terested, but gradually, as the girl rattled on in
her good-tempered, homely way, Mary began to notice what she was saying.

"Eh! you should see 'em all," she said. "There's twelve of us an' my
father only gets sixteen shilling a week. I can tell you my mother's
put to it to get porridge for 'em all. They tumble about on th' moor
an' play there all day an' mother says th' air of th' moor fattens 'em.
She says she believes they eat th' grass same as th' wild ponies do.
Our Dickon, he's twelve years old and he's got a young pony he calls
his own."

"Where did he get it?" asked Mary.

"He found it on th' moor with its mother when it was a little one an'
he began to make friends with it an' give it bits o' bread an' pluck
young grass for it. And it got to like him so it follows him about an'
it lets him get on its back. Dickon's a kind lad an' animals likes
him."

Mary had never possessed an animal pet of her own and had always
thought she should like one. So she began to feel a slight interest in
Dickon, and as she had never before been interested in any one but
herself, it was the dawning of a healthy sentiment. When she went into
the room which had been made into a nursery for her, she found that it
was rather like the one she had slept in. It was not a child's room,
but a grown-up person's room, with gloomy old pictures on the walls and
heavy old oak chairs. A table in the center was set with a good
substantial breakfast. But she had always had a very small appetite,
and she looked with something more than indifference at the first plate
Martha set before her.

"I don't want it," she said.

"Tha' doesn't want thy porridge!" Martha exclaimed incredulously.

"No."

"Tha' doesn't know how good it is. Put a bit o' treacle on it or a bit
o' sugar."

"I don't want it," repeated Mary.

"Eh!" said Martha. "I can't abide to see good victuals go to waste.
If our children was at this table they'd clean it bare in five minutes."

"Why?" said Mary coldly. "Why!" echoed Martha. "Because they scarce
ever had their stomachs full in their lives. They're as hungry as
young hawks an' foxes."

"I don't know what it is to be hungry," said Mary, with the
indifference of ignorance.

Martha looked indignant.

"Well, it would do thee good to try it. I can see that plain enough,"
she said outspokenly. "I've no patience with folk as sits an' just
stares at good bread an' meat. My word! don't I wish Dickon and