rown, 'when I was contented? You
little fool!'

'I beg your pardon. I don't know what I have done,' panted Florence. 'I
couldn't help it.'

'Couldn't help it!' cried Mrs Brown. 'How do you expect I can help
it? Why, Lord!' said the old woman, ruffling her curls with a furious
pleasure, 'anybody but me would have had 'em off, first of all.'
Florence was so relieved to find that it was only her hair and not
her head which Mrs Brown coveted, that she offered no resistance or
entreaty, and merely raised her mild eyes towards the face of that good
soul.

'If I hadn't once had a gal of my own--beyond seas now--that was proud
of her hair,' said Mrs Brown, 'I'd have had every lock of it. She's far
away, she's far away! Oho! Oho!'

Mrs Brown's was not a melodious cry, but, accompanied with a wild
tossing up of her lean arms, it was full of passionate grief, and
thrilled to the heart of Florence, whom it frightened more than ever.
It had its part, perhaps, in saving her curls; for Mrs Brown, after
hovering about her with the scissors for some moments, like a new kind
of butterfly, bade her hide them under the bonnet and let no trace of
them escape to tempt her. Having accomplished this victory over herself,
Mrs Brown resumed her seat on the bones, and smoked a very short black
pipe, mowing and mumbling all the time, as if she were eating the stem.

When the pipe was smoked out, she gave the child a rabbit-skin to carry,
that she might appear the more like her ordinary companion, and told her
that she was now going to lead her to a public street whence she could
inquire her way to her friends. But she cautioned her, with threats of
summary and deadly vengeance in case of disobedience, not to talk to
strangers, nor to repair to her own home (which may have been too near
for Mrs Brown's convenience), but to her father's office in the City;
also to wait at the street corner where she would be left, until the
clock struck three. These directions Mrs Brown enforced with assurances
that there would be potent eyes and ears in her employment cognizant
of all she did; and these directions Florence promised faithfully and
earnestly to observe.

At length, Mrs Brown, issuing forth, conducted her changed and ragged
little friend through a labyrinth of narrow streets and lanes and
alleys, which emerged, after a long time, upon a stable yard, with a
gateway at the end, whence the roar of a great thoroughfare made itself
audible. Pointin