the near distance like a thick, purplish cloud, through which the dim outline of house, tree, mast and spire loomed mistily, like half-formed objects on a camera obscura.

Silence—that strange, dead silence that broods over a scene crowded with slumbering life—lay upon the city, broken only by the rumble of vegetable carts and the jar of milk-cans, as they rolled up from the different ferries; or the half-smothered roar of some steamboat putting into its dock, freighted with sleeping passengers.

After a little, symptoms of aroused life became visible about the wharves. Grocers, carmen, and huckster-women began to swarm around the provision boats. The markets nearest the water were opened, and soon became theatres of active bustle.

The first market opened that day was in Fulton street. As the morning deepened, piles of vegetables, loads of beef, hampers of fruit, heaps of luscious butter, cages of poultry, canary birds swarming in their wiry prisons, forests of green-house plants, horse-radish grinders with their reeking machines, venders of hot coffee, root beer and dough nuts, all with men, women and children swarming in, over and among them, like so many ants, hard at work, filled the spacious arena, but late a range of silent, naked and gloomy looking stalls. Then carts, laden and groaning beneath a weight of food, came rolling up to this great mart, crowding each avenue with fresh supplies. All was life and eagerness. Stout men and bright-faced women moved through the verdant chaos, arranging, working, chatting, all full of life and enterprise, while the rattling of carts outside, and the gradual accumulation of sounds everywhere, bespoke a great city aroused, like a giant refreshed, from slumber.

Slowly there arose out of this cheerful confusion, forms of homely beauty, that an artist or a thinking man might have loved to look upon. The butchers' stalls, but late a desolate range of gloomy beams, were reddening with fresh joints, many of them festooned with fragrant branches and gorgeous garden flowers. The butchers standing, each by his stall, with snow-white apron, and an eager, joyous look of traffic on his face, formed a display of comfort and plenty, both picturesque and pleasant to contemplate.

The fruit and vegetable stands were now loaded with damp, green vegetables, each humble root having its own peculiar tint, often arranged with a singular taste for color, unconsciously possessed by the woman who exercised no little skill in setting off her stand to advantage.

There was one vegetable stand to which we would draw the reader's particular attention; not exactly as a type of the others, for there was something so unlike all the rest, both in this stall and its occupant, that it would have drawn the attention of any person possessed of the slightest artistical taste. It was like the arrangement of a picture, that long table heaped with fruit, the freshest vegetables, and the brightest flowers, ready for the day's traffic. Rich scarlet radishes glowing up through their foliage of tender green, were contrasted with young onions swelling out from their long emerald stalks, snowy and transparent as so many great pearls. Turnips, scarcely larger than a hen's egg, and nearly as white, just taken fresh and fragrant from the soil, lay against heads of lettuce, tinged with crisp and greenish gold, piled against the deep blackish green of spinach and water-cresses, all moist with dew, or wet with bright water-drops that had supplied its place, and taking a deeper tint from the golden contrast. These with the red glow of strawberries in their luscious prime, piled together in masses, and shaded with fresh grape leaves; bouquets of roses, hyacinths, violets, and other fragrant blossoms, lent their perfume and the glow of their rich colors to the coarser children of the soil, and would have been an object pleasant to look upon, independent of the fine old woman who sat complacently on her little stool, at one end of the table, in tranquil expectation of customers that were sure to drop in as the morning deepened.

And now the traffic of the day commenced in earnest. Servants, housekeepers and grocers swarmed into the market. The clink of money—the sound of sharp, eager banter—the dull noise of the butcher's cleaver, were heard on every hand. It was a pleasant scene, for every face looked smiling and happy. The soft morning air seemed to have brightened all things into cheerfulness.

With the earliest group that entered Fulton market that morning was a girl, perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old, but tiny in her form, and appearing far more juvenile than that. A pretty quilted hood, of rose-colored calico, was turned back from her face, which seemed naturally delicate and pale; but the fresh air, and perhaps a shadowy reflection from her hood, gave the glow of a rose-bud to her cheeks. Still there was anxiety upon her young face. Her eyes of a dark violet blue, drooped heavily beneath their black and curling lashes, if any one from the numerous stalls addressed her; for a small splint basket on her arm, new and perfectly empty, was a sure indication that the child had been sent to make purchase; while her timid air—the blush that came and went on her face—bespoke as plainly that she was altogether unaccustomed to the scene, and had no regular place at which to make her humble bargains. The child seemed a waif cast upon the market; and she was so beautiful, notwithstanding her humble dress of faded and darned calico, that at almost every stand she was challenged pleasantly to pause and fill her basket. But she only cast down her eyes and blushed more deeply, as with her little bare feet she hurried on through the labyrinth of stalls, toward that portion of the market occupied by the huckster-women. Here she began to slacken her pace, and to look about her with no inconsiderable anxiety.

"What do you want, little girl; anything in my way?" was repeated to her once or twice, as she moved forward. At each of these challenges she would pause, look earnestly into the face of the speaker, and then pass on with a faint wave of the head, that expressed something of sad and timid disappointment.

At length the child—for she seemed scarcely more than that—was growing pale, and her eyes turned with a sort of sharp anxiety from one face to another, when suddenly they fell upon the buxom old huckster-woman, whose stall we have described. There was something in the good dame's appearance that brought an eager and satisfied look to that pale face. She drew close to the stand, and stood for some seconds, gazing timidly on the old woman. It was a pleasant face, and a comfortable, portly form enough, that the timid girl gazed upon. Smooth and comely were the full and rounded cheeks, with their rich autumn color, dimpled like an over-ripe apple. Fat and good humored enough to defy wrinkles, the face looked far too rosy for the thick, gray hair that was shaded, not concealed, by a cap of clear white muslin, with a broad, deep border, and tabs that met like a snowy girth to support the firm, double chin. Never did your eyes dwell upon a chin so full of health and good humor as that. It sloped with a sleek, smiling grace down from the plump mouth, and rolled with a soft, white wave into the neck, scarcely leaving an outline, or the want of one, before it was lost in the white of that muslin kerchief, folded so neatly beneath the ample bosom of her gown. Then the broad linen apron of blue and white check, girding her waist, and flowing over the smooth rotundity of person, was a living proof of the ripeness and wholesome state of her merchandise.—I tell you, reader, that woman, take her for all in all, was one to draw the attention, aye, and the love of a child, who had come forth barefooted and alone in search of kindness.

At length