spreading out his hands
with a despairing gesture--"gone, an' the woman too! I've never seen my
little gal since that day."

"Where is 'oor 'ittle gal?" asked Dickie.

"Lost, missie! lost!" said Andrew shaking his head mournfully. "I
sha'n't never see her no more now. Parson he was very kind, an' offered
a reward, an' set the perlice to work to find her. 'Twarn't all no
good. So I giv' up the cobblin' an' went about the country doin' odd
jobs, because I thought I might hear summat on her; but I never did, an'
after years had gone by I come ere an' settled down again. So that's
how I lost my little gal, an' it's nigh twenty years ago."

At this moment Nurse's voice was heard outside calling for Dickie, and
Andrew's whole manner changed at the sound. He thrust the red
handkerchief into his pocket, clapped his hat firmly over his eyes, and
bent towards his work with his usual cross frown.

Dickie looked up with a twinkling smile as Nurse came bustling in.

"Andoo tell Dickie pitty story," she said.

"Ho, indeed!" said Nurse with a sharp glance at Andrew's silent figure.
"Mr Martin keeps all his conversation for you, Miss Dickie, I think; he
don't favour other people much with it."

On their way to the house Dickie did her best to tell Nurse all she had
heard from Andrew; but it was not very clear, and left her hearer in
rather a confused state of mind. There was something about a 'ittle
gal, and red boots, and a circus, and something that was lost; but
whether it was the red boots that were lost, or the little girl, was
uncertain. However, Nurse held up her hands at proper intervals and
exclaimed, "Only fancy!" "Gracious me!" and so on, as if she understood
perfectly; and when Dickie came to the last sentence this was really the
case, for she said in a decided voice:

"Dickie will go to the circus too."

"No, no," replied Nurse; "Dickie is too little to go--she will stay at
home with poor Nursie and baby."

It seemed to Dickie that they always said she was too little when she
wanted to do anything nice, but if ever she cried or was naughty they
said she was too big: "Oh, fie, Miss Dickie! a great girl like you!" If
she was a great girl she ought to go to the circus; and she repeated
firmly, "Me _will_ go," adding a remark about "Andoo's 'ittle gal,"
which Nurse did not hear.

At dinner-time there was nothing spoken of but the circus; the children
came in from their walk quite full of it, and of all