Part 16 (1/2)

Mr. Sloppy opened it, if possible, wider, and kept it open, until his laugh was out.

”Why, you're like the giant,” said Miss Wren, ”when he came home in the land of Beanstalk, and wanted Jack for supper.”

”Was he good looking, Miss?” asked Sloppy.

”No,” said Miss Wren. ”Ugly.”

Her visitor glanced round the room--which had many comforts in it now, that it had not had before--and said:

”This is a pretty place, Miss.

”Glad you think so, sir,” returned Miss Wren. ”And what do you think of Me?”

The honesty of Mr. Sloppy being severely taxed by the question, he twisted a b.u.t.ton, grinned, and faltered.

”Out with it,” said Miss Wren, with an arch look. ”Don't you think me a queer little comicality?” In shaking her head at him after asking the question, she shook her hair down.

”Oh!” cried Sloppy in a burst of admiration. ”What a lot, and what a color!”

Miss Wren with her usual expressive hitch, went on with her work. But left her hair as it was, not displeased by the effect it had made.

”You don't live here alone, do you, Miss?” asked Sloppy.

”No,” said Miss Wren with a chop. ”Live here with my fairy G.o.dmother.”

”With;” Mr. Sloppy couldn't make it out; ”with, who did you say, Miss?”

”Well!” replied Miss Wren more seriously. ”With my second father. Or with my first, for that matter.” And she shook her head and drew a sigh.

”If you had known a poor child I used to have here,” she added, ”you'd have understood me. But you didn't and you can't. All the better!”

”You must have been taught a long time, Miss,” said Sloppy, glancing at the array of dolls on hand, ”before you came to work so neatly, Miss, and with such a pretty taste.”

”Never was taught a st.i.tch, young man!” returned the dressmaker, tossing her head. ”Just gobbled and gobbled, till I found out how to do it.

Badly enough at first, but better now.”

”And here have I,” said Sloppy, in a self-reproachful tone, ”been a-learning and a-learning at cabinet-making, ever so long! I'll tell you what, Miss, I should like to make you something.”

”Much obliged, but what?”

”I could make you,” said Sloppy, surveying the room, ”a handy set of nests to lay the dolls in. Or a little set of drawers to keep your silks and threads and sc.r.a.ps in. Or I could turn you a rare handle for that crutch-stick, if it belongs to him you call your father.”

”It belongs to me,” said the little creature, with a quick flush of her face and neck. ”I am lame.”

Poor Sloppy flushed too, for there was an instinctive delicacy behind his b.u.t.tons. He said perhaps, the best thing in the way of amends that could be said. ”I am very glad it's yours, because I'd rather ornament it for you than for any one else. Please, may I look at it?”

Miss Wren was in the act of handing it over to him when she paused.