their adoption, Canada, the broad and free, their hands and purses were ever open to the call of charity. Among them these two friendless ones found friends indeed. They lived in a little home just east of where the Exhibition Buildings now stand. A cleaner and neater one, though poorly furnished, could not be found in all the city. On the walls were a few pictures, and the one Ned loved best was that of Archbishop Machray, the great prelate who had done so much for Western Canada in general and Winnipeg in particular. Often he would sit for hours to hear Granny tell of the deeds of the early pioneers in this great "Lone Land," and especially, so far as she knew, those of the great Saint whom Ned was proud to claim as his hero.

Often on a summer's evening, when the darkness was beginning to fall, and Granny had rested a little after her day's work, she and the child would walk down towards the church. Not a handsome edifice, merely a frame shell on a stone foundation. Not old and fragrant with ancient memories, like the churches of the "Dear Isle" so far away, where tired and weary workers, after long and dreary toil, in the evenings would step in and reverently kneeling would lose sight of the world and its weariness, in prayer and communion with God—a custom of the people which gave them the strength and fortitude to bear a burden unknown to the boys and girls of this Canada of ours. No, not grand and old and magnificent, but still to these two sacred and hallowed because it was God's House and theirs. They knelt on the chancel step—the old woman and the little boy. There they knelt and prayed—ay, prayed for the mother and the daughter now dead and gone; "for all who are any way afflicted or distressed in mind, body, or estate"; and for one so dear to them suffering, after the example of his Saviour, punishment for a crime he did not commit.

Ah, would to God we had more like these; would to God the evenings were hallowed with more such visits to our city churches; would to God that more hungry hearts were eager for such quiet communion with their Heavenly Father in His own House! What a beautiful picture it made: The setting sun shining through the western window falling on the gray hair and wrinkled, upturned face of the old woman, and on the sweet young head and innocent countenance of the little child so close to her side. Ah, often has the Rector, standing in the shadow, gazed with love and gratitude on this scene—a scene of heaven upon the earth, a picture artists love to paint, a sermon without words, an evening incense, the strong, prevailing prayer of Youth and Age.

CHAPTER III.

Seven bright summers have passed away since little Irish Ned first saw the light of day. In his own estimation he is now quite a man. Granny must put him in long pants, and then he will trot out to earn a living for himself. Down to the newspaper office he goes with a friend who tells his story. The "Circulation Manager" is very sympathetic, and Ned gets his first bundle of papers. Oh, how proud he was. Not a prouder boy or man in all Winnipeg. At six o'clock in the morning his little feet would carry him across the overhead bridge to Portage Avenue, and soon his voice would be heard crying "Free Press! Morning Free Press!" along Portage Avenue, up Main Street and down Selkirk to his home. In the afternoon the same shrill call would be heard heralding the evening papers, "Press, 'Bune and Telegram." Of them all he preferred the Free Press, but necessity knows no law, and it was, as he said, "to make his pile and get rich quick," that he sold the "'Bune and Tely."

On Sunday he was always at morning service, sitting in the South Transept near the Font. He loved the Sunday School, and right joyously rang his sweet, childish treble in the chants and hymns; but when it came to the hymn, "Just as I am, I come," then his whole soul seemed afire, and the thrilling, rapturous music gushed from his little throat and ascended Heavenwards—as the angels' songs must ascend to the summit of