst the loud noises and wild sounds raise up a wall around them, so that the all around, not even a knock of the door enemy might fear to attack them. In the was heard, to the great wonder of the same house dwelt her daughter, a widow, family within. The next morning, as it and her grandson, a youth of twenty years. grew light, they saw the cause. The storm He heard the prayer of his grandmother, had drifted a mass of snow to such a and could not restrain himself from saying | height between the roadside and the house, that he did not understand how she could that to approach it was impossible. ask for anything so impossible as that a "Do you not now see, my son,” said the wall should be built around them which old grandmother, “that it was possible for could keep the enemy away from their God to raise a wall around us ?” house. The old woman, who was now deaf, did not hear what her grandson said, and |