er other girls and boys were playing or sitting
together, Nelly would make one of the group. If he said, as he often did
say, "You, Nell Hardy come and sit by me," she came gladly, but she
never claimed the place. She was ready to come or to go, to run messages
and to do him good in any way.

Jack had promised she should be his friend as Harry was, and as he got
to like her more he would ask her or tell her to accompany them in their
walks, or to sit on a low wall in some quiet corner and talk. Harry,
stirred by his friend's example, had begun to spend half an hour a day
over his old school-books.

"Why dost like larning so much, Jack?" Nelly asked, as Jack was severely
reproaching his friend with not having looked at a book for some days;
"what good do it do?"

"It raises folk in the world, Nell, helps 'em make their way up."

"And dost thou mean to get oop i' the world?"

"Ay, lass," Jack said, "if hard work can do it, I will; but it does more
nor that. If a man knows things and loves reading it makes him different
like, he's got summat to think about and talk about and care for beside
public-houses and dorgs. Canst read, Nell?"

"No, Jack," she said, colouring. "It bain't my fault; mother never had
the pence to spare for schooling, and I was kept at hoam to help."

Jack sat thoughtful for some time.

"Wouldst like to learn?"

"Ay."

"Well, I'll teach thee."

"Oh, Jack!" and she leapt up with flashing eyes; "how good thou be'est!"

"Doan't," Jack said crossly; "what be there good in teaching a lass to
spell? There's twopence, run down to the corner shop and buy a
spelling-book; we'll begin at once."

And so Nelly had her first lesson.

[Illustration: NELLY'S FIRST LESSON.]

After that, every afternoon, as Jack came home from work, the girl would
meet him in a quiet corner off the general line, and for five minutes he
would teach her, not hearing her say what she had learned, but telling
her fresh sounds and combinations of letters. Five or six times he would
go over them, and expected--for Jack was tyrannical in his ways--that
she would carry them away with her and learn them by heart, and go
through them again and again, so that when he questioned her during
their longer talks she would be perfect.

Then, the five minutes over, Jack would run on to make up for lost time,
and be in as soon as Bill Haden.

But however accurately Jack expected his pupil to learn, his
expectations were surpassed. Th