oes in vain, and then
finally gave it up.

"I should like to do something for her," observed her first friend: "it
is time this street-singing came to an end."

"She is intelligent, clearly," said Miss Mackenzie, looking curiously at
the child, whose appearance and bearing rather puzzled her. There was
not a particle of the professional street-singer about Baubie Wishart,
the child of that species being generally clean-washed, or at least
soapy, of face, with lank, smooth-combed and greasy hair; and usually,
too, with a smug, sanctimonious air of meriting a better fate. Baubie
Wishart presented none of these characteristics: her face was simply
filthy; her hair was a red-brown, loosened tangle that reminded one
painfully of oakum in its first stage. And she looked as if she deserved
a whipping, and defied it too. She was just a female arab--an arab
_plus_ an accomplishment--bright, quick and inconsequent as a sparrow,
and reeking of the streets and gutters, which had been her nursery.

"Yes," continued the good lady, "I must look after her."

"Poor little atom! I suppose you will find out where the parents live,
and send the school-board officer to them. That is the usual thing, is
it not? I must go, Miss Mackenzie. Good-bye for to-day. And do tell me
what you settle for her."

Miss Mackenzie promised, and her friend took her departure.

"Go and sit by the fire, Baubie Wishart, for a little, and then I shall
be ready to talk to you."

Nothing loath apparently, Baubie established herself at the end of the
fender, and from that coign of vantage watched the on-goings about her
with the stoicism of a red Indian. She showed no symptom of wonder at
anything, and listened to the disquisitions of Miss Mackenzie and the
matron as to the proper adjustment of parts--"bias," "straights,"
"gathers," "fells," "gussets" and "seams," a whole new language as it
unrolled its complexities before her--with complacent indifference.

At last, all the web of cotton being cut up, the time came to go. Miss
Mackenzie buttoned up her sealskin coat, and pulling on a pair of warm
gloves beckoned Baubie, who rose with alacrity: "Where do your father
and mother live?"

"Kennedy's Lodgings, in the Gressmarket, mem."

"I know the place," observed Miss Mackenzie, to whom, indeed, most of
these haunts were familiar. "Take me there now, Baubie."

They set out together. Baubie trotted in front, turning her head,
dog-fashion, at every corner to