of the room, and
indeed the little sounds seemed to be whistling out through its chinks
and keyholes. Pet walked up to it rather timidly; but taking courage,
put her ear to the lock. Then she heard distinctly:

"Here we hang in a row,
In a row!
And we ought to have been given
To the poor long ago!"

And besides this strange complaint she caught other little bits grumbles
floating about, such as

"Fiss, whiss, whiss!
Did ever I think
I should have come to this?"

And:

"Alack, and well-a-day!
Will _nobody_ come
To take us away?"

As soon as she had recovered from her amazement, Pet opened the
wardrobe, and there she saw a long row of gowns, hanging in all sorts of
despondent attitudes, some hooked up by their sleeves, others caught by
the waist with their bodies doubled together.

"Here is somebody at last, thank goodness!" cried a dark-brown silk
which was greatly crumpled, and looked very uncomfortable hanging up by
its shoulder.

"Oh, gowns, gowns!" cried Pet, staring at these strange grumblers with
her round, blue eyes, "whatever do you want?"

"_Want_?" cried the brown silk; "why, of course, to be taken out and
given to the poor."

"The poor again!" cried Pet. "Who can these poor be at all, I wonder?"

"People who cannot buy clothing enough for themselves," said the brown
silk. "When your dear mother was alive she always gave her old gowns to
the poor. Only think how nice I should be for the respectable mother of
a family to go to church in on Sundays, instead of being rumpled in here
out of the daylight with the moths eating me."

"And I," cried a pink muslin, "what a pretty holiday frock I should make
for the industrious young school-mistress who supports her poor
grandfather and grandmother."

"And I! and I! and I!" shrieked many little rustling voices, each
describing the possible usefulness of a particular gown.

"Yes! we should all turn to account," continued the brown silk, "all
except, perhaps, one or two very grand, stiff old fogies in velvet and
brocade and cloth-of-gold; and even these might be cut up into jackets
for the old clown who tumbles on the village green for the children's
amusement."

"My breath is quite taken away," cried Pet. "I shall certainly see that
you are all taken out and given to the poor immediately."

"She is her mother's daughter after all;" said the brown silk,
triumphantly; and Pet closed the door upon a ch