don't work no harder
now than I did then."

"What do you do now, then?"

"Well, you see, when poor mother died, and Ben was put aboard a ship
to be taught the sea, father--he--he--went away and aunt went back
where she'd been once before, to her brother-in-law's--which belongs
to the gipsies,--not the real gipsies, that lives in tents, and goes
about all over the country, but the London gipsies like, that lives
down Stratford and Plaistow way. It's at Stratford that we lives, and
there we cut these pegs out of the wood that Uncle Dick brings home;
and he brings the props too, and buys the line. There's four of us
gals, and when we ain't cuttin' the wood for the pegs we're
basket-makin' or straw-plaitin'; but there's times when we go out a
good bit, one or the other of us, I mean me and aunt and Uncle
Dick's children, because he's got a share in a cart--one o' them big
sort of carawans that's all hung round with baskets and mats, and
cane-work and brooms and brushes and cradles--and it's a rare change
too, to go along with it, though the walkin' makes your feet sore.
But it's more change still when we go nearer to Epping Forest in
summer-time, and live out there in the country in a covered wan and a
tent or two, and learn to plait baskets out of osiers, and to cane
chairs, and to make straw plait and all manner o' things, and only
cut clothes-pegs at odd times. We don't work much at night then, but
we're often up pretty early in the morning, I can tell you; but at
Stratford--it's a close bad-smellin' sort of a little place is our
lane, and we're pretty often hard at it by candle-light, or else
lamplight, making up baskets and clothes-pegs and things ready for
the trade in the summer. One thing is that when Uncle Dick makes a
good week he don't stint us in food, and, as poor mother used to say,
beggars mustn't be choosers, and I haven't got nobody to be good to
me but Aunt Ann."

"There, don't take on that way," says the woman, rather roughly,
though I can see another tear in her eye. "We've all got somebody to
look after, and you was left to me, so up you get, 'Liza, and let's
thank you kindly, sir, for--I don't like to take money for nothink,
sir, and--perhaps, if you was livin' near here and had the washin'
done at home, you'd like me to take home a prop or two, and
half-a-dozen pegs, sir."

THOMAS ARCHER.

A GAME FOR LONG EVENINGS.

Those who learn drawing will find the game of "Positions" a
particul