t eat a
thing to-day, save my breakfast porridge an' Jane's banana, an' two er
three goobers. Never mind, likely grandpa'll bring in somethin' an' I
can eat to-morrow."

Back to the littlest house she ran, singing to forget her appetite, and
whisked out the key of the tiny door from its hiding-place beneath the
worn threshold, yet wondering a little that grandpa should not already
have arrived.

"Never mind, I'll have everything done 'fore. Then when he does get here
all he'll have to do'll be to eat an' go to bed," she said to herself.
Glory was such a little chatterbox that when she had no other listener
she made one of herself.

The corner-grocer was just taking his own supper of bread and herrings
on the rear end of his small counter when she entered, demanding, "The
very best an' biggest chop you've got for a nickel, Mister Grocer; or if
you could make it a four-center an' leave me a cent's worth o' bread to
go along it, 't would be tastier for grandpa."

"Sure enough, queeny, sure enough. 'Pears like I brought myself fortune
when I give you that pint o' milk. I've had a reg'lar string o'
customers sence, I have. An' here, what you lookin' so sharp at that one
chop for? Didn't you know I was goin' to make it two, an' loaf
accordin'?"

Glory swallowed fast. This was almost too tempting for resistance, but
she had been trained to a horror of debt and had resolved upon that
slight one, earlier in the day, only because she could not see her
grandfather distressed. Her own distress----Huh! That was an indifferent
matter.

The corner groceries of the poor are also their meat markets, bakeries,
and dairies, and there was so much in the crowded little shop that was
alluring that the child forced herself to look diligently out of the
door into the alley lest she should be untrue to her training. In a
brief time the shopman called, "All ready, Take-a-Stitch! Here's your
parcel."

Glory faced about and gasped. That was such a very big parcel toward
which he pointed that she felt he had made a mistake and so reminded
him, "Guess that ain't mine, that ain't. One chop an' a small roll
'twas. That must be Mis' Dodd's, 'cause she's got nine mouths to feed,
savin' Nick's 'at he feeds himself."

"Not so, neighbor. It's yourn. The hull o' it. They's only a loaf, a
trifle stale--one them three-centers, kind of mouldy on the corners
where't can be cut off--an' two the finest chops you ever set your
little white teeth into.