"Matches! Matches! Here's your nice matches!" was heard in a shrill treble, proceeding from a little boy on Clark Street, in Chicago.

He looked thin and pale, and it was easy to see the poor little fellow was poorly fed, as well as ill-clad.

"Only five cents a package!" the little fellow continued to cry; and he looked wistfully in the faces of those who passed him, hoping for a possible purchaser.

"Clear out of my way there, you brat!" said a rough voice. "Do you want to take up the whole sidewalk?"

The boy shrank timidly, as the man who had addressed him swaggered by. He would not have dared to resent the rudeness, but another did. It was a stout, and healthy-looking woman, with a large basket on her arm, whose heart warmed towards the poor little match boy, sent out so early to earn his livelihood.

"You ought to be ashamed to speak to the poor boy that way!" she said, warmly.

"Mind your business, woman!" retorted Lyman Taylor, for it was he whose rough speech had been quoted.

"I always do," said the woman. "It's my business to speak my mind to such brutes as you!"

Lyman vented his wrath in a volley of oaths, for his language was by no means choice, when his anger was excited. He might have been more prudent, if he had known that a policeman was just behind.

"Stop that, my man, unless you want me to take you in!" said the burly officer.

Lyman Taylor turned sharply round, but quailed when he saw the officer.

"This woman has insulted me," he said, sullenly.

"I just spoke to him for abusin' that poor match boy," said the good woman.

"I heard it all," said the officer. "Move on, my man, and behave yourself, if you don't want to get into trouble."

Such a scene was sure to attract a small crowd. One kind-hearted man drew out a dime from his pocket and handed it to the match boy.

"Here, my lad," he said; "take this, and I hope it'll do you good."

"Here are two boxes of matches for you, sir."

"No, keep them. I give you the money."

"Here's another dime," said a young man, of literary aspect. He was a reporter on one of the Chicago daily papers, who, in spite of the cases of poverty and privation that came under his notice every day, still preserved a warm and sympathetic heart.

Then a lady followed his example, and in the end, the match boy had received a sum much larger than the value of his small stock-in-trade.

Lyman Taylor's rudeness had proved to him a piece of good luck, in opening the hearts of those who would otherwise have passed him by without notice.

Smiling with pleasure at the child's good fortune, the good woman who had resented Lyman's rudeness so warmly, went on her way. If all had hearts as warm, there would be little misery or suffering in the world. It is often those who have little, that are most ready to help others poorer than themselves. I must not omit to add, that among the contributors ............