, and would be, even if my back were not
bad and my legs queer."

He looked at her as not understanding what she said.

"Bless you, godmother," said Miss Wren, "I have to scud about town at
all hours. If it was only sitting at my bench, cutting out and sewing,
it would be comparatively easy work; but it's the trying-on by the great
ladies that takes it out of me."

"How the trying-on?" asked Riah.

"What a moony godmother you are, after all!" returned Miss Wren. "Look
here. There's a Drawing-room, or a grand day in the Park, or a show or a
fete, or what you like. Very well. I squeeze among the crowd, and I look
about me. When I see a great lady very suitable for my business, I say,
'You'll do, my dear!' and I take particular notice of her again, and
run home and cut her out, and baste her. Then another day I come
scudding back again to try on. Sometimes she plainly seems to say, 'How
that little creature _is_ staring!' All the time I am only saying to
myself, 'I must hollow out a bit here; I must slope away there'; and I
am making a perfect slave of her, making her try on my doll's dress.
Evening parties are severer work for me, because there's only a doorway
for full view, and what with hobbling among the wheels of the carriages
and the legs of the horses, I fully expect to be run over some night.
Whenever they go bobbing into the hall from the carriage, and catch a
glimpse of my little physiognomy poked out from behind a policeman's
cape in the rain, I daresay they think I am wondering and admiring with
all my eyes and heart, but they little think they're only working for my
dolls! There was Lady Belinda Whitrose. I said one night when she came
out of the carriage. 'You'll do, my dear!' and I ran straight home, and
cut her out, and basted her. Back I came again, and waited behind the
men that called the carriages. Very bad night too. At last, 'Lady
Belinda's Whitrose's carriage!' Lady Belinda Whitrose coming down! And I
made her try on--oh! and take pains about it too--before she got seated.
That's Lady Belinda hanging up by the waist, much too near the gas-light
for a wax one, with her toes turned in."

When they had plodded on for some time, they reached a certain tavern,
where Mr. Riah had some business to transact with its proprietress, Miss
Abbey Potterson, to whom he presented himself, and was about to
introduce his young companion when Miss Wren interrupted him:

"Stop a bit," she said, "I'll give the lad