even, whose big black eyes looked forth
fearlessly, some people said impudently, from a little peaked face, so
thin and small that it seemed all eyes, and in the neighborhood where
the child lived she was often nicknamed "Eyes."

"Why didn't you come when you were first called?" asked the saleswoman,
angrily.

"Couldn't; I'se waitin' for somethin'," answered the child, coolly.

"You were staring at and list'nin' to those ladies at the ribbon
counter; I saw you," retorted the saleswoman.

"Well, I tole yer, I'se waitin' for somethin'," the girl answered,
showing two rows of teeth in a mischievous grin.

A younger saleswoman, standing near, giggled.

"Don't laugh at her, Lizzie," rebuked the elder; "she's getting too big
for her boots with her impudence."

"They ain't boots; they're shoes." And a thin little leg was thrust
forward to show a foot encased in a shabby old shoe much too large for
it.

Then, like a flash, the "imp," as the saleswoman often termed her,
seized the parcel that was ready for her, and darted off with it.

"You'll get reported if you don't look out," the saleswoman called after
her.

The "imp" turned her head and winked back at the irritated saleswoman in
such a grotesque fashion that the lively Lizzie giggled again, for which
she was told she ought to be ashamed of herself. Good-natured Lizzie
admitted the truth of this accusation, but declared that Becky was so
funny she "just couldn't help laughing."

"You call it 'funny,'" the other exclaimed; "_I_ call it impudence. She
ain't afraid of anything or anybody. Look at her now! there she is back
at the ribbon counter. I wonder what those swells are talking about,
that she's so taken up with. She's up to some mischief, I'll bet you,
Lizzie."

"I guess it's only her fun. She's going to take 'em off by 'n' by," said
Lizzie.

This was one of the "imp's" accomplishments,--taking people off. She was
a great mimic, and on rainy days when the girls ate their luncheon in
the room that the firm had allotted to them for that purpose, Miss Becky
would "take off," the various people that had come under her keen
observation during the day. "Private theatricals," the lively Lizzie
called this "taking off," as Becky strutted and minced, with her chin
up, her dress lifted in one hand, while with the other she held a pair
of scissors for an eyeglass, and peered through the bows at a piece of
cloth, which she picked and pecked and commented upon in fi