"Now then," said Tim Ruggles, "we mustn't have no more sobbing and sighing, you know, but get on with working, and eddication, and what not, before some one comes home, and goes off. Now what were we doing last, my pretty?" "Reading," said little Pine, absently. "Mistake," said Tim. "It was cate--cate--well, what was it?" "Chism," said the child; "catechism." "Right," said Tim. "Now, let's see; it was duty towards my neighbour, and if we don't look sharp as a seven--between we shall never get through that beautiful little bit. Eddication, my pretty, is the concrete, atop of which they build society; and if I'd been an eddicated man and known a few things--" "But you know everything, don't you?" queried Pine. "Well, no, my dear, not quite," said Tim, rubbing one side of his nose, and gazing in a a comical way at the child. "But you are very clever, ain't you." "Oh, dear me, no; not at all," said Tim; "leastwise, without it's in trousis, and there I ain't so much amiss. But come, I say, this won't do; this is catechism wrong side out, so go on." Then slowly on to the accompaniment of the metal polishing--the lid being by this time succeeded by a brass candlestick--and the sharp click of Tim's needle, the portion of catechism under consideration progressed till it was brought to a full stop over the words, "Succour my father and mother," when Tim was, to use his own words, quite knocked off his perch by the child's question-- "Who is my mother?" "Why--er--er--why, mother, you know," replied Tim. The child shook her head thoughtfully, and now speaking, now stopping to rub at the bright metal, said-- "No, no! not her--not her! My own--my own dear mother could not, would not beat me so. I think it must be some one who comes when I'm half asleep, and I can see her blue eyes, and feel her long curls round my face when she kisses me, and then it is that I wake up; and," she continued dreamily, "I'm not sure whether she does come, for she is not there then, and when I whisper, no one answers; and do you know whether she comes, or whether I dream she does, that must be my mother, for no one else would come and kiss me like that." "Why, I do," remonstrated Tim, "lots o' times." "Yes, yes! you do!" said the child, smiling, "but I know when it's you, and I can't help thinking--" "Here, I say," exclaimed Tim, "this isn't catechism. This won't do, my pretty, you mustn't talk like that. Now, then, go on,--`Succour my father'--"