But in many other cases, the pieces speak of real hardship.
They were just the things the mothers found they happened to have on them at the time they had to get rid of the children. Some of these mothers had nothing at the last minute to offer their little babies except a nut,a nut meant which was meant to be worn as a pendant. Look, there's a little hole where the string was supposed to be strung through there. Sometimes things which had a little work on them like this beautiful sewn heart there. Or, most desperate of all perhaps,just this flimsy little piece of ribbon. Imagine a mother on a point saying goodbye for the last time to her baby just taking a bit of ribbon from her hair or her wrist and giving it, as she hoped, to her child. Now, if this wasn't heartbreak enough, it only gets worse when you know that none of these things ever found their way to the children. And of course, the Foundling Hospital couldn't hope to work miracles overnight.