* * * * *
Day of the month and year, the first Sunday in October, one thousand
eight hundred and forty-seven. London Time by the great clock of Saint
Paul's, half-past one in the afternoon. The clock of the Hospital for
Foundling Children is well up with the Cathedral to-day. Service in the
chapel is over, and the Foundling children are at dinner.
There are numerous lookers-on at the dinner, as the custom is. There are
two or three governors, whole families from the congregation, smaller
groups of both sexes, individual stragglers of various degrees. The
bright autumnal sun strikes freshly into the wards; and the heavy-framed
windows through which it shines, and the panelled walls on which it
strikes, are such windows and such walls as pervade Hogarth's pictures.
The girls' refectory (including that of the younger children) is the
principal attraction. Neat attendants silently glide about the orderly
and silent tables; the lookers-on move or stop as the fancy takes them;
comments in whispers on face such a number from such a window are not
unfrequent; many of the faces are of a character to fix attention. Some
of the visitors from the outside public are accustomed visitors. They
have established a speaking acquaintance with the occupants of particular
seats at the tables, and halt at those points to bend down and say a word
or two. It is no disparagement to their kindness that those points are
generally points where personal attractions are.
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