that they'd seen her themselves pick up old strings and buttons and such
duds from the gutters! But if Lizzie laughed out of her light lively
heart, and declared she didn't believe what they said was true, and
didn't care if it _was_, there were others not so good-natured as
Lizzie, who, though often vastly entertained by Becky, were quite ready
to believe that the spirit of mimicry she possessed had something
lawless about it, especially when she broke forth into the slang of the
street,--"gutter-slang," the other parcel-girls called it,--the
lawlessness seemed to gather a sort of proof. And so it was that, in
spite of the entertainment she afforded, and a certain kind of respect
in which her "smartness" was held, Becky was considered as rather an
outsider, and an object of more or less suspicion.

"A sharp one!" the saleswoman had called her, the other agreeing; and
when the next day, which was also a rainy day, the little company
gathered in the lunch-room again, and Lizzie brought forth a variety of
pretty papers, there was a general watchfulness to see how much Becky
knew, and what she would claim. Two other of the parcel-girls were now
present. They had heard all about the basket-making plan of yesterday,
and pushed forward with great interest. Becky looked at them with
mischief in her eyes, but made no movement to join Lizzie.

"Come," said the older of the two, "why don't you begin, Becky? Lizzie's
waitin', and so are we."

"What _yer_ waitin' for?" asked Becky, with an impudent grin.

"To see how you make the baskets."

"Well, yer'll hev to wait."

"Why, you told Lizzie you'd show her how to make baskets out o' paper!"

"But I didn' say I'se goin' to show anybody else. This ain't a free
kinnergarden. These are private lessons."

A shriek of laughter went up at this, while somebody cried,--

"And private lessons must be paid for, mustn't they, Becky?"

"Every time," answered Becky, with unruffled coolness.

"Where's the private room to give 'em in?" piped out one of the
parcel-girls with a wink at the other.

"In here!" cried Becky, with a sudden inspiration, jumping up and
running into a little fitting-room that had that morning been assigned
to her to sweep and put in order after the lunch hour.

"Good for you!" cried Lizzie, with one of her laughs, as she followed
her teacher.

"And you didn't get ahead o' me _this_ time, either!" called out Becky,
as she bolted the door upon herself and comp