r obeisance to the crowd, and
was now walking in front of the stage with the prettiest possible air
of infantine solemnity. "Poor little thing!" said Lionel. "Poor little
thing!" said the Cobbler. And had you been there, my reader, ten to
one but you would have said the same. And yet she was attired in white
satin, with spangled flounces and a tinsel jacket; and she wore a wreath
of flowers (to be sure, the flowers were not real) on her long fair
curls, with gaudy bracelets (to be sure, the stones were mock) on her
slender arms. Still there was something in her that all this finery
could not vulgarize; and since it could not vulgarize, you pitied her
for it. She had one of those charming faces that look straight into
the hearts of us all, young and old. And though she seemed quite
self-possessed, there was no effrontery in her air, but the ease of
a little lady, with a simple child's unconsciousness that there was
anything in her situation to induce you to sigh, "Poor thing!"

"You should see her act, young gents," said the Cobbler: "she plays
uncommon. But if you had seen him as taught her,--seen him a year ago."

"Who's he?"

"Waife, sir; mayhap you have heard speak of Waife?"

"I blush to say, no."

"Why, he might have made his fortune at Common Garden; but that's a long
story. Poor fellow! he's broke down now, anyhow. But she takes care of
him, little darling: God bless thee!" and the Cobbler here exchanged a
smile and a nod with the little girl, whose face brightened when she saw
him amidst the crowd.

"By the brush and pallet of Raphael!" cried the elder of the young men,
"before I am many hours older I must have that child's head!"

"Her head, man!" cried the Cobbler, aghast.

"In my sketch-book. You are a poet,--I a painter. You know the little
girl?"

"Don't I! She and her grandfather lodge with me; her
grandfather,--that's Waife,--marvellous man! But they ill-uses him; and
if it warn't for her, he'd starve. He fed them all once: he can feed
them no longer; he'd starve. That's the world: they use up a genus,
and when it falls on the road, push on; that's what Joe Spruce calls
a-progressing. But there's the drum! they're a-going to act; won't you
look in, gents?"

"Of course," cried Lionel,--"of course. And, hark ye, Vance, we'll toss
up which shall be the first to take that little girl's head."

"Murderer in either sense of the word!" said Vance, with a smile that
would have become Correggio if a