"What shall we do now?" he said, yawning a little, for there was still an hour to be filled up before bed-time. Just as he spoke Mrs Chelwood came into the school-room. "Children," she said, "would you like me to tell you a story?" Nothing could possibly be better, and the offer came at the right moment when things were feeling a little flat; the children received it joyfully, and gathered round their mother eagerly, and yet with a certain seriousness, for it was an honour as well as a delight to have a story from her--it happened so seldom. "This is a story," began Mrs Chelwood when they were all settled, "which I have only just heard myself, and it is a true one. It has something to do with one of Jackie's presents to-day." "I wonder which?" said Jackie, rubbing his knees. "You shall hear," said his mother. "Now, listen. "Once there was a poor mother who lived far away from here in the north of England, and worked in a factory. She had only one child, which she loved so fondly that it was more than all the world to her, and though she had to work very hard all day, it seemed quite light and easy for the child's sake." "Why didn't the father work?" asked Agatha. "The father was dead." "Was it a boy or a girl?" asked Patrick. "And what was its name?" added Jennie. "It was a little girl," said Mrs Chelwood, "and she was called Betty." "But Betty isn't a name," objected Agatha, "it's short for something." "In the north it is used as a name by itself," replied Mrs Chelwood; "many of the children there are christened Betty, and so was this little girl, though she was very seldom called so." "Why?" asked Mary. "Because the people in the village had given her a nickname. They called her `Little Clogs.'" "What a frightful name to give her!" said Agatha. "What did they do it for?" "Because she was so proud of a tiny pair of shoes which someone had made for her. They were exactly like that one Mary gave Jackie, and they are properly called `clogs.'" "They're not a bit like the clogs Mrs Moser, the charwoman, wears," said Agatha. "If you interrupt me so often I shall never finish my story," said her mother. "Well, this poor mother couldn't take her child with her into the factory, so she used to leave her with a friend close by, and fetch her after her work. But one evening when she went as usual there was no baby to be found--she was gone!" "Where?" said Mary. "No one knew. She had been stolen away, or lost, and on the door-step, where she had been playing, there was one little clog left." "Who had stolen her?" asked Mary anxiously.