.

DIAMOND'S DREAM.
"THERE, baby!" said Diamond; "I'm so happy that I can only sing nonsense.

Oh, father, think if you had been a poor man, and hadn't had a cab and old Diamond! What should I have done ?" "I don't know indeed what you could have done," said his father from the bed.
"We should have all starved, my precious Diamond," said his mother, whose pride in her boy was even greater than her joy in the shillings.
Both of them together made her heart ache, for pleasure can do that as well as pain.
"Oh no! we shouldn't," said Diamond.

"I could have taken Nanny's crossing till she came back; and then the money, instead of going for Old Sal's gin, would have gone for father's beef-tea.

I wonder what Nanny will do when she gets well again.