"Yes," sighed Patty, "I am--I know I am. Ah! Janet," she continued, after a short pause, "I wish I were a lady!" "For the sake of the gay cavalier, of course," laughed Janet, sneeringly, and then she looked angrily across at her companion, who bent her head, whispering to herself-- "She won't believe me--she won't believe me." Janet's long fingers now grew very busy over her work, as she nimbly arranged the wing, tail, back, and breast feathers of a partridge, with gum, upon a stiff piece of card, following, with an accuracy learned of the birds amongst which she had so long dwelt, the soft curves and graceful swellings of the natural form, making up pair after pair of ornaments, destined, after being finished off by Canau, and prettily mounted, to be disposed of by D. Wragg at a profitable rate. Punctual to his time, the little Frenchman returned, and, quite at home, sauntered into the room. "Good girls! good girls!" he said, lightly. "Now the colours and the brush. Did the Madame Vinks bring the music she said she would borrow from the _chef d'orchestre_? No? Ah! then, but I am disappoint, and must wait. Janet, that bird is too big--round--plump--too much like the Madame Vinks; but we will paint his beak and leg. He does look fit for the _chef_--the cook--and not for the ornament." Then taking up cakes, first of one colour and then of another, he moistened a camel's hair pencil in the gum, and, with the skill of a finished artist, gave the finishing touches, beaks, eyes, legs, to the young girl's work. In the midst of the operation, though, there was again the sound of a step in the shop. Patty rose and left the room, for Janet's fingers were busy with the feathers, and she determined this time not to let cowardice prevent her from doing her friend the little service. The deformed girl's manner, however, evinced but little gratitude for the act, for she sat with bent head, but flashing eyes and distended nostrils, eagerly listening to catch the slightest word. And eager whispered words those seemed to her to be, but replied to only in monosyllables, and at last, when she raised her head and gazed through the open door, she winced as if she had been struck, on seeing a be-ringed hand stretched across the counter, and tightly holding one of Patty's little white palms. Janet did not heed that the young girl seemed to be vainly trying to release that hand, as she stood right back against the cages at the side of the shop. It was a bright hot summer day, with window and door open, so as to catch every wandering breeze that might lose itself in the vast maze of bricks and mortar; and as Janet had that one glance in at the shop, the door of communication banged loudly, and her view was cut off. For a moment the girl's face was contracted by pain; then a fierce malicious look swept over it as she rose to re-open the door.